Joy Ride Read online

  I mean, hard year.

  I survived the challenge because she had talent to spare. And I never treated her differently because she was a woman, or because I thought about her naked an obscene amount of the time. I treated her like anyone else—specifically, all the people I work with who I never ever imagine in anything less than full-on Siberian winter garb, complete with the thermals and Michelin Man coat.

  “Black heart still intact.” I tap my sternum. “Same model as before.”

  “I’d have thought you’d get an upgrade by now. Faulty parts and all.”

  “No recall needed on the ticker. It works just fine in this cruel bastard,” I say, reminding her of the words she’d uttered the day she stormed out.

  She arches a brow. “Shame. You should have let me replace it. I’m good at making all sorts of clunkers run better.”

  Jesus Christ. She still takes no prisoners. “I’ve no doubt you have all the tools to fix anything, and if you couldn’t find the right one, you’d use a blowtorch.”

  She adopts an expression of indignation. “There’s nothing wrong with using a blowtorch,” she says, taking extra time on the first syllable.

  How the hell did I ever last with this woman? Before I can even fashion a comeback, she taps her toe against the tire on Wagner’s car. “I see you still like to make your cars with big, manly wheels.”

  I roll my eyes then make a give it to me now motion with my hands. “All right, Henley. Deliver the punchline.”

  She bats her lashes. “What punchline?”

  “Big? Manly? You’re going to say it’s some sort of compensation thing going on. That’s what you always said about the guys who wanted the biggest cars with the biggest wheels.”

  She smirks. “Was I wrong in my assessment?”

  I laugh. “I don’t know. I didn’t check to see how that added up for them.”

  “Nor did I. My focus was always on the work.”

  “As well it should have been.”

  “That’s what you taught me.”

  “I’m glad you learned that lesson.”

  “I learned so many lessons from you.”

  I take a deep breath and change directions. “What was up with the badass tiger comment out of nowhere? Couldn’t you just wait till I was done to say hello?”

  She winks. “C’mon. I was just having fun.”

  “Fun? More like trying to get involved in everything.”

  She feigns shock and dances her fingertips along the hood of Wagner’s car. “I was merely being helpful and trying to land you a client. Don’t you remember? I was always trying to help you.”

  I park my hands on my hips. “Why do I feel like you’re here more to taunt me than to deliver generous humanitarian aid?”

  She clasps a hand to her chest. Her ample chest. “Taunt? Me? I was just excited to say hello to my former mentor. Forgive me for my exuberance,” she says, in a too-sweet tone. “How are you these days?”

  “I can’t complain.” I don’t know what to make of her, and I don’t know that I want to let her in. “What about you? It’s been a while.”

  “Five years. Three weeks. And two days. But who’s counting?”

  “Sounds like you are.”

  She shrugs as if it’s no big deal, then pops up on the hood and parks her sweet ass on Wagner’s car. Wagner won’t care. He likes pretty ladies, especially when they’re on his prized ride. The problem is he’ll probably want to bang Henley when he returns from signing autographs, and that’s not going to fucking happen on my watch.

  Not that I have any control over who she’s banging. But I’ll do everything I can to make sure it’s not a client of mine who gets his hands on her.

  “What brings you to this neck of the woods?” Last I heard from her she’d gone back home to Northern California to work with a rival builder there.

  She points her thumb in the general direction of Clint Savage, a burly, bearded, foul-mouthed motherfucker who kills it with some of the hottest custom rides on the planet. “I’m just booth bitching at Savage Rides,” Henley says.

  “Yeah?” That surprises me, but I don’t let on. Henley had never been just a pretty set of legs and tits at a show. She was under the hood, working on the engine, getting her hands dirty.

  She nods and smiles. “He has me pose on top of the cars. We clean up like that.” She snaps her fingers.

  “Is that so?”

