Page 2 of Faster

“I get about two pennies to rub together.” Ethan’s family didn’t like her.

She was mixed race, an outsider, an American, and nothing like what they’d pictured for their golden boy.

But she’d survived on her own before and she could again.

Hell, she was more popular in the paddock than her husband.

Without her, he’d be seen for the petulant, ungrateful, rich prick that he was.

“You can join me in the poorhouse, then.” She should be more sensitive to Luca’s firing, but he had made money while racing. She’d simply been arm candy.

Cece looked around. “At least you have a house to sell. Houses.”

Luca smiled at her. “True.”

Her insides warmed from the way he looked at her, and she wanted to grasp this moment and keep it. This could have been her life, but she’d made the wrong choice. She couldn’t go back now, but maybe they could pretend.

“You would have—”

Luca broke the moment. He shook his head and turned away from her. “We’re not going to dwell on the past now.” He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs. “Make some toast.”

“I’m not hungry.” How could she eat at a time like this? But then her stomach growled. Luca’s low laugh awakened another primal urge she couldn’t afford to dwell on.

“Make some toast.”

She loved him. Not like she had before, when all three of them were close but Ethan and Luca were closer—simply from the years they’d spent together.

She remembered being shocked by how intimate their friendship was.

It made it so much harder when Luca exited their lives.

She felt as though he’d taken a piece of Ethan with him.

But there was something of the love she’d always felt for him—the friendship and comfort—that hadn’t gone away.

If she wasn’t so strung out, she’d count it as a miracle.

So, she made toast.

Luca was vibrating from being in the same room as Cece—like his car was underneath him on a bumpy track, and he couldn’t feel the racing line. He was upside down, like he was airborne and just waiting for the impact against the barriers.

He didn’t know if he could mitigate the collision. He hated feeling this out of control. But there was no way he could have turned her away. Besides, when a driver is afraid of crashing more than he wants to win, it’s time to retire.

Making an omelet wasn’t his usual mode of winning, but he would have done anything for a second shot at making Cece his—and Ethan had just handed it to him.

He should have known it would only be a matter of time before the selfish, entitled Ethan would do something to mess up the one thing that he’d ever earned through hard work. Though he never would have guessed that she would show up at his door. He’d hoped but never expected.

“Do you want me to put something on TV?” He didn’t know if the room felt as thick to her as it did to him, but they needed something to cut the tension.

Cece shook her head. “Can you put on some music? Something mellow?”

He could do that. If he recalled correctly—and he recalled almost everything about her—she liked Tems.

As soon as the beat dropped, she started swaying her hips as she buttered their toast. He shouldn’t be eating this late, but he hadn’t felt like going to any of the parties he was invited to.

Now that he wasn’t officially associated with a team, the only people who wanted him seen at their clubs and parties were the seedy bottom-feeders and con artists who wanted him to be the face of their crypto pyramid scheme.

“Why aren’t you out tonight?” Cece asked. “I would have thought you’d want to forget everything happening.”

For a second, he wondered if she had come here partially out of pity.

But that thought didn’t stick. She’d been a little tipsy when she’d walked in, though that seemed to have worn off.

But she was distraught over her own situation, probably just getting around to thinking about what was going on in his life now.

Maybe some of Ethan’s self-absorption had rubbed off?

It kind of didn’t matter to him, though. She was here, with him. And he didn’t particularly care what had gotten her to break the yearslong stalemate between them.

“I didn’t feel like pretending.” That was the truth.

He didn’t feel like pretending he wasn’t upset about the break with his former team.

They hadn’t had the car to win the championship, as they’d promised him when he’d signed.

And then they’d blamed him for it instead of the engineers who designed the car.

He was easier to blame than the engineers or the other driver—whom he’d beaten this season—because he didn’t have an advanced degree, and he’d brought in fewer sponsors than his teammate, whose father was a powerful French politician.

“Why aren’t you with your family in London?

” He remembered introducing Cece to his family when all three of them had been just friends.

The way his mother had looked at her when she’d sat down on the floor and played with his nieces and nephews after helping clean up the kitchen.

A “good girl,” according to his mother. Not anything like the “models” he was photographed with for gossipmongering Instagram accounts that covered WAGs (wives and girlfriends) and potential WAGs.

His mother didn’t think those women were bad, just that they didn’t come from the same kind of place he did.

Cece was from Miami, but she’d fit right in his parents’ cozy row house in South London. She still didn’t expect everything to be handed to her, but he hated to see the way she’d hardened into cynicism. He blamed Ethan.

“I didn’t want them to see right through me.” They’d supported his racing career, often sacrificing greatly so he could stay karting. But they didn’t truly understand what drove him. All they knew was that he wasn’t as angry when he was driving as fast as he could.

When he’d won enough to grab the notice of one of the manufacturers and entered the same junior program where he’d met Ethan, his mum had cried with joy. At least he’d thought it was joy at the time. Maybe she’d cried because she knew this life would eventually break his heart.

He looked at Cece as he pushed a plate with half an omelet toward her. She’d broken his heart, but she’d come back. Maybe his career would be the same.

“I can’t believe you’re eating this late with me.” She nodded at his plate. During the season, he had to make weight. Being tall made that difficult.

“I could indulge a bit over the holidays, even before. You were always so disciplined.”

“You’ve always had kind of a birdlike metabolism,” she said with a mouth half full of eggs and cheese. He loved the way she did everything with such passion. Eating, laughing—he could only imagine how she was when Ethan fucked her.

His mind flashed back to the morning after they’d all met at a South Beach nightclub.

