Page 20 of Lights Out (Love in the Paddock #1)

“Do you mind if I take off my jacket?” Caleb asks. “I hate being so formal.”

“No, not at all,” I say.

He slips out of the tuxedo jacket and drapes it over a chair at the conference table.

I study how the white tuxedo shirt stretches across his lean, sculpted body.

I notice he has platinum cufflinks in his cuffs, which tells me Caleb pays attention to details.

But he still has the stack of bracelets on his left wrist, rows of black leather alternating with silver ones, and a huge platinum watch, too.

It’s very, very hot.

“Now, if we were in a coffeehouse, I’d be asking what you want to drink,” he says. “But it looks like tonight all I can ask is if you want decaf or regular.”

I smile at that. “Ask me why I need decaf.”

“Isla, why do you need decaf?”

Isla, Isla, Isla.

Not that I’m a narcissist, but I think I could hear Caleb say my name all day long and not grow tired of it.

“I need decaf because I will have wretched insomnia if I don’t. There. Spoken like a little old lady. Still interested in getting to know me?”

The corners of his mouth tip up in a playful smile as he leans against the conference table, spreading his palms behind him casually.

GOOD GOD, HE LOOKS LIKE A MODEL IN A PHOTOSHOOT.

“You might be up for a different reason tonight,” he says.

I stare at him.

“Hopefully you will be up thinking about this date. And me.”

Ooh!

“Well, that remains to be seen,” I say, flashing him a flirty smile. “Our coffee date has just started.”

“Don’t worry. I know I have to earn a place in your thoughts.”

I look at him. There’s nothing but an expression of sincerity on his handsome face.

God, I like this about him. Caleb is an F1 driver. Rich beyond belief, heir to a motor-car legacy, and one of the most handsome men I have ever seen. He could have anyone. At any time.

Without having to work for it.

But here he is in a conference room, having a cup of coffee, merely to spend time talking to me.

I pour myself a cup of decaf and put some milk into it. Caleb pops off the end of the conference table and moves next to me, reaching for a cup and selecting the fully caffeinated carafe.

“I can sleep no matter what,” he declares. Then he makes a face. “Unless I have a bad race. Then I’m too pissed off to sleep well.”

“Do you go over your mistakes in your head?” I ask, watching as he puts milk into his cup.

“I relive those moments on a loop. Then when I finally go to sleep, I wake up with a clear head. And ideas of how not to repeat those mistakes.” Caleb motions to the two club chairs in the room. “Let’s sit over here. We can pretend it’s more like a café than a boardroom.”

“We need music,” I say, walking over and setting my cup on a table between the chairs before I take a seat.

Caleb sets his coffee down. Then he reaches inside his pants pocket and retrieves his phone. “Spotify will have a playlist for that,” he says as he sits. I notice he stretches out his legs again, and how long he is.

I wonder how uncomfortable he is sitting in the cockpit. He’s definitely one of the tallest drivers in Formula 1.

But I’m not going to ask him that tonight.

I don’t want to focus on his F1 career, unless he brings it up.

I want to see if I have the same chemistry I’ve had with him before, but not as the subject of content creation or an interview.

I want to see if that chemistry exists when I’m with him as Caleb Collings, the man.

“Christ, there are like a million variations of coffeehouse music,” he says, scrolling through his phone. “Coffeehouse jazz. Acoustic. Morning mix. This is complicated.”

I giggle at that. “Complicated?”

“Well, yeah, if I pick a shit playlist, it could ruin our date.”

“So we can overcome being in a sterile conference room with bad overhead lighting, but we can’t overcome selecting the wrong playlist? Show some faith, Caleb!”

He chuckles, and I love that I drew that out of him.

“Do you have a preference?” he asks, continuing his search for the optimal music for our conference room date.

“No. Just roll the dice.”

“Is that what you are doing tonight?” Caleb asks, lifting his eyes from the screen to meet mine. “Rolling the dice?

OOH!

“I don’t play games,” I say, reaching for my cup of coffee and taking a sip. “So I won’t start now. Yes, I’m rolling the dice. To find out who you are outside of the man who’s known for having ice in his veins on the track.”

His gaze stays on me as he taps a button on his phone, and light, jazzy, instrumental music fills the air. Just like that, he’s shown me he’s rolling the dice tonight, too.

“When I put down my visor,” he says slowly, parking his phone on the table between us, “I become a different person. I’m only thinking about one thing. How I’m going to attack the track I’m on. How I’m going to outrace Xavier and Mason. And that’s all I think about. It’s all about winning.”