  She runs her eyes up and down my body. Checks out the tribal bands on my biceps. Lingers on my chest. Well, my T-shirt. I’m not some ass who parades shirtless at a car show. I save that for when I drive with the top down. No, seriously. Do I look like a douche? I don’t drive shirtless, either.

  She straightens her spine and hops off the car. “No.” That’s all she says, but that one word comes out exactly like “No, you idiot.”

  I sigh. She still fucking hates me. “What are you doing here, then?”

  She narrows her eyes. “You think you’re the only game in town? I run a shop now in New York.”

  I didn’t keep tabs on her when she walked away in a cloud of black smoke, and I figured it was best for me not to stalk her. I needed to stay away from the kind of temptation she brought to work every day. “Good for you.”

  She sets one hand on her hip and stares at me defiantly. “You really thought I was a booth babe?”

  “You said you were here as one.”

  She huffs. “You never thought much of me, did you?”

  You don’t want to know the half of it. You don’t want to know how much I thought of you and how much of it was vastly inappropriate.

  “Henley,” I say, keeping my tone measured, “you were the most talented apprentice I ever worked with. I thought the world of your skills, and you know it.”

  She sneers, and then she pokes me. She stabs her index finger against my chest, her red-polished nail scratching me and instantly stirring up not-safe-for-work fantasies of her nails down my chest then my back.

  “Actions speak louder than words. And yours made it clear you never thought I was good enough,” she says.

  I let my gaze drift away from her eyes, down to her neck, then to her shoulder. She follows my path, then I say, “I see you haven’t had that chip removed yet from your shoulder. I know a doctor who can take care of that for you.”

  Her eyebrows shoot into her hairline, but her voice is even. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll be sure to think of you first when I’m ready to take it off, seeing as you’re the reason I have one in the first place.”

  Let me revise my assessment. A sexy chip on a fuck-hot shoulder. “Glad to know you’re finally giving me credit for something.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I gave you all the credit, and you gave me nada.” She curls her thumb and forefinger into an O. “Zilch. Zero.”

  “Don’t forget ‘goose-egg.’ Wouldn’t want you to leave out another way to describe how I robbed you of all opportunity.”

  She purses her lips and shakes her head. “I don’t know why I came over here to talk to you.”

  “That’s a fascinating question. One I’d love to know the answer to.”

  “I don’t know. Call me crazy. But I thought maybe we could have a civilized chat.”

  I laugh sharply. “You did? That’s why you inserted yourself into a conversation with a potential client with your tiger comment?”

  “It was supposed to be funny.” For once, her tone sounds hurt, as if I’ve wounded her. “You used to tease me when I got all worked up about something. You called me ‘tiger.’”

  The memory smashes back into me—the first instance I called her that. She was pissed at herself over a struggle with a transmission tunnel that nicked her left hand, and I’d said, “Easy, tiger,” before I moved in and helped her, showing her how to do it without slicing her finger off. She thanked me in the sweetest voice, and then I put a Band-Aid on the cut.

  I say nothing, maybe because I’m still lingering on the way she whispered her thank you that day f
ive years ago.

  Right now, though? She shrugs in an I-give-up gesture. “See you later, Max.”

  This woman was the most fiery, spirited person I’ve ever worked with, but I can’t let her get under my skin, or make me want to put Band-Aids on her when she can damn well do it herself. I need a new approach, especially if we’re running in the same circles.

  She turns to go, but I grab her arm. “Wait.” My voice is gentler now. “Tell me what you’re up to these days.”

  “Building cars.”

  “I figured that much from what you said. What’s your specialty?”

  The corner of her lips curves up in a smile as she moves closer—so damn close I can smell her sweet breath, and I’m half wondering how she smells so good at four in the afternoon, like cinnamon candy. But then, that was one of her many talents. Smelling good, looking good, working hard. “The kind of car I would have made with you if you’d have let me,” she says and steps one inch closer. So close I could kiss her cinnamon lips. “They’re called . . . the best.”

  She spins on a heel and walks away.

