Chapter 2 Welcome to Blackthorn

~Valentina~

“Valentina. Welcome to Blackthorn.”

He shook my hand.

“Thank you for having me.”

“We’re delighted to have you. Your return has attracted considerable interest, and I believe this partnership could become something extraordinary.”

I smiled politely.

Partnership.

That was one way to describe it.

Richard introduced me to the chief engineer, the performance director, and several senior members of the team. They all seemed perfectly pleasant, which made me suspicious. In my experience, the most troublesome people rarely announced themselves at the beginning.

Finally, Richard gestured towards the empty chair beside him.

“Before we begin, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

I knew before I turned my head.

Perhaps it was the silence that settled over the room, or the way the people around the table suddenly became very interested in their documents.

Perhaps it was simply that my body remembered Joe Jevon before my mind could prepare itself.

He stood near the far end of the room, dressed in black trousers and a fitted white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His hair was slightly longer than it had been three years earlier, and a faint scar crossed the side of his left hand.

He looked older… well not that much older but enough for me to notice the small changes around his eyes and the tiredness he seemed to carry beneath his composed expression.

For one terrible second, I was twenty two again, standing beside him in a paddock, laughing at something he had said while he watched me as though I were the only person in the room.

Then he looked directly at me.

The memory disappeared.

“Valentina.”

My name sounded different in his voice.

I hated that I noticed.

“Joe.”

Richard glanced between us.

“I’m glad you two have finally met properly. JJ will be working closely with you throughout the season. He’ll oversee your development programme, help you adapt to the car, and work with the engineers to make sure you’re prepared for every race.”

“How generous of him,” I said.

Joe’s expression remained unchanged.

“Richard has explained the arrangement.”

“Then you know how unnecessary it is.”

A few people around the table shifted in their seats.

Richard cleared his throat. “I believe this will be a productive partnership.”

“That depends on your definition of productive.”

“Valentina,” Marcus murmured from beside me.

I ignored him.

Joe moved towards the table, pulled out the chair opposite mine, and sat down.

“I understand that you have concerns about working with me.”

I laughed without humour.

“Concerns? Is that what we’re calling it?”

His jaw tightened.

“We have a season to get through. I suggest we focus on the work.”

“The work?” I repeated. “You mean driving?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. I thought you might suggest we discuss the last time we shared a track.”

The room went silent. Richard looked at Joe, clearly waiting for him to respond.

Joe did not look away from me.

“If you want to discuss the accident, we can do that privately.”

“Why? Afraid someone might hear something they shouldn’t?”

His fingers tightened around the pen in his hand.

It was a small movement, barely noticeable, but I saw it.

And I was glad he was uncomfortable.

Let him spend even a fraction of the time feeling what I had felt when I woke up in a hospital and learned that the future I had worked towards for most of my life had become a question mark.

“Valentina,” Richard said carefully, “we understand that the circumstances surrounding your injury were difficult, but this is a professional environment.”

“You’re right. It is. Which is why I expect to be treated like a professional driver rather than a charity project.”

Nobody spoke.

I looked at Joe.

“And I certainly don’t need him to teach me how to drive.”

For the first time since I had entered the room, his expression changed.

Not anger.

Something else.

Something that looked dangerously close to disappointment.

“You might be surprised by how much you still have to learn,” he said.

I smiled at him.

“And you might be surprised by how quickly I can learn it.”

Richard announced that the meeting would begin in five minutes, which was his diplomatic way of ending the conversation before I said something that would make the team’s lawyers nervous.

People began gathering their documents.

I stood, intending to leave before Adrian could find another reason to speak to me, but his voice stopped me.

“Valentina.”

I turned.

He was standing beside the table now, close enough that I could see the faint shadows beneath his eyes.

“I know you don’t want me here,” he said quietly. “But the board has made its decision, and neither of us can change it.”

“Watch me.”

“I’m not asking you to like me.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I’m asking you to let me do my job.”

I stared at him.

Three years ago, I had trusted this man with my life.

I had sat beside him in a restaurant after a race and listened to him talk about the future. I had allowed myself to believe that he was different from the other men who treated racing like a game and everyone around them like pieces on a board.

Then he had driven onto that track, and I had watched my life fall apart.

“You had your chance to do your job three years ago,” I said. “You failed.”

Something flickered across his face.

For a moment, I thought he might finally say what I had spent three years waiting to hear.

An apology.

An explanation.

Anything that might make the memories less difficult to carry.

Instead, he stepped aside to let me pass.

“I’ll see you at the track tomorrow morning. Six o’clock.”

I stopped.

“Excuse me?”

“Your first training session begins at six.”

“Who said I agreed to that?”

“The board.”

“Tell the board to drive my car themselves.”

“I would, but I doubt they’d make it through the first corner.”

I stared at him, genuinely offended by the fact that he had managed to irritate me and make me want to laugh within the same sentence.

His mouth twitched.

The bastard was almost smiling.

“Six o’clock, Valentina.”

I walked past him without answering.

I made it halfway down the corridor before I heard his footsteps behind me.

“One more thing.”

I turned so quickly that he stopped.

“What?”

His expression had changed again. The faint amusement was gone, replaced by something serious enough to make my stomach tighten.

“When you get into the car tomorrow, don’t try to prove anything to me.”

I folded my arms.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

He looked at me for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter.

“You don’t have to win every corner to prove you belong on that track.”

I felt the words land somewhere I had spent three years trying to protect.

For one terrible second, I wondered whether he knew.

Whether he had seen the way my hands sometimes trembled before a race. Whether he had noticed that I avoided watching footage of the accident. Whether he understood that the worst part of my return had never been the pain in my leg, but the fear that the woman I had been before the crash no longer existed.

Then I remembered who he was.

Joe Jevon did not get to speak to me as though he understood me.

Not after everything.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said, “I’ll show you exactly why you should have stayed out of my way.”

I turned and walked towards the exit.

This time, he did not follow me.