Page 31 of Start Your Engines

As I nod off, Senna’s voice filters through my exhaustion. “I’ve only seen Brad twice in the last year. I had business in the city in January, which was the last time. I wouldn’t have contacted him, but it was after Niki’s accident and Dad’s heart attack. As I landed, I learned Dad was stepping down from the team and didn’t want me in charge. I needed someone. Not that I need to explain myself to you.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” I reply, although the reasons she’s giving to justify herself make me realise she’s got a lot going on, and all of us were too selfish to consider how she was coping.

My stomach burns with the renewed sense that I must be here for her, not protect her like Niki’s instructions. I want to hold her as she deals with shit, not take it away from her. I want to be the person she comes to when bad things happen and for her to know I’m a call away. She should know that if she’d turned up at mine when she got news about her dad, I’d have done everything to give her a safe space while she processed it and sat with her as she ran through ideas to change the situation. I shake away the images of our relationship playing out differently than it has. She doesn’t want me.

“I don’t need to know about your conquests,” I mumble.

Lights flash across her face as she drives us to the hotel. “Oh, come on, Dane, you’re the biggest player in this car.”

“And yet, out of the two of us, you’ve had sex more recently. Not that I’m judging.”

“You haven’t had sex in nearly six months? For me, that’s normal, but for you, that’s…”

As she fumbles for a word, I remain silent. She wouldn’t believe my reasons, especially as they’re related to seeing her at Ralf’s wedding.

As a teenager, she did what no other woman has: challenged me, made me smile, and cared for me. However, she’s off-limits for many reasons, including the same one that kept her off-limits when I first fell in love with her: she’s still my best friend’s sister.

I reply between gritted teeth, “You could do much worse than Mr. Bodybuilder.”

She grunts but doesn’t push a conversation. I breathe in her orange blossom perfume. It’s become an entirely new scent on her due to the smell of oil and rubber tyres from the garage that’s probably in her hair. As she stops at traffic lights, she swipes a dash of lip balm, and its mango aroma surrounds us. I count to ten as I fight the temptation to taste the mango for myself and show her that Mr. Bodybuilder has nothing on me when it comes to kissing the feistiest, sexiest woman I’ve known.

I rest my head on the chair and pretend to sleep so she doesn’t ask questions I can’t answer.

CHAPTER 15

Senna

I flipmy shoes off and press my feet into the office carpet. It’s nearly ten in the evening, and I can’t keep staring at spreadsheets. I’ve deep-dived into our finances for hours, and every new file I open makes me want to bash my head against the desk.

My phone rings, and I stifle a yawn as I answer.

“Senna, why did Adam tell me on the golf course today that you’re having issues with finances?” my dad asks without a greeting.

“Because my board member was trying to put you off your stroke?”

“Senna,” he warns.

I bite my tongue and rub my scar. “Adam has no business gossiping about the company. He’s on the board and should be working to fix problems rather than bad-mouthing me. He should speak directly to me if he has a problem with me.”

“He said you’ve been distracted since Australia.”

I squeeze the stress ball shaped like a cat that I found on my desk the other week, staring at the way its belly pops when I do.

“Australia was a month ago. He could have come to the office if he wanted to talk to me. I’m here twelve hours a day.” It’susually fourteen, but I don’t need everyone to know that, or I’ll never have quiet hours to finish things. “And as I have the time to speak to you four times a week, I’m sure I have the time to speak to him, seeing as he works for me.”

“You’re telling me that I’m calling too much. Coulter Racing was my baby, and I’m still the owner.”

I drop my head to my desk as my dad continues his lecture about how he successfully ran the company for years and was a leader in Formula One as if I didn’t know. What he fails to address, and I don’t confront him with, is that in recent years, his short-term planning has damaged the company. Whenever I think I’ve seen the worst of it, I pull a thread and end up with a hundred unravelled balls of wool overflowing from my hands.

I stare at the photo I keep on my desk of my smiling parents. Dad has Niki in his arms. Niki and I are both clutching trophies.

“At the end of the day,” I jump in, using one of his overused phrases, “Adam shouldn’t be talking about me. I’ve got a board meeting tomorrow, so I will deal with this then. In the meantime, you must leave me alone to run this company.”

He grumbles.

“Have you heard from Niki?” I ask, rolling the toy around in my hand.

“Not recently. Have you?”

---