Page 5 of Kiss & Collide
She plastered on her brightest fake smile. After all, she worked in PR. She could bullshit with the best of them. “Violet Harper. Pinnacle’s new head of PR.”
“Great timing! Big changes at Pinnacle! We’re going to want lots of media coverage.”
She maintained her smile. “I’d like to talk through your vision for the team, so we can plan—”
“Hold that thought, sweetheart. I’m going to say a few words to the staff. That’ll get you up to speed.”
Good god, she loathed him. But she just kept smiling, gritting her teeth so hard it felt like her molars might crack.
More people had streamed into the atrium, filling the edges of the room two and three deep. There was an upper balcony, and people clustered there, too. She moved off to one side with Imogen, who looked on the verge of tears again.
“Everybody here?” Reece shouted. Imogen flinched. There was no response from the sullen, stone-faced employees of Pinnacle, but Reece’s manic confidence didn’t waver. “Okay, folks, are you ready to shake things up? Because I am here to shake ithard!”
At that point, he did a little shimmy. Violet could only imagine that’s what he did on the dance floor, because he bit his lip, lifted his arms, and wiggled his ass.
If she were capable of feeling secondhand embarrassment, she’d be dying of it right now.
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Reece boomed, putting his serious face back on. “I want every person in this room to look to their left.” He waited while they awkwardly did it. “Now look to your right.” Another painful pause. “At the end of this season, only two of you will still be here, because Pinnacle is going to become a lean, mean, race-winning machine.”
The deafening silence greeting his announcement should have told him he’d just massively fucked up, but Reece seemed to not even notice that he’d uttered all of five sentences and managed to turn every single person in this facility against him. Violet might have been impressed at the sheer volume of his awfulness if she weren’t as fucked as the rest of them.
“There’s no reason that world championship can’t be ours if we’re all committed to the grind. If we’re all willing to give twohundred percent. If we’re all on our hustle. If we’re all ready to live, eat, and breathe Pinnacle Motorsport. What this team needs is a win! If we win a world championship, we can turn this thing around! Now, who’s with me?”
More silence from the crowd.
“Winning a world championship. Why didn’t we think of that?”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Violet smothered a laugh. At least there was someone funny here. She turned to look at the woman next to her who’d muttered those words under her breath. Mid-forties, short, and Southeast Asian, she had her black hair pulled back in a messy bun, and was wearing a gray Pinnacle button-down shirt.
“So simple, right? Violet Harper, head of PR,” she whispered.
“Rabia Dar. Associate design engineer.” She raised her eyebrows. “Last year they gave me a better title instead of a raise.”
“You work with Oscar Davies, then?”
“Lucky me,” Rabia muttered. She blew out a long breath, ruffling a strand of hair that had escaped her bun, and squinted through her dark-framed glasses at Reece.
Understandable. Oscar had a reputation for being an out-of-touch blowhard. Working under him had to suck.
Reece was still talking, but a low-grade murmur had started up amongst the staff, so they could speak without being heard.
“How’s the new team principal?” Violet asked. She’d formed her own opinion, but she wanted to get a read on the rest of the Pinnacle staff.
“He knows fuck all about racing, which is …” She shook her head grimly. “Honestly, we’re sunk.”
Reece was still out there in the middle of the atrium, making an ass of himself.
“Now let’s take Pinnacle to number one! Woo!” Reece thrust his fist in the air and shouted. The sound of shuffling feet and a few scattered, tepid claps followed.
He turned to talk to Oscar Davies, oblivious to the black mood that had fallen across the room. People began escaping, first a trickle, then a stampede.
“Well,” Rabia said, turning to face her and extending her hand to shake, “welcome to Pinnacle, Violet. We’re all fucked.”
After Rabia left, Violet took a minute to arrange her expression into something approaching pleasant and headed over to deal with Reece.
“Ah, the PR girl. Perfect. Now I’m sure the media will be fighting to get sit-down time with me, so I’m thinking let’s start with ESPN. A prime-time interview. That’ll kick it off right.”
Then he pulled out his phone, as if he’d already forgotten she existed.