“As it should be.” I smile at him. “I have a million questions for you.”

His mouth tips up into a sexy smile. “As you should, being a reporter.”

“Okay, but none of them are related to racing.”

“Do you want me to elaborate on shrimp foam sweets?”

I shudder. “Ew, NO.”

He laughs. I feel a warmth spread through my chest at the now-familiar sound of it.

“Then go on. What are your burning questions for me?”

“Okay, I have one race-adjacent thing to tell you first, before I ask you questions,” I say. “The Downforce Network loved the interview. LOVED IT. So much so that they’ve given me an assignment this week. I’m going to do a grid walk for the Formula 2 sprint race on Saturday!”

Caleb’s eyes light up. I can tell he’s just as excited as I am that I get the opportunity to walk around talking to people—possibly even drivers—as the cars are on the grid before the start of the race. “Isla, that’s brilliant!” he says.

“I know! I can’t believe I’m going to do it. I mean, I’ve watched them for years now on The Downforce Network, but to think I’m the one walking the grid? It’s huge for me. Even if I never get to do another one, I’ll have this.”

“You’ll get to do more,” Caleb says firmly. “Eventually for F1.”

I smile at him. “Well, that would require eliminating Jayne Scott, and I’m not that ruthless.”

Jayne is a longtime reporter for The Downforce Network, and the grid walk is HER THING.

Caleb lifts an eyebrow. “This is good information to know. I’d hate to be eliminated for treating you to conference room coffee and a shit playlist tonight.”

“You’re safe,” I assure him. Then I grow serious. “But I have to thank you again. Because everything that is happening in my career right now is because of you.”

“Not true. I gave you a tour of a motorhome. If you were terrible, it would have ended right there. You’ve run with the rest of this. I even gave you the chance to ask me anything and you didn’t take it—and you’re still getting opportunities. That means you’re good at what you do.”

I feel a flush climb up my neck and cheeks. “Well, I know where it came from. So thank you.” Then I clear my throat. “Okay, I’m coming back to burning questions. Feel free to put down an imaginary visor if you don’t want to answer any of them.”

“Noted,” he says, his eyes sparkling at me.

“What do you like about living in Monaco? Besides the fact that you don’t have to pay taxes.”

“Ooh, starting off cheeky, aren’t you?”

I smile. “Perhaps.”

“Just remember, I’ll give you the cheek right back,” Caleb counters.

This is one of the reasons why I’m here. The banter is off the charts with Caleb—and it’s such a turn-on.

“I expect it,” I say, flashing him a mischievous smile. “So tell me about Monaco.”

“Taking the tremendous tax advantage out of the equation, Monaco is beautiful. The weather is outstanding. Lots of sun. The sea is right there, so are the mountains, and it’s a great central location for all the global travel I have to do.

I can bike, run the hills, swim, all things that are good for my training.

There’s a lot of security, which I also like.

A lot of drivers live there, so I can hang out with friends, too. Why are you in Miami?”

“Well, I’m not there for a tax break, but because it’s where I’m from. I was born and raised there. I only left to go to Georgia for school, actually.”

“Do you want to stay there?” Caleb asks.

“That’s an interesting question. It’s home base, but my hope is to get on with The Downforce Network. If that happens, I need to move to the UK, just so it’s more practical for travel, meetings, et cetera. Or at least have some kind of a base there. But for now, it’s commuting from Miami.”

“So is your family all in Miami?”

I nod. “Yes. I’m an only child, so it’s my parents and me.” I pause for a moment. “I’m embarrassed to say this, but I’m still living at home with them in Miami Beach.”

“Why are you embarrassed? You’re just starting your career. Flats are expensive.”

“I have a goal to be moved out within six months of landing a full-time job. Or whenever I have enough freelancing assignments that I can move out and support myself.”

“That won’t be long now,” Caleb says.

“I actually got some sponsorship proposals based off my video with you in the garage. But I’m carefully considering those. I’ll only agree to sponsorships with products that fit into the brand I’m trying to build.”

I think of the ads I’ve seen Caleb in. He’s a brand ambassador for a high-end hotel chain and promotes a non-alcoholic beer.

He’s also the face of a super-expensive cologne, having done a sleek advertising campaign for it—and the clips from that have landed on a million Connectivity Story Share edits.

I might be guilty of watching one or two.

Or twenty.

Time to shift to the next question before I get myself into trouble and blurt out something stupid.

Like telling him how gorgeous he looked in that TV commercial.

“Who is the person you talk to the most?” I ask. “And by talk, that can be actually talking to or texting.”