Page 18 of Fast & Reckless
“You’re still thinking about that? Don’t worry about it. It’s all just bullshit gossip anyway.”
“It’s just—” He ran a hand across the back of his neck.
“What?”
“It’s just … it’s exhausting sometimes. Trying to live that shit down. Trying to prove to the whole world that I’m not the same anymore.”
That hit her right in the solar plexus. “Don’t I know it,” she sighed, before she could catch herself.
He gave her a look. “I have a hard time imagining you’veeverdone anything you regretted, Mira. You’re far too … cautious.”
She almost told him he had no idea what he was talking about, but she bit back the words at the last minute. But it didn’t matter, since her silence seemed to tip him off that he’d hit a nerve.
“What?” He sat up, leaning forward on his elbows. These tables were way too tiny, and he was way too close. “You have asecret. Tell me.”
She sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Look at you, all folded up like a crab. The hell there’s not.”
Just then the waitress arrived with their orders. Mira hoped the food would be enough to divert Will’s attention, but when she looked up, he was still watching her from across the table.
“Does your big regret have anything to do with you disappearing for all these years?”
God, how on earth was he so perceptive? Will Hawley of all people? She glanced at the door, desperately hoping to see Violet returning, but she was still outside, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, phone to her ear.
“It’s not important. Ancient history at this point, anyway.” She took a bite of her pasta, which was, as he’d promised, excellent.
“Can’t be that ancient if it still bugs you.” His voice was low and intimate, and it felt like they were alone in the soft gold circle of light cast by the candle flickering between them. That must have been why she opened that trunk full of her secrets, even if only a crack, and let some small part of it out.
She turned her wineglass in a circle before taking a sip. “I made a really stupid mistake when I was younger.”
“Well, then you’re in good company, because as it so happens, I’m aproat stupid choices. There was a time when I might have held the world championship.”
Despite the dread she felt about discussing her past, that made her laugh. “I’m pretty sure at one point in my life, we would have been on a race to the bottom.”
“Did you kill a man just to watch him die? Or was it selling illegal arms to a fascist regime?”
“How’d you know?!” she said, with mock surprise. “No, nobody died. I just …” She closed her eyes and took a deepbreath. “The last time I was at Lennox I was sixteen, traveling the circuit with my dad.”
Will nodded. “Considering who your dad is, I figured you spent a lot of time on the track.”
“I did. Which means I knew the rules. But whatever … I was a dumb teenager who thought she knew everything.”
“Uh-oh. Sounds like the universe corrected you on that one?”
“Not the universe. Just a guy.”
His eyes lit up with interest. “Ah. This is a love story.”
Mira snorted in disgust. “It’snota love story.”
Will raised his eyebrows. “No?”
“I got involved with someone I shouldn’t have. I snuck around and lied to a lot of people to do it. I lied to mydad. Then it ended—badly, as you can probably guess—and everybody found out. I disappointed a lot of people, and I paid for it. Even worse, mydadpaid for it, and the team paid for it.”
“How?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. What matters is that I really messed things up with him. And now I have a lot to make up for. I will never do something to put him in a position like that again.”