  I should call out after her. I should try harder to smooth over the past. But I’m better off letting her go. She’s far too dangerous, even though a part of me likes playing with fire.

  That part of me needs to stay the fuck away from a woman like her.

  3

  “Smell this.”

  My sister, Mia, slides a vial under my nose.

  I’m transported from the kitchen counter in my penthouse apartment in Battery Park to a tropical island. “Pineapple with a hint of coconut.”

  “And what else?”

  My eyes are closed. She wanted me to wear a blindfold, but that’s not going to happen. Ever. I sniff one more time. “Mango.”

  The vial clinks as it hits the counter, and she claps. “You still officially have the best nose in the history of noses.”

  I open my eyes. “Do I get a gold star for my olfactory system?”

  She smiles brightly, her straight, white teeth gleaming. “You win the prize for being one of the two most amazing brothers I have.”

  “Wow. That’s quite an honor, seeing as you only have two brothers.”

  “And they’re both adorable,” she says with a glint in her hazel eyes.

  I glare at her. “I’m not cute.”

  She winks. “You’ll always be cute to me.”

  I growl. “You’re lucky I don’t put you in a chokehold like I’d do to Chase.”

  Mia leans her blond head back and laughs. “You couldn’t keep me in a chokehold. I’d slip out because I’m fast and nimble. Besides, you like me too much.”

  She’s right. How could I not? She’s the baby of the family, and she’s also literally the most adorable person on earth. She’s the size of a gymnast, and she packs the same punch pound for pound. Probably because she was a gymnast growing up. She twisted her body into some serious pretzel shapes on the balance beam and floor when she was in grade school and junior high, earning medals in all sorts of competitions. Now she’s twenty-seven and an entrepreneur. She’s staying with me for the week while she’s in town for meetings, trying to land some new distribution deals for her line of cruelty-free beauty supplies.

  I tip my head to the vial on the counter. “What’s the story with your newest concoction?”

  “My chemists whipped it up. It’s a face wash, and we want to market it to men. I need to work on just the right angle when it comes to the messaging, but do you think a guy would like it?”

  “A guy who wants to smell like fruit.” I head to the fridge to grab a beer.

  She swats my arm before I open the door. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. And look, I’ve been known to fall in love with a pineapple and want to spend the night with a coconut, but no, I wouldn’t use this.”

  “Max.”

  “It smells great, and I’m sure your customers who have breasts will love it. But why are you even trying to market it to men? If you want a dude to use a face wash, just make it smell like the ocean or the woods or whatever we’re supposed to like, according to the great commercial wisdom of the world.” I wave a hand at the glass vial. “But we don’t need to smell like a tropical Popsicle stand.” I take a pause. “Though, for the record, I’d absolutely stop and get a Popsicle at such a stand.”

  “I’m trying to market to men because I want it all.” She bangs a tiny fist on the counter. “I want to market face wash to the penis-owning population, too, the same way car makers want to sell autos to people with vaginas. Don’t you have any clients with vaginas?”

  “You will never not love saying that word to me or to any man, will you?”

  She shakes her head as her eyes glint. “Vagina, vagina, vagina. Now answer the question.”

  “Do I have any clients with vaginas?”

  She gives me an I’m-so-proud-of-you look. “Yes. Do you?”

  As I grab a bottle of porter, I consider her question, and one of my favorite clients comes to mind. “A few. Like Livvy Sweetwater. I need to take her Rolls home to her later this week.”

  “And how do you market to the Livvy Sweetwaters of the world?”

  I shrug. “I just market the cars.”

  She mimes slamming her hand on a buzzer. “Wrong. You sell the sleekness. You sell the safety. You focus on the luxury. Women love luxuries. So do men. And I know you like your little luxuries, Mr. Tough Guy. You used the bath bombs I sent you the other week. I saw some missing from the cabinet. The lemongrass. And the coconut.”

  “Hey!” I bring my finger to my lips and shush her.

  “Oh, who’s listening?”

