My palms go clammy. My vision prickles with black dots.
I revise my earlier thought.
Pets, holidays, yachts, those aren’t the reasons I hate these men. I’d never fall in love with a Formula 1 driver—period. There’s nothing inside of them to fall in love with.
Chapter 4FOUR KNIGHTS GAME
SURREY, ENGLAND
“Do you mind finishing thatoutside?”
I look from the woman holding the door open for me to the latte I’m clutching. “My coffee?”
“Company rules.” She doesn’t blink. “No beverages in the lobby.”
“I’m almost done.”
“I can wait.”
Feeling my brow furrow, I finish my lukewarm latte in three large gulps. It’s mostly milk froth at this point anyway, but I’d hate to waste perfectly good froth in a country that prefers instant.
“Thank you,” says Mei, Stark-Benzin’s influencer relations specialist and my new boss, as she deigns to grant me access into the team’s headquarters. “And thank you for joining us so last-minute. You come with quite the recommendation.”
“Happy to be here.”
“Really?” Mei cocks her head. She’s a petite woman—thoughat five nine, most people are to me—with a glossy black Anna Wintour bob and owl-sharp brown eyes hidden behind impossibly cool wire-frame glasses. I cast a quick glance down at the rest of her: gray brandless turtleneck, gray Acne jeans, white Adidas Stan Smiths. A minimalist. Severe, but casual about it. “Good to hear,” she breezes on. “Do you need to set your bag down before the tour?”
“I’m good.” I shrug my purse up my shoulder. I’d gone with Loewe’s Puzzle bag for today, the original design; complicated, covetable, veryif you know, you know. And I figured my new manager would know. “After you?”
Mei smiles approvingly, and I resist the sudden and very-unlike-me urge to fist-pump. As she leads me through the lobby, I catch the glimmer of a bedazzled Sandy Liang hair clip stowed on the handle of her leather briefcase. A minimalist with a heart, who doesn’t mind throwing her short hair up to get a job done.
Too bad I’m here to emotionally destroy her race-car driver. I think we’d get along, outside that.
“By the way,” Mei adds. “I’m not planning on telling Bernard that you know Imogen. Does that work for you?”
I return her smile. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“Good.”
Mei kicks off the grand Stark-Benzin walking tour. It’s gray. Very shiny.Veryquiet. There’s an air of museum reverence, as if this lifelessly futuristic building outside Oxshott were one of the many castles in the surrounding countryside—and demands to be treated as such. I marvel at how gently Mei deposits my empty coffee cup into a stainless steel trash can, the inaudible whispers she trades with a smiling front-desk secretary, and the way she silently gestures me toward a long bank of chrome-plated elevators, each door nearly level with the wall.
When I first received my Stark-Benzin onboarding email, I’d almost broken down and texted Dad the news. This was our team. The summer after I turned eighteen, when I was packing for New York, this was the one thing we could bond over without fighting. Though now that I’m here, I’m grateful that Bernard’s nightmare-sponsorship reveal kept my nostalgia in check. Stark-Benzin is different in person, without the engines and champagne and manufactured Formula 1 glamour. They’ve always been the more stoic team—that’s why I liked them so much, opposites attract—but it’s freakishly quiet in here. Like a normal office, but somehow more sterile.
Once Mei and I are inside the silent elevator, I attempt small talk. Is it mostly inspired by the Sandy Liang hair clip and hope? Maybe.
“So, how do you like working here?”
“It’s fine. I stay busy.”
“Do you usually work Saturdays? Not that I mind coming in today.”
“Weekends are our weeks. Weeks are, too.”
“And do you live here full-time?”
“No.” She gives me a curious look, like I’m the most talkative person who’s been inside this elevator, then goes back to staring at the flat gray carpet. “Do you have a question about your relocation process? I can have our visa coordinator reach out. She works with international housing needs, too.”
“Oh, no! Thank you.” I have a thousand questions, but none of them are about my rental guest house or expedited work visas. The top being, are all Formula 1 teams this diabolically serious when there aren’t cameras around, or is this a German work culture holdover? I’ve crossed paths with my share of London men, professionally; Iknow that American levels of personality can frighten the English. But even they indulged in a little Monty Python whimsy once in a blue moon—corgis, improv, afternoon cuppas. And there was that time Renata’s cousin from Munich whisper-lectured us about how loudly Americans talk at restaurants.
