Page 25 of Spin Control

I take in this version of Wes—panicked, flustered, desperate—and try to parse it. Someone must have gotten to him. If he wasn’t involved in things before, he is now.

“Who contacted you?”

Wes shrugs. “I don’t know.”

I don’t believe him, but I move on. “Did they threaten you? Your family?” He shakes his head. Interesting. “So they asked this as a favor, then.”

Wes’s eyes meet mine and I know that I’ve hit the nail on the head. I also know precisely who this request came from. I give Wes a long look before my next question. “Why did Stas ask you to do this?”

Wes shrugs again, but I’m not going to back down. If I’m killing a story—a huge one—I need to know it’s for a good reason. Finally, Wes whispers, “All I know is that the story can’t come out.”

His eyes are pleading now. He trusts Stas. But since I don’t know Stas, it’s hard for me to believe that he is trustworthy. But if the damn car really is the linchpin in this investigation and that information goes public too soon, the criminals will likely never be caught and whatever horrible shit they’re up to will never get shut down.

It turns out I’m not just handling a crisis for an F1 team. I’m handling one for the entire goddamn world.

“Do you trust Stas?”

“With my life,” Wes says with a force that takes me by surprise.

“Are you in love with him?” I ask. The question has been in the back of mind since reading all those rumors online and hearing Chalondra’s assessment of Stas’s attitude toward Wes.

Wes’s eyebrows lift. “Would that change things?”

“Probably,” I admit, my heart pounding.

Wes takes a deep breath. “I’m not romantically in love with him. But I do love him. I know he wouldn’t have asked this of me if he had another option.”

I keep my eyes on Wes. Even though I still have many questions, I am certain about one thing: he is not lying right now. So I have to decide if I trust Wes. My gut is telling me that I can—but I also know better than to agree to anything when I’ve been drinking. “I’ll make some calls.”

“What does that mean?” Wes asks.

“It means I’ll make some calls,” I say. “You’ve done your part, Wes. Now go back inside and act like you don’t have a single care in the entire world other than the race on Sunday.”

Wes nods his thanks and takes a step back. Then I watch as his entire mien shifts from a man deeply concerned about his best friend to that of a cocksure F1 driver. He shoots me his sexiest smile and heads to the door. But before he reaches for the handle, he turns back. “That was some truly excellent fishing, Jacobs. But you don’t have to try so hard. Any time you want to know about my sexual preferences, just ask.”

“I’m sure that information would give me nightmares.”

Light flashes in Wes’s eyes. “Thinking about me in bed?”

I liked him better when he was vulnerable. At least, that’s what I tell myself as a bite the inside of my cheek so I don’t grin. “You are so full of yourself.”

“You’ve obviously heard the whispers about me and Stas,” he says coolly. “Most of them are true.”

Though I don’t want to give him any sort of reaction, my gaze snaps to his anyway. Because I am surprised. Not so much that he slept with his best friend, but that he’s admitting it out loud. Maybe he’s just trying to get a rise out of me. “Let me guess: the two of you passed out in the same bed at some party in Monte Carlo, and now you joke about how you slept together.”

Wes laughs. “More like we’ve historically had a habit of wanting the same woman. You’d think ultra-competitive athletes wouldn’t be good at sharing, but…” he pauses and shoots me a wicked smile that has his dimples on full display. “We were very good at it.”

He has the audacity to wink before opening the door and disappearing inside.

As soon as the door closes, I let out an astonished laugh.

“I guess all the rumors are true,” I murmur.

And then I pointedly shove Wes Grant’s playboy predilections to the very back of my mind.

12

As I crest the hill that serves as the finish line for my 10-mile run, all I know is that I desperately need a new playlist.