Chapter Nine #3
‘What do you have to say?’ Lukas asked her and all heads swivelled towards her. Encouragement on Jennifer’s and Robert’s faces, something hard on Scott’s, curiosity on Dominic’s and Erin’s. But Lukas…he only expected an answer. Nothing more.
‘I don’t want to do it. It’s too much of a risk to my career if it ever got out. It benefits everyone but me.’
‘It benefits the network, Ms Ward,’ Scott said.
‘The higher ratings benefit you, Kat,’ Robert said in a placating tone. ‘Imagine how much further your name would go. Think about the clout you would have to negotiate your next contract.’
‘Ms Ward.’ Scott Courteney turned to face her. To intimidate her. ‘You need to be a team player and do your part. We’re all working to grow this network.’
‘No.’ Katherine refused to budge, and she could see pride in Lukas’s eyes.
Scott’s expression turned menacing. ‘Kat, do you want to work here?’
‘What just a minute—’ Lukas gritted out.
‘You can’t be serious,’ Katherine spoke over him. She glanced at the man who just tried to stand up for her, who made butterflies take flight in her belly with just a look. Just a touch. And she saw pride had turned into glittering anger.
Jennifer swivelled her chair to face Katherine. ‘We could always find other ways to maximise interest, but they wouldn’t be as mutually beneficial. Articles we could run.’
Jennifer’s gaze bored into her own and a shiver passed down Katherine’s spine.
She would run the feature article despite being asked not to.
Despite the fact that it wasn’t true. But if everyone already thought Katherine and Lukas had been together in Lapland and an article came out that was written by her attacking him, the world would tune in for the drama.
She would get a reputation for being unscrupulously ruthless and Lukas would lose any opportunities he had left.
She couldn’t do that to him. Do that to herself.
‘The visibility will definitely be good for both of you,’ Erin said, trying to diffuse the situation, but it didn’t matter because Katherine was backed into a corner.
Either she said yes or she lost her job, her reputation, Lukas’s career.
She’d worked too hard for all that she had achieved for it all to fall apart now.
Scott would fire her and hire some other new face who was passionate about the sport.
This was her dream career. And what if she said no and lost it all but Lukas’s PR team still used the idea as a Hail Mary and forced him to go with it—because she knew how much his career meant to him?
Would they find someone else to agree to this ridiculousness?
Some other woman who would get to be with him and touch him and listen to his voice and that accent she now found so endearing.
She hated the idea.
So here she was. She could agree or lose her job because of a situation with Lukas.
It’s not his fault.
No, it wasn’t but Katherine couldn’t refuse. It would cost her her career and she would not let Lukas jeopardise her job again. Never again.
‘Fine, I’ll do it,’ she said, defeat clear in her voice to all at the table.
Lukas wanted so badly to be angry at Katherine for agreeing.
It had felt like they were on the same page in their opposition to this ludicrous proposition and it had felt good.
Like maybe in this small way they could be a team.
Be something more than the nothing they were forced to be by going back to their own lives now that they had left Finland.
But he couldn’t blame her. He knew what this job meant to her and this asshole threatening her career had Lukas seeing red.
Maybe it was good she had agreed because they wouldn’t be able to blame her when he refused and brought this madness to a halt.
‘But I won’t be.’
‘Lukas—’ Dominic finally spoke up ‘—listen to them.’
He had never been more furious at his manager than right now.
‘We are all aware of your current predicament in the sport, Lukas,’ Scott said in a way that he clearly thought was charming, but really, all it did was make him come off as slimy. ‘This is your last shot.’
‘We’re all working to leverage this attention for both of you,’ Erin said.
‘Despite the negative publicity that initially made them nervous—’ she glanced briefly at Katherine ‘—teams would take you over someone in their academy or a pay-to-drive racer if they can get some sort of ROI with you. With all this attention, you would be bankable. You’d attract sponsors for the team.
Your name would be worth even more money than it already is. ’
Pay-to-drive. ROI. It was all so money dependent now.
