Page 8 of Faster

Everyone at Scuderia Lupo had assured her everything was fine.

And she’d had a contract sitting in her dad’s office at his estate in Kent.

She’d been surrounded by all of the big game trophies he’d collected after his racing career had ended.

They’d stared down at her—all eyes and antlers and fangs—as though they were waiting for her to become one of them.

If she’d signed that contract, she would just be another one of her father’s accomplishments.

An object that he’d created out of his own violence.

The impulse that she was signing away some essential part of her agency warred with her desire to prove herself to the world.

She’d not only be the first female driver with a permanent spot on the grid in decades, but she’d be with one of the most storied teams in racing.

Ethan would retire in a couple of years, and then she’d be the number one driver on a top team if she was fast enough.

And she knew she could. She had to have an even bigger ego than the guys she raced against. She was just “the girl” until she beat them by more than a mere nose, more than once.

She had to spank them all, over and over again.

If she were a boy, it would have mattered that she was the progeny of Jack Cartwright, three-time world champion.

The rest of the paddock would speak her name with quiet reverence if she were Michael instead of Micaela.

Hell, her father probably would have revived his old team from the dead for her.

But it seemed that she had more to prove because of her last name on top of her gender.

It wasn’t fair, but she also didn’t give a shit about fair. She showed up at the track ready to win, every time.

That was what made her pick up Liam’s call when the ringtone shocked her out of signing the Lupo contract. She hadn’t spent much time with Liam while she’d dated Brent. Liam was a team principal, which meant that he was a very busy and important man. And he and Brent had a weird relationship.

She and Brent had only started talking because their fathers were both legends in motorsports. They both had cute sob stories about how they started karting because that was the only way that their daddies would pay attention to them—winning was the only way any praise would fall from their lips.

It was clichéd, but Micaela had later learned that while her stories about her father’s casual cruelty were completely accurate, Brent’s were wildly exaggerated. Brent’s little cousin had filled her in on that during the one family vacation she’d taken with them. Liam adored his child.

Liam was a compelling man. He’d have to be to start an American F1 team from scratch after dominating every racing series on the other side of the Atlantic—first as a racer, then as an owner.

It didn’t hurt that his family had oil money dating back to the early 1900s, but he didn’t have to work that hard.

He was just driven by something inside him that Micaela recognized and shared.

Brent, on the other hand, was your average rich little prick that was only motivated by money and attention.

That’s why he’d dated her in the first place.

He wanted to siphon off some of her glow.

He wanted the world to think that he was some great feminist because he was dating another driver, instead of an Instagram model.

He wanted to prove that he wasn’t threatened by a girl infiltrating their macho fiefdom at the pinnacle of motorsports.

She’d thought they were a friends-to-lovers story, but a few months ago, she’d learned it was bullshit. As soon as she’d started getting offers from teams for a permanent seat rather than just a reserve or test driver role, things had changed.

He’d started asking her whether she was sure she was ready—whether she could physically hold up to a full season of racing.

He’d reminded her of the time she’d puked from heatstroke during an endurance race in Dubai.

She’d almost let his words sink in until she’d remembered that her water bottle had malfunctioned in Dubai, and Brent himself had thrown up in his own helmet and had to be dragged out of his car by three mechanics after last year’s race in Qatar.

At least she’d finished her race before needing medical attention in the desert.

She worked harder than Brent. She was actually physically stronger than him, because he was a lazy piece of shit who got into the sport because his father owned a team.

Her father, on the other hand, refused to pay for her to have a seat. She’d gotten some sponsorships because of her last name, but she’d hustled and pulled those together for herself.

And then, there were the pictures of Brent on a yacht with a supermodel.

On the weekend of her former stepmother’s funeral.

Those had been the last straw. She might have believed his excuse—that he’d lost track of the days during summer break—if it hadn’t been her favorite ex-stepmother.

But she was really sad that Sylvie had passed away during her ill-advised third facelift.

