Page 31 of Spin Control

“I figured it’d be old hat for you by now.”

“Maybe so,” I concede, since my F1 career has seen me in the presence of various royal families annually. “But I’m not as jaded as you might think.”

When she doesn’t respond, I itch to fill the silence. I want to know what she thinks of Monaco, if she’s enjoying working with Baz and David, if she wants to skip this stupid event and go to my place instead.

“So,” she says, and I brace myself. “I’m guessing whatever this car is, it costs about as much as a Manhattan apartment.”

I laugh. “I guess it depends where in Manhattan you’re pricing apartments.” I glance over to see her reaction, and something bright flares in my chest when she grins. “It’s a 1968 Lamborghini Miura. For the record.”

“Sure,” she says easily, but in a way that makes it hard to discern if that information is meaningless to her or if she simply couldn’t care less that she’s sitting in one of the most revered classic cars in the world. “Is this your dream car?”

I nod. “I bought it after the second time I was runner-up to Stas in the Drivers’ Championship.”

“Why not the first?”

It’s a good question. These days, the answer highlights just how much hope and confidence I once had. “Back then, I thought I’d beat him one day.”

I expect her to laugh the way everyone else does. But she doesn’t.

“You don’t think you could beat him now?” The question cuts me to the bone. It must show on my face because she follows up with, “You’re currently doing well. Do you not think you could win this year?”

I shrug. “It’s a long season.”

What I don’t add is that even if I did win, I don’t know if it would be satisfying when Stas isn’t competing. It might feel like a consolation prize, leaving me wondering what might have happened if he were out there with me.

As we weave our way around the closed roads, I sneak glances at Elizabeth, whose gaze stays on the elegant buildings, the manicured palm trees, the cinematic view of the ocean as the sun begins to set.

“Wes, why don’t you have an actual date for this event?” I’m quiet for long enough that she looks over, those dark blue eyes seeing right through me. “You never have personal guests in the garage, either.”

“Hoping to lock me down, Jacobs?”

A blush rises on her cheeks and I can’t help but stare. She’s always so fearless, so intentional, so in control that seeing her flustered feels intimate. Delightfully, her blush deepens. “Your secret is safe with me,” I stage-whisper, and she glares at me with such imperious intensity that she really does look like an evil queen.

But she came to this event tonight, even though she had major reservations about coming with me. The least I can do is give her a real answer. “I knew the offer from Martine was my last chance. I’d spent years fucking around and partying too much, only staying in the sport because of my popularity—but even that only goes so far. When Stas left Orion, I didn’t have a contract in place for the next season. I told him I was trying to make peace with the fact that I was being forced into retirement. The very next day, my agent called with the offer from Martine.”

“Why did you leave Orion in the first place?” she asks. “You had a good thing there, right?”

“I did,” I admit. “But I was told Stas would always be the priority for the team. If I stayed, I’d always be second. And at the time, that wasn’t good enough. I thought that if Stas was my competitor and not my teammate, I’d be world champion rather than runner-up.”

Elizabeth nods. “I get that.”

“In theory, the move to Sterling should have worked,” I say. “But I struggled with the car. After my fourth no-points race with them, Stas called me for the first time since I announced I was leaving Orion and told me to meet him at a club. So I did. And that became my coping mechanism.”

“Clubbing and threesomes with your former teammate?”

I breathe a laugh. “The threesomes weren’t as regular as you’re probably thinking, but yeah. I’d have a terrible race, but it wouldn’t matter because the party was wherever I decided it was. It was a vicious cycle, mentally and physically. I was a mess. I probably should have been dropped from the sport. But Stas used his world champion leverage to get me a seat. I know that Martine didn’t actually want me. But I don’t care. I’m not squandering this opportunity. Each day, I close every drawer in that filing cabinet in my head so I can be the best possible driver. I haven’t focused on anything else.”

Elizabeth nods as she absorbs that information. I’ve actually told her something most people don’t know. Though there is a lot of speculation about how I ended up at Martine, no one has ever confirmed that Stas is the only reason I have this seat.

“Still. Surely you could have called up some model and brought her as your date.”

“I’m sure I could have,” I agree. “But then I wouldn’t have been able to bring you. Maybe this is fate.”

“Or maybe you don’t trust yourself to do your job well when people expect you to be Wes Grant, F1 Fuckboy instead of Wes Grant, F1 Driver.”

She looks out the window again as if she didn’t just open me up like a book and read me out loud. But like that night in Miami, I feel relief rather than offense at the way she so deftly regains control when I’m doing my best to throw her off balance.

And this time, it’s not so hard to admit that it’s a welcome feeling.