Page 30 of Formula Fling

“This is beautiful,” Posey says softly, her voice filled with awe.

I nod, taking in the scenery. “Yeah, it is. A nice change of pace from London, but not sure I’d like to live here all the time. It’s a little too quiet for me.”

She gives me a side-eyed grin. “Of course it’s too quiet for you, party boy.” A few moments of silence pass but then she goes back into inquisition mode. “What drives race car drivers in general? I mean, why do you do what you do? Why racing? If I’m going to write an authentic hero, I need to know your motivations.”

I take a deep breath, considering her question. “I guess it’s the thrill of it,” I begin slowly. “The speed, the adrenaline… but it’s more than that. It’s the competition, the strategy, the way every decision can make or break a race. I love the challenge, the constant push to be better, faster. And then there’s the dream.”

“The dream?” she prompts, leaning in slightly with wide eyes.

“To win the Driver’s Championship,” I say, my voice filled with a quiet intensity. “The last three years, I’ve been in the top five, but I’ve never won it. That’s the goal, the ultimate achievement. It’s what I’ve been working toward my entire career.”

Posey nods, her eyes reflecting my determination. “And you think this year could be the year?”

“I hope so,” I admit. “But it means focusing more, maybe quelling my partying ways. It’s hard to balance everything, but I think… I think it might be time to take things more seriously.”

She looks at me, her gaze piercing through my casual demeanor. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you?”

I shake my head, a small smile playing on my lips. “Not really. Not until you came along.”

Her mouth drops open, surprise and something else flickering across her face. But she doesn’t say anything, just offers me a soft, understanding smile. We sit there for a while longer, watching the sun dip lower in the sky and paint shadows around us.

I give her a sheepish grin. “What I mean is that your arrival coincided with Harley losing her last bit of patience with me. I was sort of forced to smarten up and get serious, and it’s put some things into perspective.”

“Like winning the championship might be a little more important than partying hard and sowing your wild oats,” she muses with a twinkle in her eye.

I bark out a laugh. “Yeah… something like that.”

CHAPTER 11

Posey

The low growlof Lex’s Lamborghini Urus fills the quiet countryside as we wind through the picturesque lanes of the Cotswolds. The scenery here is breathtaking, a stark contrast to the sleek, high-tech world of Crown Velocity. Rolling green hills stretch out in every direction, dotted with quaint stone cottages that look like they’ve been plucked straight from a storybook. There’s an uncharacteristic break in the gray, cloudy skies, and the early-morning sun casts everything in a golden light, making the landscape look almost ethereal.

I glance over at Lex, who’s driving with one hand on the wheel, his other arm resting casually on the console. He’s effortlessly cool, as always, in a light blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing his strong forearms. His cream-colored slacks fit him perfectly, accentuating his athletic build. Aviator sunglasses complete the outfit, making him look every bit the part of the charming yet mysterious bad boy of FI.

We’re on our way to a team get-together at Spencer Montgomery’s estate, an event he holds every year before the race season begins. It’s going to be a perfect day weather-wise with what these English consider a warm end of winter day. It’s projected to be in the upper fifties, which to this Southern girl, is still quite chilly. As we were leaving the house, Lex laughed at my long wool skirt with knee-high boots, a thick fuzzy sweater and my trusty parka to ward off the chill. Lex merely had a suitjacket to wear over his shirt, now haphazardly draped over the back seat.

As we drive, I can’t help but reflect on the last three days since Lex moved into the Airbnb with me. It’s been… intense, to say the least. Every morning, we’ve been at Crown Velocity headquarters bright and early, but only after we share a cup of coffee along with scrambled eggs and bacon that I’ve taken to cooking for us. It’s simple fare but Lex eats it up like a starving madman and has proclaimed me the best egg chef he’s ever known.

I admit only that adding a little of the coffee cream to the scramble is the part of the secret but the other is to cook them slowly over the lowest flame.

Lex has been spending a lot of time in the simulator, focusing on the Bahrain track. Watching him work has been a revelation. The level of precision and dedication that goes into every decision, every adjustment, is mind-boggling. The engineers are like wizards, tweaking the car’s setup based on the data Lex provides, and it’s all so intricate, so exact.

In the afternoons, Lex and Ronan review simulation data with the engineers and strategists, making final tweaks to the cars. I’ve been shadowing Lex during these sessions—at his insistence, no less. I’m learning more than I ever imagined about the sport and honestly, it’s enriching my book so much.

And then there are the workouts. Watching him lift weights or run on the treadmill while I limp along on the elliptical produces a weird mix of feelings. It’s hard not to lust after such a fine specimen of a man but it does pull into focus my perceived inadequacies of being merely ordinary.

Every night he’s stayed home with me rather than head to London to go out with Ronan. We cook dinner together, talk about current events, friends and families and our work. Because I spend so much time learning about FI racing,Lex insists on having equal time to learn about the romance industry. He asks good questions about the business side of things, but he’ll pepper in something to try to embarrass me.

“How do you market your books?” he asked last night.

I went into a long explanation about social media, newsletters, paid advertising and my new (and most favorite) part of my business, selling directly to my customers through my webstore.

He asked follow-up questions one after another, leading me deeper down a comforting rabbit hole until he zinged me. “Do you write your sex scenes from personal experience? I mean… how do you research that?”

He snickered as I threw a pillow at him from the couch, and I laughed when it smacked him in the head and knocked the bottle of water out of his hand.

But eventually the evening always winds down with us parting ways. I say good night, leaving Lex in the living room to watch TV or surf on his phone. I retire to my room, sit in my bed and bang out some of the most creative words I’ve ever written. I’ve shot them back to my beta readers across the pond and their feedback has been so enthusiastically positive that I know I made the absolute right choice to come here. Not only to learn but to immerse myself in the world, a chance that I know will make this new series a success.

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