She wasn’t sure why Liam had offered her the seat.

They’d had a perfectly competent driver paired with Brent who had scored most of the points for the team the previous season.

It didn’t make sense to have a total newbie paired with her ex-boyfriend, instead.

But Micaela hadn’t seen that angle—she’d only seen the potential for revenge.

After she’d done it, her father had a fit.

I should have made you take up a sport for girls—like tennis.

You’re too much like me and not enough like your mother, God rest her soul.

Of course, you’d go and fuck up your whole career over a piece of tail.

You’ll never win the world championship now.

You know you’re nothing but a publicity stunt for that team, don’t you?

A few hours later, wearing a stupid gown that the team press officer, Paola Rodriguez, had forced her into, standing at the back of a ballroom instead of holing up in her room and preparing like any other rookie, she wasn’t sure that her father was wrong.

Maybe the team didn’t care as much about winning as they did about having her as a token girl.

No one outside the paddock really knew about Brent and Micaela’s previous relationship—they’d never gone Instagram official.

It had seemed like a conflict of interest, given that she’d been a reserve driver at the time.

So, maybe they just wanted the feminist shine of having a girl as a driver.

Micaela snagged a glass of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray. She needed to be sharp tomorrow, but she clocked three other drivers having a drink. She was actually jealous of Danny’s beer. But that wouldn’t really go with the fucking pink tulle in her dress.

She had to get a stylist of her own. If she had her druthers, she’d be in something black and maybe leather. She could look feminine while also looking dangerous.

Like Cece Ramos, Ethan Harrow’s wife, did.

She wasn’t wearing black or leather, but there was definitely danger to the way the sides of her breasts were perched in a white halter Valentino gown.

She always looked badass, though. Even the pearls cascading from her ears—culturally relevant given Bahrain’s role in the global pearl trade—made her look a little bit cool and untouchable.

But tonight, she looked badass and unhappy. Micaela hesitated for a second about walking over to her. Just because she had confidence in the car didn’t mean she didn’t have the same worries as any other twenty-two-year-old woman—that everyone hated her all the time.

Her job probably made that even worse. The boys just had more options for dealing with it. They could cry or punch walls. Someone would ask her if she was on her period if she did either of those things.

But Cece had always been nice to her—she’d even told a mechanic to shut his fucking face when he’d called Micaela an “entitled bitch” once after a support race.

Hell, she’d come to the support race to cheer her on.

Maybe she was upset that her husband’s ex-best friend was the new driver for Lupo, but she wouldn’t take that out on Micaela.

She just walked over. Cece smiled when she saw Micaela, but there was something weird about the look on her face. Now that she was closer, Micaela could see that Cece was gripping her glass so tightly it looked like it would break.

“Are you okay?” That was probably the wrong thing to ask.

Cece was kind to her, but they were not close.

She wasn’t sure if she could even call the woman a friend.

There are no actual friends in the paddock, my girl.

You’d do well to remember that. And keep your legs closed!

She should really maybe start taking her father’s advice much more seriously.

“Not really.” Okay, so they were doing honesty? Cool. “How are you doing? A lot has happened since the Christmas party.”

“Yeah.” Micaela took a sip of champagne. “Everybody’s mad at me, aren’t they?”

Cece threw her head back and laughed. Even her guffaws were sort of elegant.

Micaela knew that she hadn’t come from money, but she’d adapted to the world she’d married into seamlessly.

Maybe she should take some sort of lesson from her.

“Honestly, you caused some chaos, but I kind of admire it.” She looked at Micaela and put a hand on her shoulder.

“No one hates you.” Then, she scrunched up her nose.

“Except for probably Brent right now. And he deserves to have his feathers ruffled, doesn’t he? ”

Brent wasn’t at the gala. It was required for drivers, but he’d refused to attend and thrown something at the guy who’d tried to wrestle him into a tux. Micaela hadn’t seen it, but it was hard not to hear within the temporary structures at the paddock.