Page 149 of Full Throttle

“Have you ever watched your crash in Vegas? When you collided with Sinclair?”

Dominic cleared his throat. “Once.” He’d watched it on YouTube last year, out of morbid curiosity, and immediately wished he hadn’t; his car rotated six times before crashing into the barriers. No wonder he’d smashed up his wrist.

Vance’s dark eyes were steady. “Then you’ll have seen how your car almost flips. But that wasn’t the most dangerous part. Your engine was under severe levels of stress; if you’d pushed it for another thirty seconds, it would have exploded. You could have been trapped in a burning car, upside down.”

Something messy knotted in his chest. “Our race suits are fireproof.”

“Not that fireproof.” Vance looked down at the golf clubs. “Do you know what I did after that race?”

“Dad—”

“I got down on my knees,” Vance said, “and prayed to Allah that you would survive without injury. And after you did, I called our shareholders and told them we were dropping you. With immediate effect.”

“Why?”

“I’d already lost your mother,” Vance said. “I couldn’t lose you too. I’m not proud of what I did, but it was to keep you safe.”

Dominic’s heart pounded. “Bullshit. You couldn’t give a toss the last time that I crashed.”

“Of course I cared.”

“You kept me waiting outside your office. Like a nuisance.”

“Because I needed to compose myself,” Vance said tightly, pressing three fingers to his forehead. “Because I was worried that I’d—”

“That you’d what?”

Vance looked away. “No man wants to cry in front of his son.”

The fizzy drink shifted. Vance moved instinctively to save it, his racer’s reflexes sharp as ever, but the papers scattered across the floor. Dominic crouched, suddenly glad for the excuse to look elsewhere. He scanned the pages absently. Checks, NDAs, and…something called Project Arc? Could that be a French racing team, like the Arc de Triomphe?

“I’ve got it,” Vance said.

He snatched up the remaining papers, stuffing them hastily away in his bag, and Dominic felt something twinge in his chest. Definitely a new racing team. Even now, he couldn’t help but feel a stab of resentment that his father didn’t want him involved.

Dominic cleared his throat. “Look, you don’t have to explain—”

“I told you to quit,” Vance cut in, gripping his mobile. “After your crash with Sinclair last season, I called every team principal and begged them not to hire you. Whatever it took. Threats, bribery, favors…And all of them listened. Except one.”

“Ranya,” Dominic surmised.

Vance nodded. “I wasn’t so different from you, you know. When I met Ranya, I was twenty-five and at the top of my game. I thought I was invincible. And then a year later, she had that crash and it changed everything. I couldn’t even get in a car for six months. Just the smell of gasoline…” His throat worked. “I retired that year. Started as an assistant manager instead.”

“You really liked her.”

“Something like that,” Vance said with a small smile, echoing his words.

“I thought you hated each other.” God only knew they acted like it.

Vance set down the phone. “It’s not…” He hesitated. “She blamed me for the article that destroyed her career. The photographer who took the picture…I had history with him. The week before the accident, I’d mouthed off at him in a pub. Told him to go fuck himself.”

“So he took that picture.”

Vance’s mouth tightened. “The bastard knew that the easiest way to get to me was to go after the woman that I—” He broke off. Loved, Dominic realized with a pang. That’s what his father had been about to say. “Anyway, I sued the idiot—sued the whole damn newspaper—but Ranya never forgave me.”

“She thought it was your fault.”

“Yes.” Vance paused. “Afterward, her team asked if I was interested in going on television to talk about the challenges that women face in the sport.”