Chapter 1 No way

~Valentina~

The first time I saw my name printed next to Joe Jevon's, I assumed someone at Blackthorn Racing was playing a very expensive joke on me.

I read the line on my laptop four times, waiting for the words to rearrange themselves into something less offensive.

As part of her development agreement, Miss Valentina Cross will receive direct performance training and race preparation under the supervision of Joe Jevon, three-time World Champion and lead driver for Blackthorn Racing.

Then I laughed. Nothing about it was funny, but the alternative was hurling the laptop through the window, and since it had cost me a small fortune, that seemed a daft way to mark the biggest opportunity of my life.

"Absolutely not."

Marcus, my agent, didn't glance up from his phone. "You haven't finished the contract."

"I don't need to. I got to the part where they want me spending a whole season being trained by the man who nearly killed me."

"He didn't nearly kill you."

I turned my head slowly, and Marcus finally looked up.

"Right," he said. "Poor choice of words."

"Three years, Marcus. Three years of surgery and physio and waking at night because I could still hear metal crushing around me. Three years of people asking if I'd ever race again, like my life ended the day I stopped winning. And now, just as I get another seat, I'm meant to smile, shake Joe Jevon's hand and let him teach me how to drive?"

"You already know how to drive."

"So why do I need him?"

"Because he's the best on the grid."

"He's also the reason I spent six months learning to walk without help."

Marcus sighed and put the phone down. "Valentina, I know you hate him."

"Wonderful. We've established I'm emotionally intelligent."

"But you need this contract."

That took the humour out of the room. I looked back at the screen.

Blackthorn Racing. The team every young driver dreamed about, with its title-winning cars, its brilliant engineers, sponsors whose names were bolted to the sides of skyscrapers, and a garage that cost more to run than most people would earn in several lifetimes. And they had offered me a full-time seat in the World Championship. Not a reserve role, not a development place, not some temporary arrangement that would vanish the moment someone decided I was too much trouble. A real seat.

My name would be on the official entry list next to the best drivers in the world. I would race every weekend, represent the team, and get the chance to prove my comeback was more than a feel-good story for sports journalists. It was everything I'd worked for since the accident.

They had simply attached one condition that made me want to set the contract on fire.

"If I refuse the training arrangement," I said, "what happens?"

Marcus hesitated, and I hated that. Hesitation was usually the moment someone started dressing up bad news as a sensible business decision.

"The board can withdraw the offer."

"They can what?"

"They've put a lot of money into this season, and they want their two drivers working closely together. JJ's been with Blackthorn for five years. He knows the car, the engineers, the circuits, how the team operates. They think his experience will help you adapt faster."

"They could hire a driving coach."

"They want Joe Jevon."

"They could hire three driving coaches."

"They want JJ, Valentina."

I pushed my chair back and stood. For a moment I couldn't speak, so I went to the window and looked down at the street, where people drifted by with shopping bags and takeaway coffees, blissfully unaware that my future was being held hostage by a man I'd spent three years trying to forget.

I had pictured this day so often. The contract, the team, the first race. In some versions, I won my debut and watched the whole paddock scramble for words because I'd come back better than before. In others I stood on a podium while the people who'd written me off applauded. Not once had I imagined standing in an agent's office, deciding whether I could bear Joe Jevon's company long enough to earn the right to race.

"I want it in writing," I said.

Marcus frowned. "Want what in writing?"

"That Joe has no authority over my contract, my race strategy or my place on the team. He can advise me. He doesn't get to make my decisions."

"I can ask for that."

"And an independent engineer on my car."

"That might be difficult."

"Then they can enjoy watching me leave."

He stared at me for a few seconds, then reached for his phone. "You're going to age me prematurely."

"Good. Maybe you'll finally develop some character."

He muttered something about ungrateful athletes, which I chose to take as admiration.

When the call ended, he told me Blackthorn had agreed to my terms, as long as I came to the team's welcome meeting that afternoon. I signed before he could change his mind.

My hand shook a little as I wrote my name, and I hated that too. It wasn't fear of what came next. It was that three years earlier I'd signed another contract with the easy confidence of a girl who thought she had her whole life mapped out.

I'd been nineteen when I joined my first professional programme, and by twenty-two I was one of the youngest drivers ever to qualify for a major international championship. I had sponsors, a promising career, and a father who watched every race with the kind of pride that made me want to win even when my body was begging me to stop.

Then Joe Jevon walked into my life, and everything changed.

⸻

Blackthorn took up a whole wing of the championship's headquarters: glass offices, a spotless reception, and a vast display of trophies beneath the team's name.

The first thing I saw as I came through the doors was the photograph.

Joe stood on a podium in his black racing suit, one hand around the championship trophy, his face calm beneath a spray of champagne. He looked younger there, though not by much, and his dark hair fell over his forehead in a way that made him seem almost approachable.

Almost.

I stopped in front of it. Three world championships. Five years with Blackthorn. A reputation that had journalists tripping over one another whenever he agreed to an interview. And a smile I had once seen on my phone so many times that I'd memorised its exact shape.

I was twenty-two when I met him, and he was twenty-five, already a champion, already famous, and already carrying himself like a man who'd never had to explain himself to anyone. It was at a sponsor event before the season started. He found me beside a display car, arguing with an engineer about suspension settings, and listened to the entire exchange without interrupting.

When I finally noticed him, I asked if he wanted something.

He smiled. "Nothing. I was just wondering how long it would take you to realise you were arguing with the wrong person."

I laughed, and so did he.

After that he became an unexpected fixture in my life. He gave me racing advice, sent me recordings of his practice sessions, and sometimes rang late at night to talk about everything from tyre management to the strange pressure of being young and ambitious in a sport that could end a career before it properly began. I admired him. I trusted him. And though I never admitted it to anyone, I'd started falling for him.

Then came the race, the collision, the hospital.

I turned away from the photograph before the memories could drag me somewhere I didn't want to go.

"Miss Cross?"

A receptionist was smiling at me from behind the desk. "The team is expecting you."

"Of course they are."

She led me along a corridor lined with framed photographs of past victories. I recognised several of the drivers, but my eyes kept straying to the glass walls and the people moving behind them. Engineers frowned at data on huge monitors. Staff hurried between rooms with armfuls of equipment. A cluster of mechanics stood around a car stripped of its body panels, discussing numbers I'd rather not calculate before lunch.

This was where I belonged. Not in a hospital bed or a physio room, and not at home watching races on television while strangers debated whether my injury had ruined me for good. Here, on the grid, in a car, winning.

I lifted my chin and followed her into the conference room.

The team principal, Richard Sterling, was waiting beside the table. He was in his early fifties, with silver hair, an expensive watch, and the sort of pleasant expression that made it impossible to tell whether he actually liked you or was just waiting for you to become useful.