Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 121054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
“My what?”
“Your Zogani Panda. That car that looks like a bug from the front.”
“The Pagani Zonda,” he corrected me, even more amused at my anger now.
“Whatever! Neil, I don’t want you to get hurt!” Panic clutched my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I teetered on my heels to slump down on the edge of the bed.
He came to sit beside me and put his arms around me. “Sophie, I won’t get hurt.”
“You can’t promise me that,” I reminded him. I leaned my cheek against his shoulder and hoped I wouldn’t get my foundation on him. “You just think you can because you’re an egotistical control freak.”
“I’m a good driver, and I don’t take unnecessary risks,” he promised. “You’re coming out to the track today. You can see for yourself.”
“Okay, but no races.” It was immature of me, but if he was going to do something dangerous, I didn’t want to hear about it or be near when he did it. Denial was the only thing that would keep me sane. “Just take me out, impress me with your fast, fancy car, and don’t die or kill me while you do it.”
The track where Neil drove—and housed some of his car collection—was a private facility in Connecticut. To drive there, you had to have the money to pay your share of the state-of-the-art track’s upkeep and cover garage fees, and membership was by invitation only. It was a rich guy club with life-sized toy cars.
Neil drove us there in his Hennessey Venom GT Spyder. It was the most expensive of all his male ego validation vehicles, and I was always afraid he’d take it out on the street and get into a fender bender. Not to mention the fact that the seats were about as comfortable as an ergonomic chair designed by someone with backwards knees. My ass was thoroughly asleep by the time we reached our destination after two and a half hours.
I fluffed my hair—though it didn’t need it, after all the hairspray I’d used—and reapplied my lip gloss. “Okay, so what am I doing here? Mostly silent arm candy?”
“Never! Besides, we won’t spend much time socializing. I just want to show you around the place. Acquaint you with the safety regulations and protocols—”
“I get it,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “How can you guys even drive out here in the winter?”
“Heated track,” he said, as though it were the easiest answer in the world. “The cars handle differently in the cold, obviously, but there isn’t ice or snow to worry about.”
I was expecting a hangar with wide-open garage doors and guys in NASCAR suits running around pushing tires. Instead, we pulled up outside a building that was part car dealership, part country club. Neil tossed his keys to a valet and said, “I have a two o’clock slot reserved.” To me, he added, “All four miles.”
“Four miles?” I gaped at him as we walked toward the doors. “I was imagining a little oval.”
He laughed, an “Oh, you,” kind of laugh. “No, I would not pay these yearly membership dues for ‘a little oval’. It’s four miles, a few curves, with long straight sections and no speed limits. The Hennessey is the fastest street legal car in the world. Do you fancy going two-hundred and seventy miles per hour?”
“No!” I shrieked, and my voice was a bit too loud as we stepped through the doors and into the building.
There was a showroom aspect of the main building that was impossible to miss; cars parked behind velvet ropes lined the path to a reception desk, where Neil flashed a membership card. The blonde girl behind the counter smiled wide and nodded to me, and as we passed, she said, “I like your boots!”
“Thanks!” I called back as we walked. Then, to Neil, I said, “Where are we going? Why did we leave the car with a valet? What are we going to drive? Can I just stay here and hang out with the girl who has good taste?”
“They’ll take the car and give it a look over; check the tires and the fluid levels—”
“The brakes?” I interrupted hopefully.
“Yes, and the brakes,” he told me. “Right now, we need to get you into a helmet.”
There was a room at the back with huge windows that looked out on the track. The white metal framing around them broke up the sunlight into long squares on the black-and-white checked carpet.
“So, this place fulfills all your little boy Formula One fantasies, does it?” I teased. Two giant televisions broadcast the news on one screen, a car channel on the other.
“Says the woman who actually cried on her first shopping excursion to Barney’s,” he shot back. Damn, I really wished I hadn’t told him about that.
There were wide lockers across the back of the room. I counted them. “Hey, are there only thirty-six members?” I asked, counting them again, because I was sure I’d missed a couple.