Page 38 of Speed Trap

I pressed my lips to the top of her head. “They cleared the incident on the track as a freak accident, but I knew what had happened, what he had set up. Benson walked away with corporate funding. I…am where I am. Three people know what happened that day, though only two of us remember it.” I sucked in a shuddering breath and raked my hand through my hair. Energy of the sort I hated rioted through me in a chaotic mass I couldn’t shake. “I’m sorry. I shouldn't have told you that.”

“You told me one side.” Sunny lifted her head, her face clear of tears, though I had expected something more—distress, anguish…but it was anger that blazed in her face. Anger directed at me.

I took a slow step back. “Sunny, we…”

“You were both assholes, fighting for something that didn’t matter. Something that ruined a life.” She shook her head and pushed at me, pushed past me.

I let her go, pressed my lips together. “Sunny, stop?—”

“No! No morestop, no morecome work for me. Nomore.”

The words were shouted in my face and for the first time I saw Sunny truly angry. It was so different from the spats we’d had in the past. Emotion roiled to the surface, flushing her face. Wide eyes surveyed me in a new light.

A pang struck me as I recognized the same way she looked at Benson.

“Sunny.” I swallowed my pride, my tearing heart, and tried again. “Coops. Please. That’s not why I told you.”

“Isn’t it?” she sneered at me. “Haven’t you said since the first day that you wanted me on your team? That you’d do anything to get me away from Benson? Yes, I hear all the rumors, Hawk. Maybe this is that last step in your plan to get me away from Benson, but you know what?” She shoved my chest with both hands, letting out a growl that the me of ten minutes ago would have found cute as hell. Now I didn’t have the bandwidth to register anything but the distress that finally showed up, but not in the way I ever wanted to see on her. “All it’s done is to get me away fromyou.”

She shoved past me while my brain was still playing catch up with my mouth and stormed out of my apartment. I shot for the door but she was faster than I gave her credit for—though lacking shoes, as she had left her favorite red Blahniks in my kitchen.

“Sunny!” I yelled down the corridor, not caring who I woke or who heard me. “Stop!”

She reached the elevator before me and darted inside.

I slapped the button but the doors were already closing. The last frame I caught was Sunny staring at me from the absolute back of the elevator, the anger drained from her face, replaced with abject fear.

That stopped me. Though I could have made it through the closing gap I stepped back, swallowing the curse that rose to my lips, and let her go.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SUNNY

Ighosted through the next few days that turned into weeks, passing through my life rather than living it. Honey tried her best to pull me out of my funk but more than anything I wanted to hide. Away from the drivers, away from the wreck of my personal life. Away from anywhere Hawk might be.

Which was everywhere.

While I tried to hide from the world, Hawk had taken it on.

His face lit the sides of buses, grinned manically at me from billboards.

Some part of my brain acknowledged the mask he’d spoken about, the public face he presented to the world. Hot as Hades as he had always been, I could see the lack of sparkle in each shot, the pure panic and determination that shone through to someone who knew him.

I knew him, and that broke my heart a little more.

Rather than focus on my own clients the way I should have prioritized my time, I found myself in my office in Benson’s building. Nothing about my relationship with Hawk had surfaced, which was a small miracle in itself. But working back on racing media, albeit away from Hawk, let me pretend the world was just fine and that nothing had broken.

I’d become an ostrich in leather and denim with her blonde curls planted firmly in the sand.

My inbox was half empty, I had jobs that needed work and I fully intended to submerge myself in it until the rest of the world either blew up in my face or Hawk retired from racing. My head knew which would come first even if my heart refused to acknowledge it.

“Sunny.”

I straightened my slumped posture over my keyboard at the voice, starting enough to slosh my coffee from its cup.

“Benson!” I threw my false smile on my face. “I’ve sent ad copy out along with the media kit for the first week of racing.” Which was fast approaching, and one of my favorite times of the year. Everyone had enthusiasm for the start of the season.

The image of two cars colliding then a third slid through my mind. I pushed the vision away and kept smiling until my cheeks ached.

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