Page 22 of Hot Lap
? @LuxLifeRacing:Don’t we tho? #WheresTheRing
@Florals4Grid:Honestly? I’m not mad. She’s not clout-chasing. She hasn’t spoken. She hasn’t posted. She just dipped back into the shadows like a true icon.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Drink."Ona places a tall glass of murky green liquid in front of Reece. Her tone leaves no room for argument.
He squints at the concoction. Even in the dimmed cabin of PNW Nitro's private jet, the light feels like needles in his eyes. "What fresh hell is this?" He pushes the glass away. Its color and odor offend him. "Some new recovery formula?"
"Electrolytes, vitamins, and the salvation you don't deserve." Ona Kenyatta, his physio of five years, crosses her arms over her chest. At thirty-eight, she's a decade his senior and treats him with the perfect blend of maternal concern and older-sister brutality. "Drink it all if you want to survive this flight."
Reece takes a reluctant sip, wincing at the grassy, acidic tang.
Ona’s Kenyan accent gets more pronounced when she's enjoying his misery. "The tabloid photos are already everywhere. CircuitJerks is calling it 'Prix at the Altar.'"
From across the aisle, Jacintha snorts without looking up from her tablet. "You screwed yourself." She glances at the woman sitting beside her, Petra Hayter, the second of their Britain-based team’s two drivers. "RP11 just handed the PR team a category five hurricane to manage."
"No shit." Petra’s impish grin suits the vibrant pink streaks in her long dark hair. "Dad's already been on the phone with legal. And sponsors. And probably God."
Dadis Coy Hayter, PNW Nitro’s team principal. Jacintha is Petra’s physio and her cousin.
Reece downs half the green sludge Ona’s foisted on him. The jet's gentle turbulence makes his stomach lurch in protest. He checks his phone for the twentieth time since takeoff. There’s nothing new from Maiken, beyond her terse texts from earlier.
Thanks for the extraction. Great PR move. Very convincing.
Don't worry, I'll play my part until this blows over.
And, yes, I'm wearing PEONY’S ring.
That last one feels like a punch in the nuts. The ring was supposed to be something special between them, not a prop from his failed past. No wonder she thinks this is just some calculated move.
Ona catches him staring at his phone. She hands him a plate with dry toast and a few slices of apple. "Eat. Slowly. Glaring at your messages won't make new ones appear."
He takes a bite of toast. "Look, I know how it sounds?—"
"Like a drunken disaster?" Cin offers unhelpfully.
"—but it wasn't just the alcohol talking. There was something genuine there." He makes a fist for emphasis. "Hard to explain, but definite."
Petra's eyebrow arches. "Oh? So you'd have proposed stone-cold sober after only a day?"
"Probably not.” He glares at her, but he can’t be mad at Pet. She’s one of the few people who knows he planned to propose toPeony, though she doesn’t know the extent of his ex’s betrayal. “That doesn't mean it was wrong.”
The three women exchange a glance that Reece has seen a thousand times in the paddock, a universal female code that transcends team garages, hospitality units, and nationality. The "men are complete idiots" look.
Ona drops into the seat opposite his. "Look, youngblood, you got married to a stranger in a drive-thru chapel by a man in a sparkly jumpsuit. That's not exactly the careful planning we've come to expect from you."
"Elvis." He takes a bite of apple.
"Pardon?"
Reece chews and swallows. "It was Elvis, not a bloke in a jumpsuit."
Cin throws her hands up. "Oh, well, that makes it completely reasonable then!"
Across the cabin, Reece catches Coy's eye. The team principal is pretending to read something on his tablet, but there's no doubt he's absorbing every word that’s spoken. Reece feels a twinge of dread at the conversation they'll have later. While he may have stopped giving a shit about his father’s opinion years ago, he has the utmost respect for Nitro’s TP. Coy Hayter is untouchable, and Reece never wants to lose standing in the man’s eyes. He has way too much respect for Coy to think what he’s done is inconsequential.
Petra studies him with surprising sympathy. "What's she like? Besides the obvious talent for driving you to temporary insanity."
