Page 4 of Midnight Racers

The room next door was in complete silence now.

“I designed the new improvements for the car, spent hours into the night working up those designs. And for what?” My heart pounded in my ears. “Someone finally realised that I had talent and wanted to write an article about me. The result being that every man who made those comments felt emasculated and needed to put the little woman in her place.”

Panic started to flare in Dad’s eyes because he never had to deal with a temper tantrum from me. I was always quiet and rarely gave him any drama.

I spun on my heel and opened the door fully into the design room where the entire team of mechanics stood.

“Shame on each and every one of you. I hope that no one every talks about your daughters the way you just spoke about me.” My hands landed on my hips as I eyeballed them.

“Calm down, Charlie. The guys were just letting off some steam.” My heart crushed inside my chest when I realised my brother had been standing amongst them when they were making those comments.

Dale was family, blood. I would never had let anyone say anything like that about him in front of me, even if he was the biggest manwhore I knew.

An unnatural calm settled over me. “Thank you all for your kind comments. I’m now terminating my time here.” My gaze met Dale’s. “The new prototype engine is patented to me as per the terms of my employment. It would have been licensed to the team, but all rights go with me.”

“Charlie, that’s enough!” Dale snapped. “Anything designed here remains here.”

“That would normally be the case,” Dad said from behind me. “Charlie’s contract is different. Her physical work belongs to us when she repairs the cars, but her designs belong to her alone. Her mother wrote the contract.”

And considering Mum was a kick-ass solicitor who dealt with intellectual law on a daily basis, it was ironclad. At the time, I didn’t understand why she was so insistent. After four years at university, I wanted to get out and get my hands covered in grease and the cars to go faster. Now, her words made sense. She protected me from the world that split her and Dad up. Neither had remarried or moved on, but that didn’t mean they could stay together.

“I’m sure everyone is sorry for what they said. It was just a joke, Charlie.” Dale looked at Dad as he spoke.

There was no point in replying, no reason for me to stand here and justify myself to the men who had decided they could say those awful things about me. So, I turned on my heel and walked out with my head held high, just as Mum had taught me years ago when I was bullied in school.

I refused to collect my stuff, I would do that later with a legal representative with me when I had calmed down.

I shifted the car into first gear and my right foot hit the accelerator. Fuck every single man in that room. No, scratch that. I had a no dating at work policy. I wished every man in that room a visit from the godmother of sexually transmitted diseases. Since their cocks were so precious to them, maybe they would like to see how a generous dose of gonorrhoea or genital lice would put them out of action long enough to realise what assholes they’d been.

The countryside flashed past me as I plotted a course in my head. Right now, I needed what all girls needed in times of trauma. My mum. She had always made shit like this better, and Mum would know exactly where to hit them so that it hurt.

We’d chatted on the phone when I got an advanced copy of the article. She raved at how grown up I looked in it, and told me I should do my hair like that more often. Last night, I had felt good after reading it.

My jaw tightened and I lowered the gear as I turned into a sharp bend, my foot hitting the brake before I accelerated out of it again. The need for speed had always been in my blood, it was when I had felt free from the burdens of life. I tested all the new changes to the cars personally and it pissed me off that my brother raced the cars I built because he had his testicles on the outside.

I hit the button at the side of my steering wheel. “Call Mum,” I said.

Her phone rang five times before she picked up. “Charlotte? Is everything all right?”

I felt my bottom lip quiver, those tears threatening to fall again. Everything came out in a mixed-up sentence that made no sense.

“Where are you?” she demanded.

I dashed the tears away with my hand. “On my way to London. Please don’t tell me to go back and pretend everything is fine. I can’t do that.”

“Oh, Charlotte, I would never ask you to do that. Today is the very reason I wrote your contract the way I did. You have been the brains behind that team for years and they’ve treated you like another spanner in the pile. Come home and I’ll organise someone to go with you and get your stuff.”

She understood. I didn’t even need to tell her about the tools I’d collected. Mum just knew, the same way she always did. She had been a part of Dad’s life and knew the way of his world.

“How, Mum? Dale will be beyond pissy since I’m taking my technology with me.”

Her laugh vibrated down the airwaves. “There’s a barrister in my chambers who can be more than a little intimidating. I heard from his secretary that he dabbles in cars and is one of the owners of Midnight Racers.”

I knew the name. The guys had emerged from nowhere and had been taking the circuit by storm. None of them looked like a barrister.

“And how is he going to help me get my tools and designs out of that place?” I queried, taking the next corner a little too fast and having to adjust my steering before I ended up in the hedge.

“Oh, let me assure you that not many people ignore Jordan Berkeley. My secretary is secretly in love with him and monitors all his comings and goings. She made it her life mission to befriend his secretary just so she can find out the latest gossip on him.”

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