Where did talent lie? Lukas was confident he could take any car farther up the field than any of the teams still needing drivers could currently imagine being, but he was forced to consider how he could make them money away from the track too.
As if championship winnings were no longer enough.
It made white-hot heat fill his body. Blood pound in his ears.
‘Lukas,’ Dominic said. He knew the tone well.
It was usually followed by something blunt he didn’t want to hear.
‘Do you want to have a drive next year? I’m doing all that I can.
Erin and I both are. We wouldn’t be sitting here if we didn’t think this was your best option.
There are two teams who haven’t signed a second driver and at this point I’d say they are 75 to 80 percent more likely to sign two rookies.
But we are trying our best to shift the needle here.
Trying to get them to look at you as their saving grace, because we know you can be the difference between them earning sixty million or eighty million dollars. ’
Those numbers meant that Lukas’s options were firmly at the back of the grid, but at least he would be racing.
If he could get the teams more sponsorships that meant more money and better car development, so maybe they would be able to fight even higher than that.
But it would also mean that his privacy went out the window.
That people could see who he was. That maybe they would see the boy who chose himself and imploded his parents’ happiness for his own selfish reasons.
It occurred to him that if he took the team principal job he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this nonsense. But he wouldn’t be racing. All the sacrifice would have been for nothing. How could he have cost his father so much, only to see the dream die now? He owed his father.
He had to drive.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. How awful would agreeing be?
‘Lukas?’ He was giving Katherine his attention before he had even realised that it was her voice that called him.
He wanted so badly to kick everyone out of this room and take her on the table.
Show her how crazy he had been going since they got into that helicopter yesterday.
This woman who was intelligent and beautiful.
And who had just had her career threatened.
If he said no, would he be jeopardising her career again?
He knew how much it meant to her, because he knew how much his own meant to him. Their reasons were so similar.
Instead of hurting her he could help her.
And he could have a month with her. Extend the pleasure a little longer.
Yes.
His body cried out.
‘I’ll do it.’ He was nauseous.
‘Great,’ Robert said but Lukas wasn’t looking at him. Not at any of them, but Katherine. ‘So now you will leave with Kat out the front of the building.’
‘Yes, that will result in pictures on the internet for sure,’ Erin agreed. ‘It’s best that we waste no time.’
‘We have photographers stationed strategically as well to ensure there are a number of them,’ Jennifer informed them.
‘Enough.’ Lukas brought his hand down on the glass table making everyone flinch. ‘I’ve agreed to your plan but that’s all you’re getting out of me. None of you get to dictate anything further to me or to Katherine, am I clear?’
‘Be reasonable,’ Robert pleaded.
‘All of you get out,’ Lukas said to the others.
‘Lukas…’ He heard Scott’s voice. The disapproval that he couldn’t give a damn about.
He looked only at Katherine. ‘I said get out. Leave us.’
He heard the shuffling. The footsteps. The snick of the door shutting. Once they were alone he got out of his chair and went to Katherine, taking her hand and making her stand before him.
The urge to touch her was too great, he couldn’t stop himself from running his hand up her arm, over her shoulder, cupping her cheek. His thumb caressed her porcelain skin.
Are you okay? he wanted to ask. Are you sure you want to do this because I don’t, he wanted to say, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. The future of their careers was hanging over their heads. What choice did either of them have if they wanted to hold on to their dreams?
Katherine seemed to understand what he wanted to say.
‘It won’t be forever,’ she whispered.
‘It won’t.’ But it felt like they were talking about so much more than this plan.
They had another chance to be together. Weeks this time.
Hours and hours to indulge the chemistry that was still so potent Lukas had to fight to stop himself kissing her here.
But he would have to kiss her, and there would be pictures.
His life that he had worked so tirelessly to keep private would be advertised for the world to see.
How could one person want something so badly and so utterly hate how they were getting it?
He was selling out his principles to keep his racing career alive. For a bit of time with Katherine. His father had always taught him to stand up for his beliefs, but he’d caved. What would he think of Lukas if he could see him now?