Chapter 37 Hidden Injuries
Hidden Injuries
An hour later Dominic was tearing through the local hospital.
Antiseptic burned his nostrils. Everything was the sound of rattling wheels, the beep of machines, and sterile white walls.
Nausea rose in his chest. Hospitals were, in his opinion, the waiting room to hell; he’d been to them often during his mother’s chemotherapy, and he’d never planned to be in one again.
Until now.
His phone buzzed. Dominic didn’t bother to glance at the screen; his father had called six times, but that was a problem for later.
Dominic paused at a desk. The nurse looked to be in his thirties, and he was playing a game of Angry Birds. He looked up as Dominic approached.
“Hang on.” The nurse paused. “Aren’t you—?”
“Juliette Marchmont,” Dominic said breathlessly. “Is she here?”
“Are you family?”
Dominic was already brainstorming a lie involving an adoption and several remarriages when he caught a glimpse of a tabloid peeking out from a stack of files. Ah. No point then. “She’s my teammate. I need to see her.” He didn’t bother to disguise the urgency in his voice. “Please.”
The nurse glanced down the corridor. “I really shouldn’t be doing this, but…” He shoved something across the counter. “Would you sign my lanyard?”
Yes. Fine. Whatever it took. Dominic scribbled his name, and the nurse clutched the lanyard against his chest as if cradling a small child. “Take that corridor, then turn left. Third door down.”
Dominic was already turning. “Thank you.”
He sprinted through the corridor, only slowing as he approached the door.
He recognized a low voice—probably Baz—followed by a warmer tenor.
Capulet. Something coiled in Dominic’s gut; he hadn’t forgotten what Juliette had overheard her brother say, although he shoved any personal feelings about that aside. Now wasn’t the time.
Dominic stepped into the fluorescent light. Capulet’s face hardened.
“No,” Cap said. “Absolutely not.”
He was pale, his crimson race suit dangling half-open, and his brown hair stuck up in clumps. He must have been pulling at it, just as he used to when he was hunched over a particularly difficult crossword in the team garage. Normally, Dominic might have felt sorry for him, but as things stood…
Something in his chest hardened. “I want to see her.”
“Fuck no.” Cap pointed. “Get out.”
Dominic held his ground. “I just need five minutes.”
“No.”
A flicker of irritation filled him. “Let me be clear. I’m not asking for your permission.” He stepped forward. “Move.”
To his credit, Cap didn’t flinch. Just blocked Juliette’s door. “Let me guess. Ranya put you up to this? A little show for the media? After all, we can’t have the Prince of Racing looking like a heartless arsehole. Especially now that the world suspects he’s fucking my sister.”
His voice was hard and mocking, but there was an undercurrent of something else.
Fear. An animal with its foot in a trap, blindly snapping its teeth.
He’d never seen Capulet Marchmont so…whatever this was.
Dominic raised his hands; it went against every instinct not to shoulder his way into the hospital room, but he forced himself to sound calm.
“If this is about the interview, I’m sorry that’s how you found out. But I’m not sorry that I did it.” He couldn’t bring himself to be sorry about Juliette. Not even now, when his heart felt like it was cleaving apart.
Cap’s face was stone. “How long?”
There seemed no point in lying. “It started two years ago.”
“When you taught at the academy.”
“Yes.”
“Arsehole,” Cap snarled.
He lunged. Baz yanked him roughly backward. There was an irritated tic to his jaw, Dominic observed, as if Baz were forcefully swallowing words. Ah. So Baz hadn’t forgiven Cap for what he’d said, either. He couldn’t deny that the thought brought some vindication.
“We weren’t friends,” Dominic said evenly. “I didn’t owe you anything—”
“You were my teammate.” Cap’s face was white. “You were supposed to protect her. To look out for her. Not to—” He made a noise in his throat. “Do you even like her?”
Dominic could have laughed. Like was such a trivial word. He liked steak. And photography. And the smell of bonfire. But liking Juliette Marchmont? It was like asking if someone liked oxygen; there was no point determining its appeal. You couldn’t live without it. Simple as that.
“Five minutes,” he said. “That’s all I want.”
Cap crossed his arms. “Get out. Before I call security.”
“I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cap demanded. “Is that what you told yourself at the academy? That you were just making sure she was okay?” His laugh was humorless. “I’ve met a million arseholes just like you. None of you see her as a competitor. Just something to toy with.”
A terrible ringing began in Dominic’s ears. “That’s rich coming from you, after what I overheard Juliette say to you at that studio—”
He cut off abruptly. Cap blanched. For the first time, his anger seemed to waver. “You heard that?”
