Page 146 of Full Throttle

Blake disappeared down the corridor. Juliette glanced at her watch.

Five minutes.

She pushed through the rotating glass doors. Covent Garden was a crush of Christmas music and gloved shoppers cradling hot cocoa. Artificial snow drifted from a champagne bar, dusting the towering pine tree with icing sugar. She spotted Ranya sitting on a bench by a street performer; her team principal was bundled in a thick woolen coat, her dark hair pulled back into a crisp knot.

“I assume you came for this,” Ranya said without turning.

She held out a stack of papers. Juliette settled on a bench, burrowing further into her scarf. She weighed the contract in her hand.

“Bigger than I thought it’d be,” Juliette observed.

Ranya shifted her cane. “You’re worth more money now.”

“Ah.”

“Do you want to read it before you sign it?” Ranya asked, although the question was clearly rhetorical. She wasn’t holding out a pen.

Juliette nodded. “I’ll get my lawyer to look at it.” Bizarre to think she actually had one of those now.

She pushed the papers into her bag. The street performer was balancing on a pile of stacked chairs, his hands held out for balance.

Ranya tipped her head back. “I used to train here when I was your age, you know.” Her frozen breath hung in clouds. “These exact streets. I’d time myself to see how fast I could sprint from Holborn to Covent Garden. Sometimes I’d do it hungover in the rain, just to challenge my body to withstand pain.”

A passing vendor cast them a curious glance, and Juliette pulled her baseball cap lower. “I read an interview with you, once. You told a reporter that you’d grip ice cubes before races for the same reason.”

Ranya’s mouth quirked. “I was a self-destructive little thing.”

“You would have won,” Juliette said softly. “Given the chance.”

She’d seen Ranya’s lap times before the accident; she would have outdriven every male competitor on that track. Easily. But Ranya shook her head.

“No.” She sounded almost rueful. “I wouldn’t have. But I don’t have what you do.”

“Delusional self-confidence?”

Ranya turned. “A head for strategy. And a refusal to accept defeat.”

“You have both those things.”

“Well,” Ranya said. “That’s nice of you to say.”

They lapsed into silence. The street performer flipped onto his hands, the tendons in his arms straining as the crowd cheered. Juliette glanced at her watch. Three minutes before she’d have to book it toward the airport. Something tightened in her chest. Sadness, perhaps, or maybe nostalgia. That was the trouble with emotions: They tangled together like fishing wire around a reel.

She cleared her throat. “Ranya? Are you disappointed in me?”

Ranya raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware you could do better than gold.”

She looked down at her gloves. “Not about that. Do you remember what you said that night at the hospital? About relationships and racing not mixing?”

“Ah,” Ranya said slowly. “About Dominic being a distraction.” Her profile was wreathed in the glow of a Christmas tree. “Do you remember what I told you? About how I met Vance Hastings?”

Juliette paused. She watched as a child tiptoed over some fake snow, being careful not to tread too heavily. “Your car broke down.”

“Yeah.” Ranya met her gaze. “And I wish he’d never had those damn jumper cables.”

Coins jingled. The street performer was passing around a hat.

Juliette swallowed. “Those pictures…Were they his fault?”