With a hum, Delaney sticks her hand out. I look at it, confused, until she makes a grabbing motion, and I realize she wants the camera in my bag. Once she’s certain it’s off, she takes my phone, then my work phone, and then inhales a deep, long breath. “I know about you and Max.”
“You… do.”
She arches a brow. “I vetted your social media before you came here. Max’s accounts were public.”
Goddamn stupid Max.“I see.”
Delaney gathers herself, chin lifting, full lips pursing with an inscrutable stare. “I get rebounding. I really, really do. But you can’t fuck Arthur Bianco, as tempting as it may be.”
“Oh, no, I amnottempted,” I rush out, feeling my face turn to a bright red crisp. “All good there.”
Her mouth twitches—amused or angry, can’t tell. “I mean it.”
“I’m not. He isn’t… he’s so loud. And intense.”
“Remember what I told you at the team dinner?” she says, ignoring my perfectly good reasons to not sleep with Arthur. “Holmes Bianco would crucify you. Think about your career.”
“Right. Exactly. Not that I think about him like that. Clearly, I’ve dated where I worked before, and that didn’t work out.”
With a quiet sigh, Delaney crosses her arms, though her elbow-drumming fingers betray her authoritarian calm. I can see the way she’s turning her brain over, dumping out the contents, and searching the scattered mess for what to say. She’d make an incredible documentarian, I bet. How she’s able to think on her toes would set her apart from the Michael Moore wannabes with mostly broken camcorders and bad attitudes.
“You know how we’ve been able to exist in public without anyone running up to Arthur, ruining the day?” she asks, more softly.
I look around the yacht. Clearly, I’ve entered a bourgeoisie bubble where aerosol hairspray is beneficial for the ozone layer and yachts are practical backdrops for ad campaigns, but I can’t really imagine the chaos she’s describing; the fans in the airport hadn’t been that annoying.
“That’s how bad it was for him in the past, when every news story was about him and his family legacy,” she says. “It would be ten times worse if he was caught in a public relations nightmare with you. The media would eat both of you alive, and I think you know that. But I think you don’t care, because you didn’t grow up in Formula 1. You don’t understand that liking a driver is pointless if you end up standing between them and a car. You’ll onlyget hurt when they pick racing over you—and it happens every single time.”
Her words throw me off guard. I’d been prepared for the think-of-your-career speech. But Arthur had been adamant that Ignition would cover this up. I wouldn’t have agreed to take this risk otherwise.
“Do you really think he and I would be that much of a disaster?” I ask.
Delaney doesn’t respond. The pupils of her deep brown eyes are like two turned-off television screens, mirroring back my own incriminating question. Then her mouth dips into a delicate frown and oh,shit. She. The radio. I’d forgotten that there was a woman. Someone who Arthur is legitimately into. Someone who would probably despise our scheme, whether she knew it was fake or not.
“Delaney, are you—you and Arthur…?”
She blinks, once, twice, and then laughs into her hand. “Absolutely not.”
Then who is it? My heart flips with an unreadable emotion as I shift my attention to Arthur. It’s cloudless today, and the bright sunlight turns his already extreme features into sharp, high-contrast shadows. He’s in normal clothes, nothing special, though his hair has been sprayed way back, old-school, and that’s an interesting sight. Worth examining.
Then suddenly, he looks up. Right at me. And it’s sort of like—I don’t know, maybe—but that doesn’t really track for him—
Orpheus.
“Graywood, are you done over there?” Arthur yells, waving, everyone looking over, photographers and other drivers, and I’m covering my face with my hands. “James was just telling me about this shop that’s nearby. Come here!”
“Shit,” Delaney mumbles. “I need way more coffee to deal with this.”
Arthur has me film the far-off store from the yacht before we disembark, and when I nearly drop my camera in the water, distracted by how the light is hitting the windows, he’s grabbing my elbow and saving the day and leading me off the boat. “Where are we going?” I keep asking, but Arthur only laughs. “And what’s so funny?”
But he just keeps shaking his head, keeps chuckling, and normally I don’t like when it’s obvious I’ve missed some social cue, but with Arthur, it feels like a game. Everything does. That could be what I felt on the plane, really—we’re just both too competitive. I’m not attracted tohim. I’m not another onlooker dazzled by his reckless persona and physics-defying body, and I didn’t lie to Delaney when I said I wouldn’t sleep with him. Not that he’d ever ask me to. He wouldn’t. And if he had walked into that Texas dive bar and offered me a rebound instead of revenge?
I would’ve said no.
After we pass Miu Miu and Hermès and Prada and stores too decadent for me to recognize—like, why would you name a clothing brand The Row? How does one pronounce Loewe?—Arthur says, “You’re overdue for your shopping montage, and I think I’m just the man to help with that.”
My excitement falters. Sure, I’d told him on the plane that I don’t want him to buy me clothes, but that’s probably code forplease buy me expensive clothesin neurotypical. Having a mostly normal brain, whatever that means, makes it so Arthur can’t understand how one hour of buttoning up constrictive jeans under painfully bright lights feels like ancient medieval torture. “Thank you,” I say, sheepish. “But remember, I’m not spending your money. It’s not right, with the film and all.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, studying me. “This store might be worth breaking some rules for. You tell me.”
