Page 28 of All That Glitters (Endurance #1)

Ashton

“Do you know anything about Darien Cross?”

I shook my head. Helen kept her eyes on the road and I kept my eyes on her. Focusing on her was what kept me from freaking out that I was in the front seat of her Jeep. That and the death grip I had on the whatever I could get my hands on.

It had taken fifteen minutes for us both to get me seated and belted in. I’d broken out into a cold sweat and at one point, I’d been shaking so badly I almost called the whole thing off.

Helen would’ve let me. She’d suggested calling and suggesting this last minute meeting be done over Zoom, but I’d said no.

I had to become more bold. I had to stop letting the fear steal days and weeks from my life.

I had to confront and face the demons riding shotgun inside my head.

And if I couldn’t do any of that with Helen by my side, helping me, doing exactly what I’d asked her to do, then…

Watching her, how smooth she was behind the wheel, how effortless driving was for her… God, I fucking missed it. Race cars, street cars… I missed it.

“Gentleman driver. Businessman. Could buy all of Monaco on a good day.”

“Because it’s a little strange that he wants to meet with you right now, today. What could be that urgent?”

She wasn’t wrong. Darien’s assistant Amber was pleasant when she’d called earlier, but also pretty insistent without giving away any details. I was intrigued.

“I guess we’ll find out. Um…” I paused before uttering the next words because right now, they were so foreign to me. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She’d been more than a little put out with me when I sprung it on her.

I hadn’t been ready for her to leave. Hell, the more I was with her, the less I wanted to be away from her.

Things had changed and shifted and gotten away from me.

Nothing was going as it was supposed to, as I had planned it out in my head.

“Do you know anything about him?” I asked. The more I could get her to talk to me, the more I’d stay out of my head which was better for everyone. “Have you ever met him?”

“No. I’ve never met him. I think Hale has, but I’m not sure and I don’t know a whole lot.

While you were in the shower, I looked him up.

I was able to find out that he owns several luxury dealerships on the west coast and has some other businesses that I’m not familiar with.

He did an interview early last year. He’d driven in some of the endurance races a couple of seasons ago and wanted to drive more but had a hard time finding a seat on a regular basis.

He’d been looking to fund a team or build his own from the ground up, but then he dropped out of the news cycle. That was all I could find.”

“I don’t understand why he couldn’t find a team to join, even if it was a different one each year.

Gentlemen drivers have always been around.

It’s been a pretty welcoming sport. It’s the one form of racing that allows all levels.

If he had the talent, the determination, the money, I don’t understand why no one would work with him. ”

From actors to businessmen like Darien to drivers from other racing series, endurance opened the doors. Especially if they had money they could invest.

As the sport became more and more popular, I hoped that aspect didn’t change. It’s one of the things that made it special, separated it from others.

“Well, I guess we’re about to find out what he wants with you.”

“What do you want with me?”

“I don’t think either of us are ready for that conversation.”

I turned my head to look out the window but smiled. I wanted to ask her if she was still angry about last night. She wasn’t acting like it, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t and it didn’t mean that I didn’t deserve it.

“Let’s just get through the meeting,” she said. “Are you nervous?”

“No. I’m more curious than anything.”

“Do you want me to wait in the car?”

“Fuck no. I want you right there beside me.”

“Okay.”

“Did I mess anything up for you today?”

“Do you really care if you did?”

My first instinct was to say no, was to be the asshole I’d been to her since the night of my mother’s dinner party, but it’s not what I went with.

“Yes.”

She cut a glance at me, like she didn’t believe me, then focused on the road in front of us again.

“I have a Zoom meeting later this afternoon, but that’s all I have active on my calendar. I’d spent yesterday and the two days before buried in work.”

I wanted to ask if that was because of the way things had been left when she’d come to the cottage.

I’m not sure she’d forgiven me for that.

I’m not sure I’d forgiven myself for it.

I’d treated her horribly and even at my drunkest, I’d never treated a woman like that.

And I didn’t even have that excuse with Helen…

“I guess it’s lucky that you packed an overnight bag.”

“I didn’t. I always carry one in the car. I’ve been caught one too many times in weather at a race track and I’m not fond of sodden clothing, nor those awful plastic parkas they sell.”

