Page 14 of Midnight Racers

“No thanks,” I replied. “I’ll stay with the forensic clean-up. A dead body has never done me any harm. It’s the living we need to worry about.”

“Absolute fucking truth,” Jordan said. “Plenty of living people have tried to shoot me, but never a cadaver.”

He paused for a moment. “You didn’t scare our new engineer away?”

“Nope. She’s coming to see the cars in action at the weekend. What’s her story? Why did she leave the family business?”

Jordan sighed. “Long story short, she did an article for a racing magazine, and walked into all the guys saying in explicit detail what they’d like to do to her.”

Yeah, I was one of those guys and I hadn’t seen the article.

“None of the assholes even bothered to apologise. That included her brother.”

“The racer?” I queried.

“Yeah, so I went and terminated her contract for their inappropriate behaviour. The asshole brother was still being a fucker when I arrived.”

“Are we likely to lose her back to them? I just want to know before we start to work on the cars.”

“No chance of that, she signed a minimum term contract so that our cars have her undivided attention.”

Trust Jordan to tie people in knots, and not the kinky kind.

“Your problem has been dealt with,” I told him. “Try not to leave such a mess next time. My guys are good, but they’re not miracle workers.”

“It’s not my fault they decided to jump me,” Jordan defended. “I hate when they do that and then have the audacity to pee on my boots.”

That explained the decapitation. “Yeah, well, garrots tend to leave little mess and still accomplish the end result.”

Jordan laughed. “I’ll try to remember that next time six guys try to rip my head off.” There were muffled voices from the other end of the phone conversation for a moment. “Because it was nothing to worry about. Honestly, Meg, six guys is nothing and my head is still firmly attached.”

It was my turn to laugh. “Jay, no offence, but you are so pussy-whipped that it’s embarrassing.”

“Fuck off!” he snapped. “One of these days the great Flynn Dempster will fall off his high horse of singledom and I will be there to laugh and point the same thing out to you.”

“No chance. I don’t do relationships.”

“Neither did I.” Jordan sighed again. “Neither did I, and look what fucking happened anyway. Relationships are evil little minions sent up from Hell just to torment you. They give you horrible things like emotions and infest you with sentiment. Next thing you know, your dick refuses to work for anyone else and you’re buying matching cushions that have no purpose in life except to take up space in your home without paying rent.”

“Sounds terrible. Want to join me in the free and single club?”

“Fuck no! I wouldn’t change my life for the world.”

I grinned at his downfall. Many men would have fought against losing their independence, but Jordan seemed to view it as a benefit. Like he had won a sacred prize he would protect with his life.

I watched Mum die inside every day after Dad left us. He threw us out of our home and moved his future wife in with barely a day in between. Words meant nothing, vows were worthless, and forever only existed in books. Dad had proved that. He saidI do, created a life for us, and then tossed us aside when something more exciting came along.

No one would ever have the power to destroy my life ever again.

While chatting to Jordan, I brought up the article that he had mentioned on my laptop. Charlotte had been stunning last night, but in the article she was drop dead gorgeous. A make-up artist had highlighted all her best features, her eyes smoky, and her lips cherry red. The leather jumpsuit was skin-tight to highlight her feminine assets, the zip at the front showing a tantalising hint of her full breasts. Her hair was a mass of golden curls that framed her face and cascaded around her shoulders.

I could fully understand the sentiment that met her that day. She was a bad man’s erotic fantasy straddling that bike, because every man would imagine himself in the position of the bike.

Fuck. My. Life.

“You still there?” Jordan asked.

“Yeah, just a bit tired. You going to need us today?”

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