Page 36 of Kiss & Collide
Imogen watched Leon depart, then turned back to Violet. “I have something for you.” She held out a fat manila file.
“Is this—”
“Yes.” Imogen locked eyes with her. “It’s worse than I thought.”
And then she was gone. That Imogen. Underestimate her at your own peril.
Violet hurried back to the tiny mobile office in the Pinnacle portable headquarters. It was basically a wide hallway, set up for hot-desking. She usually had to jockey for space alongside the engineers and strategists. Thankfully nearly everyone was downin the garage watching qualifying on the monitors, so she had a minute to dig through the file.
Oscar Davies’s personnel file.
The first thing she encountered was “the incident” Imogen had heard about, and it was exactly, horrifically, what she’d expected. Oscar had made repeated sexual advances to a woman working in the aerodynamics department.
Turned out, the FIA, the sport’s governing body, got involved because it was only the latest in a long line of complaints from other women, one after the other, going back as long as Oscar had been at Pinnacle. Most had been handled in-house and declared “unsubstantiated.” But not even one of those women still worked at Pinnacle, and she didn’t recognize their names from other teams’ rosters either.
By the time she got to the end of his file, she was livid. This asshole absolutely had it coming.
All these women, their careers derailed by Oscar because he saw them as no more than potential fuck buddies. And because he went so far back in the sport and had made friends with all the right people over the years, it had been swept under the rug, again and again.
She wasn’t going to feel a single bit of guilt for crushing this guy’s career.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled to Carter Hammond’s number.
“Carter Hammond’s office,” his receptionist answered crisply.
“This is Violet Harper, head of PR at Pinnacle Motorsport. I need to speak with Mr. Hammond immediately.”
“I’m afraid he’s unavailable—”
Violet cut her off. “Tell him it’s me. Tell him it’s an emergency. He’ll take the call.”
The woman paused for a bit. “Please hold.”
Two minutes later, the line clicked. “What’s he done now?” Carter Hammond sighed.
“It’s not Reece. I’ve just become aware of some extremely unsettling information about a member of Pinnacle’s upper management. I’ve also become aware that this information is in danger of becoming public at any moment.”
Because she would be the one to make it public, but only if Carter didn’t want to play ball.
“What’s the issue?”
She gave Carter a brief rundown of Oscar’s many, many indiscretions. “So you see, I’m extremely worried that this news would cast Pinnacle in a terrible light. The careers of numerous women derailed in order to protect one man. I’m sure you see my point.”
“Thank you for informing me, Ms. Harper. I’ll deal with it immediately.”
Violet ended the call. Now, to see just how fast he dealt with it. She had no doubt it would be swift. Up until now, Oscar had only dealt with other members of Formula One’s Old Boys’ Club, willing to do whatever was necessary to protect one of their own.
But Carter wasn’t a member of that club. He was an outsider.
Now, all there was left to do was wait.
Thirty minutes later, Imogen texted her.
Reece’s dad just called him. He left to talk to him.
I’ll be right there, she texted back.
Chase was back in the garage when she got there, finished with qualifying.
