Page 23 of King of Wands

Chapter 9

The Kingdom

“I’ll pick you up.”

“No.” I ground out for the third time in a row. King simply wasn’t getting the message.

“Why the hell not? We’re going to the same place. I want you to arrive with me.”

“Can we do this another time? Maybe not right before a massively important race?”

King scowled. “No. Explain.”

I wasn’t getting out of this. I sighed. I groaned. I whined. Yep, Iwhinedbecause this was something hard to explain, especially to man who drove for a living.

He dropped into a crouch in front of me. “Please tell me what’s going on, Isabel.”

That did it. His lips saying my name got me every single time. “I was in a car accident. Four years ago. It was bad.” Really bad. And the worst part for me was that I remembered every single second of it. “I don’t get into cars driven by other people. I just don’t.”

“You let that slow man drive you to the party.” King waved a hand dismissively.

“Exactly. Ross is slow and careful. He and my mom are the only two people who’ve driven me anywhere without me having a full-on panic attack.”

I felt his eyes traveling over me, studying me, searching for answers to all his questions. “You have PTSD.”

“I do.”

“So you won’t let me drive you anywhere. Anywhere at all. Even if I drive like Ross?”

Ah, the tricky, complicated question. “I find it hard to believe you are capable of driving slow and careful.”

His eyes narrowed and I realized all too late that King Reynolds loved a challenge. But then he surprised me by holding up his keys. “Show me how to drive you.”

Show him?“I’ll drive?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll be the passenger?”

“Yes.”

“Really?” I found this impossible to believe. King spent most his life learning how to gofaster.

“To be a great driver you have to be willing to learn. I’m an excellent learner. I promise. You’ll see.”

I took the keys tentatively. They were to the special red Evans Darjeeling-7 King was given to drive to the race because it matched his new logo. On any other day King would have ridden his motorcycle.

“Why do you want to drive me? Maybe I should drive everywhere all the time and you should enjoy being the passenger.”

He shook his head. “Taking you places is a point of pride. Having you trust me to keep you safe is even more so.”

I didn’t know why I was resisting this. I had to go to the track, why not go with one of the hottest drivers...and the man I was possibly getting involved with.

Maybe.

I still hadn’t decided what I thought of his admission or how it might negatively affect my role at Braun-Evans. On day one we were given an orientation that included no less than five lectures on not fraternizing with the drivers and that inter-office relationships were discouraged. Any potential relationships needed to be reported to our bosses immediately for mediation and counseling.

And here I was, totally fraternizing with a driver and not telling my boss about it. Plus there was the weirdness of Adam encouraging (or maybe that wasdiscouraging) our relationship.

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