Page 47 of Kiss & Collide
“What?”
“Am I missing something?” Rabia asked.
“Nope. Absolutely nothing,” Violet said, shooting him one last glare.
It was a start.
“Okay. So … speaking of next season,” Rabia said, exchanging one of those speaking glances with Leon, “we’re thinking of scrapping Oscar’s design for next year and starting fresh. But if we do, it’ll leave us really short of time.”
“You absolutely should,” Chase said.Please. Anything to shake Pinnacle out of its rut. And a car designed by Rabia had to be an improvement over Oscar’s brick.
Rabia shook her head. “Leon’s keen to have a go, but there are so many risks with an all-new design.”
Leon held up a finger. “That gamble would be worth taking if we could get a new power unit.”
Violet finally spoke up. “Okay, then get yourself a new power unit.”
“But Oscar already committed us to Veben’s power unit—”
“Oscar’s gone,” Leon said, “and that contract’s not signed yet.”
“So why not?” Chase interjected. “You know what you want. What youneed.”
“I have the contacts, of course,” Rabia said. “But then we’d need to get Reece to sign off on it.”
Violet scoffed. “I’ll talk to Imogen. She’ll make it happen.”
“You think so?”
“He does whatever Imogen tells him to do.”
Rabia looked to Leon in question.
“It’s impossible for us to get worse,” Leon said to her. “What do we have to lose?”
“When you have nothing to lose, things get really interesting,” Violet said with a wild grin. It had been a week since Chase had seen her smile …reallysmile … and he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it until just now. Missedher.
“This is crazy,” Rabia muttered. “But if we’re going to discuss it, we’d better do it somewhere more private. I’m pretty sure our rep from Veben is at this party.”
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” Leon said. “Violet … you coming?”
“I, ah …” Violet looked around uncertainly. “I should—”
Rabia and Leon exchanged a glance. “We’ll meet you there,” she said, and Chase noticed Leon wink at Violet.
Once they were gone, he turned to her.
“Violet.” At the sound of her name, she looked at him, really looked at him. “Quit avoiding me.”
“I WASN’T!” VIOLETprotested, which was a big fat lie, because she’d absolutely been avoiding him. What worried her was that he’d noticed. He wasn’t supposed to notice. Or care.
“I haven’t seen you in a week.” His eyes caught hers significantly. “Not since Paris.”
“I’ve been busy,” she said, which was uninspired. What was wrong with her? Where were all her snappy comebacks? Gone. Lost in the tingling feeling that coursed through her the minute he showed up and swept Rabia into that hug.
After Paris she’d told herself she’d quit this thing with him. She’d thought avoiding him all week might finally break the spell, but no luck. It was actuallyworseafter being away from him all week.
“Busy flirting with Madison Mitchell on your behalf, by the way,” she sniped. So far Chase and Madison had only “connected” on Instagram, liking and commenting on each other’s posts. All of Chase’s input had been her doing. “You’re welcome to participate in that whenever you’re ready.”