  “No one. Not when you tell such blatant lies.”

  “I never lie. And I never tell your secrets. For instance, if you ever finally fall in love, I’ll never let on that you have a soft side,” she says, then covers her mouth and laughs.

  “One, I won’t fall in love. And two, I don’t have a soft side.”

  “Your heart is a soft pillow, and you will absolutely fall in love someday.”

  Shaking my head, I take a long swallow of my beer then ask Mia if I can do anything else to help her prep for her meetings.

  She nods excitedly. “Will you come shopping with me? Pretty please? I want to look for a new sweater for tomorrow.”

  “Anything but that.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  I knock back more of the beer. “I’m allergic to shopping.”

  “I’ll take you out for burgers after.” She dangles that tempting offer in front of me.

  My ears perk up.

  She seizes the opening, nudging me and grabbing the beer bottle. She drops it in the sink, hands me my wallet and keys, and grabs her purse.

  I’ve never been good at saying no to my sister, so thirty minutes later, I’m parked on a pink chair outside the dressing room in a West Village boutique as Mia tries on clothes, showing me a sweater, then a shirt, then a royal-blue top before she returns to the small room to change.

  As I wait, I fiddle on my phone, and I swear this isn’t what it looks like.

  This isn’t me stalking Henley Rose.

  I’m not trying to find every detail on her.

  It’s not her photos I’m staring at in Google images. It’s not her face I see as she fixes up a Ferrari, looking like a scientist about to split the atom. It’s simply the photo of a focused woman who happens to detest a particular guy. A woman who claims I didn’t give her a fair shot.

  A woman who got up in my grill today.

  I clench my teeth. A woman I won’t see again, so why the fuck am I tooling around online for her? I can’t even find the name of her shop. Hell, maybe she’s not even working in New York. She might have been messing with me. That’d be her style.

  “Is there anything I can get for you?” the saleswoman calls out to Mia, and I glance away from the screen to check her out. I like what I see. The saleswoman is tight and trim and has full lips and dark red hair that would look fa
ntastic twisted around my fist.

  “I’m good,” Mia shouts from the dressing room. “I think I’ll get the turquoise sweater with the strawberry design. My brother approved it.”

  The redhead turns to me even though she answers my sister. “That sweater is perfect for you, so he has excellent taste.” Then she lowers her voice and meets my eyes fully. “Is there anything I can get for a guy with great taste?”

  Her meaning is 100 percent clear. So’s mine when I say, “Your name and number.”

  The saleswoman gives me her digits with a flirty smile and then heads off to take care of another customer.

  I save her contact info—her name is Becca—and close out the browser windows from my search. As I tap the last one, Mia appears at my side, the sweater over her arm. “Why are you looking up Henley?”

  Quickly, I stuff the phone into the back pocket of my jeans as if she didn’t catch me red-handed. “I’m not.”

  She scoffs. “Of course you weren’t. That’s just some other gorgeous, young ex-employee.”

  “Can we get that burger?”

  “Only if you tell me why you were looking up the woman who used to drive you crazy. Wait.” Mia freezes. “Is she why you’re cranky today?”

  I shake my head. “I’m not cranky.”

  “You’re so cranky.”

  “I’m a natural grouch. It has nothing to do with that woman.”

  Mia raises one eyebrow, her eyes blazing with skepticism. “I know you, Max. I know you as well as anyone. You think you’re so tough, but that woman had your number.”

  “Burger. Now.”

  Mia pays for her sweater, and we head out of the store. On the way to the restaurant, my phone rings. It’s David Winters.

  “If it’s business, just take the call,” Mia says, and so I do, talking as we stroll through the Village to my favorite spot. When I’m done, I tell Mia we might be celebrating a potential new client tonight.

  Over dinner, I give her the news from David. We toast to the possibilities.

  Later that night at my home, I scroll past Becca’s number. No doubt she’d be game for a one-night stand. But I don’t call her. It’s not just because Mia’s still in town.