Page 16 of Full Throttle

No.

Juliette glanced down at the contract. A figure was bolded at the top, and she was suddenly glad that she’d finished her tea because she might have choked. “Is this my salary? Before tax?”

“After.” Ranya frowned. “Is it not sufficient?”

“No, I…”

Juliette stared at the figure. She knew what Cap made, but foolishly she hadn’t realized that midfield drivers made a good chunk of cash too. Her academy stipend covered a decent amount, but this?

Bloody hell.

She could buy a small private island with this.

“It’s sufficient,” she said weakly. “I’ll look over the rest while I pack.”

“Good.” Ranya swiped on some lipstick. “I’ll meet you outside in thirty minutes for some preliminary publicity photos. Wear something less…” Her eyes flicked over Juliette’s race suit. “Sweaty.”

“Got it.”

Ranya shook her head. “The first of your kind. We’re going to do great things together, Juliette Marchmont.” She turned and walked to the door, her cane tapping against the floor. “Oh, and one more thing. We’ve confirmed your teammate. We’ll brief the media this afternoon, but I wanted you to hear it first.”

Juliette waited. Her palms were sweaty. She’d been following the news, obviously; half the students at the academy had placed bets on it. Would it be the Swedish veteran who came out of retirement last year? Or maybe the American NASCAR racer who was looking for a change? She hoped the latter. She had fifty quid riding on it.

“It’s Dominic Hastings,” Ranya said.

Chapter 5

Then…

Something was different.

Juliette scanned the breakfast hall. On the surface, nothing appeared changed. Students milled around long tables, poring over books or nursing cups of coffee. Tables groaned under dishes of chai-spiced pancakes and buttered toast. Two boys were lobbing hashbrowns at each other. “Liêm is the best driver,” one was saying, “and if you watched his performance at Silverstone, you’d see that…”

“Lettie!”

Baz waved her over. He was drinking orange juice, speaking in low voices with three boys in their history class. She hurried across the breakfast hall. Whispers chased each other, although she couldn’t catch any of the words. Unsurprising, considering most were in foreign languages. Baz raised an eyebrow as she approached.

“Interesting,” he observed dryly.

Juliette looked down at her ensemble: a skirt, a hole-filled T-shirt, and a lab coat. She patted her frizzy ponytail defensively. “I was up late last night.”

“Doing what?”

“Studying,” Juliette offered, which was partly true; she’d been watching old race footage, accompanied by a twelve-sleeve of biscuits. She eyed Baz’s loose gym gear. “What are you wearing?” They had chemistry in an hour, and Professor Harding didn’t take kindly to people rocking up in what he deemed “extremely flammable clothing.”

Baz drained his juice. “You didn’t hear?” At her blank look, he continued. “Change of plans. We have a guest instructor.”

Juliette blinked. “Who?”

“Dominic Hastings.”

Juliette actually laughed. “Come off it.” They got some pretty big names at the academy, but that was like the prime minister rocking up at an Intro to Politics course. At a primary school. On the moon. Every racer worth their petrol knew who Dominic Hastings was. The Prince of Racing, as the papers called him, as if he needed any introduction.

“It’s true,” Nate cut in. “He arrived this morning.”

He was cutting into a stack of pancakes. Nate was wearing the same cologne that he always did—an overwhelmingly masculine cloud of musk—and she wrinkled her nose. Hard to believe that she’d found that scent sexy when they were dating. Even harder to believe that she’d stuck around for another four months after Nate started floating the idea of filming a sex tape to put online, but there you go. Hindsight was twenty-twenty.

Juliette poured herself a tea. “How does everyone else know about Hastings?”