Ethan had secured his first win, and they were celebrating.

Luca had podiumed, but he’d been on pole.

It should have been him on the top step.

Back then, he hadn’t been bitter about his friend finding success. That would come later.

“I would kill for one of those croquetas and Cuban coffee on the beach right now.” He wanted her to remember with him. How they used to be. Her eyes closed as she slipped back in time with him. A soft moan left her lips, and he stared at her mouth.

Fuck, she was beautiful. “I was so nervous taking the two of you to my spot.” She laughed, and it hit the center of him like a g-force. “I was scared that paparazzi would follow you, it would become the hot place, and then I would have to wait in line every time I needed my hangover cure.”

He leaned against the island, just to get a little closer to her. “They didn’t. No one saw the three of us together.”

She sniffed. “That started later. I remember when that so-called reporter found my mom’s cell phone number and wouldn’t leave her alone.

” He could tell by the look on her face that she was afraid of that happening again, and he wished he could protect her from the world the way her husband should have.

He looked down at her hand. She still wore her garishly large engagement ring and wedding band. Ethan had always liked to mark his territory. Once upon a time, Luca had been part of Ethan’s territory. But then, they’d met Cece.

Cece pushed away her plate. He was satisfied that she’d eaten most of her food. “Thank you.”

They were silent long enough that it became awkward. Luca didn’t know what to say. Stay with me, forever? That was too much. She’d just had a shock. The man who had promised to love only her had broken that vow in a viciously cruel way.

“I can, uh, put you in the spare bedroom, if you need to sleep,” was all that came out.

Cece shook her head. “Are you tired? I’m not.”

He could tell by the red rims around her eyes and the fact that she kept rubbing them that she was lying.

She was bone-tired, but sleep probably wouldn’t help.

She’d wake up tomorrow thinking that tonight had all been a bad dream.

Only to get hit by a truck. The longer she stayed awake, the longer she could delay falling off that particular cliff.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” That’s what he was going to do before she’d arrived.

He’d spent the entire holiday holed up in this apartment. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t hired someone to pack up his place for him and gone to see his family. He might be unemployed, but he still had money. He had enough money that no one in his family ever had to work again.

But Bendettos always worked. So, he would find another racing seat, or he would go work in the auto shop with his dad.

People would forget him. Did he want that?

To fade into comfortable anonymity with a wrench in his hand—not much to look forward to other than a pint and a game of football on the telly at the end of each day?

Maybe it would feel good if Cece were there, if they could share a quiet home on a quiet street until they filled it with loud children.

She might be worried about walking away from her marriage with nothing, but she would survive.

They were alike in that way. They’d come from outside this world, and they could return to a status that didn’t have them waited on hand and foot.

It had always felt strange for him to have people doing things for him that he could do himself. He didn’t have a job right now, so he’d pack up his place in Monte Carlo all alone.

But he wasn’t alone. He had someone to keep him company. Someone as sad as he was.

“I would love to watch hot people shoot at each other.” She still remembered what kind of movies he liked.

Despite the public image of the dim race car driver, racing took a lot of brainpower.

When he was off duty, all he wanted to do was shut everything off.

When he was younger, that involved more booze and girls than it did now. Now, he meditated and did yoga.

He still watched action movies, though.

She walked into his living room, and he followed her—trying and failing to avoid being mesmerized by the way she moved. She was so graceful and precise, and he’d somehow forgotten how much he liked that about her. She’d been waiting tables at the club when they first met.

Luca had seen her initially, weaving between tables and delivering bottles. He’d smiled when she’d slapped a guy’s hand away without him even realizing she was rejecting him. That was, of course, the moment she’d looked over at Luca.

And then she’d winked.

Luca hadn’t blushed since he was a schoolboy, but he’d blushed right then. Even with her in his home, years later, he rubbed the back of his neck thinking about what he’d felt when she’d first looked at him.

Cece flopped down on the end of the couch, and he had a choice to make.

She was next to the remote, so it wouldn’t be weird if he sat next to her.

But it would be odd to cuddle up with someone else’s wife.

However, the husband in question had broken his vows first. And Cece had been sending him heated looks since she walked in. She came here.

He didn’t want to assume that she’d come here to have sex with him. Well, his ego wanted to assume that, but his actual brain told him that she’d come here for solace and comfort. He wasn’t going to ruin that for her by making a pass that he wasn’t really and truly sure was welcome.

“Can you get me a drink?” A stay of execution, just as he stood in front of her. He put his hands in the pockets of his sweats, and her gaze followed his movement. She wet her lips. He just barely kept a feral sound inside his throat.

“What would you like?”

Then, she looked up at his face. For a split second, he thought she was going to say something about his dick. But then she said, “Tequila?”

He was surprised she didn’t ask for more champagne. She was a sedate, married lady now—long past body shots and pitchers of too-sweet margarita. But he had a great collection of tequila that would just go to waste when he moved out, and he would do almost anything to please her.

He made them both tequila sodas and brought them to the couch. She took the seating choice off his hands when she scooted over and patted the spot she’d made next to her on the end of the couch.

There was zero space between them. Their thighs touching from knee to hip, his flank pressed up against her. He could feel every breath she took. He knew she wasn’t wearing a bra under his sweatshirt.

He was either being given a gift or the universe was teasing him with everything he could have had if only he’d been born Ethan Harrow.

But he wasn’t going to move. If Cece wanted him, she could have him.

If she just wanted to toy with him, he’d be her plaything.

He was a little bit helpless when it came to her.

And instead of making him angry, it felt right.