“I did.”
Cap looked down at his shoes. Dominic turned to Baz.
“Five minutes.” Sod it. He wasn’t above pleading. “I just need to…” I need to see her. To reassure myself that she’s alive, that she’s not dead, that my stupid rivalry with Sinclair didn’t kill her. “I won’t stay long.”
“Hastings…” Baz rubbed at his face. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” He seemed to choose his next words carefully. “She’s really shaken up. The doctors want to monitor her in case there are hidden injuries, and considering your history…We don’t want anything to agitate her.”
“But—”
“She needs rest,” Baz said, and his voice was polite but firm.
Dominic looked between the two men. He felt something in him deflate, the air rushing out like a punctured tire. Could he force his way past? Probably. He had an inch on both drivers, as well as adrenaline.
But was it worth it?
He glanced at the room. Juliette was probably curled up on a cot, hooked up to wires. She would be angry, certainly; the crash was his fault, and it had ruined their chances at the championship. Sinclair would win tomorrow. But he could handle that. Dominic wasn’t afraid of anger.
But seeing Juliette hurt…knowing that it was his fault, that he’d spun out and left her no time to brake…
Something in Dominic’s chest cracked open.
“Just tell her I stopped by. Please.”
Cap looked like there was a better chance of purple guinea pigs springing from the earth. Baz pulled at his sleeves. Blue paint caked his fingernail beds, oddly bright in the sterile white corridor. “We will.”
Dominic strode down the corridor. He made it to the waiting room before pulling out his phone: six missed calls from Ranya, two from Liêm, and a half dozen texts from various drivers and pit crew members, but it was the last text that caught his eye.
Vance: Come see me.
Sent ten minutes ago.
Dominic knocked on the door.
Paper shuffled within. A television blared—the Vegas qualifying highlights, no doubt—and the volume was lowered, but not muted.
Dominic glanced at his watch. He’d been standing here for at least a minute, which had to be a tactic; Vance liked his opponent squirming by the time he allowed them entrance.
“Come in,” Vance called.
Dominic pushed open the door.
His father stood by the window. Vance was dressed in a white suit, his hair smelling of orange pomade.
He’d put a surprising amount of effort into decorating his temporary Las Vegas space, Dominic observed; Christmas decorations littered the office: a fir tree, golden baubles, a smattering of potpourri…
He picked up a glittery reindeer; it was the sort of thing that his father used to shake his head at when they walked by Harrods.
It will never cease to amaze me, Vance used to say, how British people celebrate their god with plastic snowmen.
That had been when they still celebrated Ramadan and Eid.
The days of date-filled cookies and mint tea and offering prayers at the local mosque.
Vance nodded at a chair. “Take a seat.”
Dominic set down the reindeer. “Will this take long? I need a shower.”
His father’s face was impassive. “I saw your crash. Followed by your uncannily swift disappearance from the track.”
Irritation flickered. “And?”
“Is it true?”
“Yes,” Dominic said, deadpan. “I did ski naked in Bulgaria once.”
His father’s mouth twisted. The only sign of his displeasure. “About the girl, I mean.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Juliette Marchmont,” Vance said slowly. “Did you run to the hospital to see her?”
There was no point in lying; Vance had eyes everywhere. “Yes.” Dominic leaned against the back of his chair. “She’s my teammate.”
Vance closed his eyes. “You’re still sleeping with her too, aren’t you?
I saw that interview. Dominic, we’ve been over this.
The distraction that can be on track…” His father’s phone buzzed, and he began typing.
“It’s not worth the risk. I’ll get my lawyers on the phone.
We’ll put out a statement that you’ve ended the relationship, and—”
“I’m in love with her,” Dominic said.
The words came out of his mouth without invitation. His father looked at Dominic as if he’d sprouted a fifth limb. “What?”
“Juliette,” Dominic repeated. “I’m in love with her.”
Slowly, Vance lowered his phone. He was looking at Dominic with an expression so foreign that it took him a moment to identify it.
Pity.
“I’m sure it feels that way,” Vance said softly. “But you’re twenty-five. What do you know about love?”
More than you, Dominic wanted to say. More than you, with your empty house and your twentysomething conquests and your Christmas decorations for a holiday that you don’t believe in. He took a steadying breath.
“If you’d just—”
“It’s better,” Vance continued, “to get a jump on this. I’ll have legal meet with you in the morning. They’ll know the best way to put an end to this shitstorm.” He sat, typing something on his laptop. “My assistant will send through the details.”
It was a clear dismissal. Dominic shifted his weight.