Page 58 of Kiss & Collide
She’d been so sure he’d end up with Madison in Vegas, but he hadn’t. He’d come straight to her hotel room after their dinner. And she’d seen the look in his eyes, the expression on his face. She’d felt it in that fingertip on her lip just now. It wasn’t about sex or pleasure in those moments. Those touches felt … tender. Those looks … they weren’t about her body, they were abouther. At some point, they’d crossed a line. Now it was complicated, and only getting more so.
But every time she thought about ending it, she got that weird hollow feeling in her stomach again. She’d never been one to shy away from difficult decisions, but she was shying away from this one. She kept putting it off. One more week, one more race. After Monza, after the Netherlands, after Azerbaijan, after Singapore … she just couldn’t seem to pull the trigger on it, which was unlike her.
The next two questions from the pool of reporters were also directed at Chase—sending Liam into a full-on sulk. Chase was the man of the moment, and even Liam knew it.
Violet was reveling in her moment of success when her phone buzzed with an email. It had been blowing up withcongratulatory texts from work contacts as theVanity Fairpiece got traction. It was an email from Sylvie atGQ, letting her know that they were moving Chase’s profile up to the next issue, to seize on the excitement.Yes.
She was just typing her reply when her phone started buzzing with a phone call—an unknown number.
ConsideringVFhad just dropped, it could be anybody. She ducked out to answer.
She swiped to answer the call. “Violet Harper here.”
“You sound like a bloody corporate knob.”
Her heart dropped at the sound of a voice she hadn’t heard in years.
“Astrid,” she said dryly. “This is a surprise. To what do I owe the honor?”
Astrid sighed wearily. That was Astrid, perpetually bored with the world and everyone in it. “Ian tells me you’re actuallyworkingfor a race team?”
“A Formula One team,” Violet corrected with asperity. “I’m the head of PR.”
“Huh.”
Violet felt herself bristling. “What?”
Astrid sniffed, and Violet could picture her perfectly in her mind, her long tangled blond hair, the pale blue eyes so like her brother’s, the weary, put-upon expression perennially on her face. “Sports … it’s just so … sporty.”
“It’s abusiness. A multibillion-pound-a-year industry. And it’s pretty bloody significant, me heading up PR for an entire team.”
“I suppose,” Astrid said dismissively. “Ian said you’re dating some knobhead driver?”
Violet scoffed. “Knobhead. Ian wouldn’t last a full minute on the track beside Chase. Do you have any idea how difficult driving in F1 is?”
“So it’s true, then? You’ve got a boyfriend?”
Violet realized a beat too late she’d protested all the wrong things. “What? No, he’s not … we’re not …”
“Because Ian wants you back.”
Violet rolled her eyes, even though Astrid couldn’t see her. “Yeah, so he said. And I’ll tell you what I told him. I don’t look back.”
“That girl was nothing. It barely lasted a month.”
If she heard one more time that the event that had broken her heart was “nothing,” she was going to bloody scream. If that girl was nothing, but worth breaking her heart for, then what did that make her?
“Why do you even care, Astrid? You don’t like me.”
“I never said—”
“Astrid.”
Astrid sighed again. “Fine. You’re not my favorite. But I’m not so thick that I’d deny you were important. When you were here, with the band, you … made us better.”
“I don’t—”
“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Astrid spit out, as if it pained her to admit it, which, undoubtedly, it did. “The touring, the album … none of that would have happened except for you.”