We fell silent again. I wanted to keep her talking. I wanted to keep talking to her, but I didn’t say anything else. I simply watched the way her left hand lightly gripped the steering wheel, the way her leg shifted between the gas and brake pedals, the way her right hand rested on the shifter.

She was one of the only people I knew who still drove a manual.

Most had a dual transmission, a car that could switch between manual and automatic, but not Helen.

She learned to drive street cars with a manual transmission, and she’d raced enough manual cars that I wasn’t sure she’d know what to do with her legs and hands if she had to drive an automatic.

Before the wreck, I loved driving and hated being a passenger.

I didn’t trust anyone else on the road. There were few people I trusted to be in the driver’s seat now that I couldn’t figure out how to get behind the wheel.

Helen Troye was one of those people. She was so comfortable, so natural in a car and it pissed me off that she gave up so easily.

I knew that I’d pissed her off by pushing last night, by bringing it up at all, but someone needed to. Hale hadn’t fought for her. Her parents hadn’t fought for her. And she… She of all people hadn’t fought for herself. She simply fell in line in order for Hale to have a seat.

Fuck.

None of them deserved her.

There was something there, something in all the shit in my screwed up brain that nagged at me but I refused to explore it, now and maybe never.

She turned off the highway onto a side street.

Ahead was an old airplane hangar. It was partially deconstructed.

Scaffolding and barricades, stacks of building materials sat off to the far side of the parking lot.

Two other cars were parked out front and my stomach gave a strange flip.

I had no idea what Darien Cross wanted with me and my anxiety kicked up until my upper lip was coated in sweat and my heart rate was through the roof.

Helen turned to me as soon as she parked and turned off the engine. “Ashton?”

I held up a single finger. I needed a moment to get myself together. I didn’t even know what was going on, what was going to happen and I was freaking out.

She was out from behind the wheel and had the passenger door open between one deep breath and the next. She was so tuned into me, in the shifts in my moods and anxiety levels.

She took my hands in hers. “Ash,” she said in that soft tone of voice that could permeate my darkest thoughts in the blink of an eye. “Look at me.”

It took a few seconds before I could turn my head, before I could do as she said, but I did it.

I focused on her, focused on the way her dark hair shone in the sun, the way her eyes stared into mine.

She never looked at me with pity or sadness, though I had accused her of that before.

No, she looked at me with kindness, patience…

love. There was fierce determination there, too.

And it was all for me. She was determined that I would get through all of it, that I would drive again, that I would win again.

She was the anchor I hadn’t realized I needed. She was the anchor, the lighthouse in the violent sea that I was lost in, tossed around in.

“Breathe with me.”

In. Out .

In. Out .

“We can stay out here as long as we need to.” She would do it, too. She would stand beside me in the parking lot all day long if I needed her to. She would stay as long as it took for me to get myself back under control.

In. Out .

In. Out .

“In. Out.”

I hated this version of myself.

And I was grateful that she was the only one who saw it. She would never betray me. She would never blab to the racing world that the soon to be great Ashton Glitterati was an anxious, scared, fucking mess.

“In. Out.”

Her hands never let go. They never loosened and they never tightened. They were simply steady, soft, but the grip was strong enough to let me know I wasn’t alone.

I wasn’t alone.

I wasn’t trapped.

I wasn’t alone .

A few more deep inhales and deep exhales and I felt the darkness and fuzziness recede to the edges of my vision until they’d disappeared.

“How late are we?”

“We’re not.”

“But we’re not early.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.” God, I hated that. I hated apologizing. I hated being a burden. I hated this fucking version of myself.

She squeezed my fingers and when I nodded at her, letting her know I was okay and ready to get out, she stepped back, beautiful, and all business in gray linen pants and a black pinstripe blouse.

I got out of the Jeep and she grabbed her purse. Side by side, we walked toward the front of the building where a young woman held the door open for us.

“I didn’t even know this little airstrip was out here,” Helen said, looking around.

“I didn’t either.”

“Hi. I’m Amber, Mr. Cross’s assistant.” We shook hands and Helen followed Amber across the threshold.