Overtake (Speed Dating #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX | SUNDAY | RACE DAY

The massage table feels too bloody soft tonight. I can’t find the usual dips in the padding for my shoulder blades, and every adjustment I make is pissing me off. I’ve been lying here for twenty minutes, but my pre-race visualization isn’t sticking.

Come on, Petra. Dial it in.

I flatten my palms against the table, fingers spread wide, grounding myself. This routine should quiet the static in my head, but tonight the focus I need is elusive.

Singapore’s Marina Bay Street Circuit skips through my mind in fragments instead of clear lines, and I have no feel for the apexes. This is one of my favorite tracks. It’s where I won my first F4 championship, but tonight all its familiarity and flow are missing.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, but I’m distracted thanks to Kelley Hayter-Morrison, the woman who birthed me.

She pops into my life every so often to remind me what an irritant she is.

Like she did today with a series of online posts about my “natural beauty” and how she made sure to teach me “the importance of self-care and proper hygiene from an early age.” As if she’s had any involvement in my life since she disappeared from it twenty years ago.

Vomit.

“Take your time, Tonka.” My elder cousin, Jacintha, uses the nickname she gave me when were still kids—yes, after the supposedly indestructible American toy trucks.

She’s leaning against the wall of my driver’s room, ready to help me with whatever I need.

But Cin knows better than to push when my brain’s locking up.

Beside her, my gear is organized with military precision.

Helmet on the left side of the counter. Balaclava rolled tight beside it.

Earpieces looped cleanly. Gloves folded together, socks rolled and tucked into my right racing shoe, ruby zoisite worry stone in the left.

Every piece has its place because every detail matters to me.

Fuck it.

I sit up. “I’m ready.” Lie. But I need to do something. The room’s white walls feel closer than they should tonight.

My cousin’s dark eyes find mine in the mirror as she pockets my spare gloves. Cin’s been my physio—my performance coach—for a decade. Long enough to recognize every micro-expression I try to hide. “Want to discuss her posts?”

“No.” I look down at my nails. Eight are dark green, the two in the middle are pink—PNW Nitro’s colors. That’s the F1 team I drive for. Freshly lacquered this morning, a race day ritual.

“Petra.” One word, gentle but firm. The same tone Jacintha’s used since I was fifteen and convinced I could survive on protein bars and spite. I was wrong, of course, and paid the price for that stupidity. In some ways I still am. Wrong and paying the price, that is.

Anxiety skitters across my scalp with cold little feet.

Not tonight, brain.

I roll my shoulders back, force my spine straight, and hop off the table with more confidence than I feel. “All I want is to get in the car.” Getting onto the track is the surest way to shut up the harpy voice of the woman who abandoned Dad and me when I was six.

Cin studies me for another heartbeat—cataloging, assessing, and deciding.

Then she hands me my shoes and socks. On they go, and I tuck the flat green and pink worry stone under the laces of the left boot while my cousin puts the earpieces and balaclava inside my helmet.

She opens the door and steps out like a bodyguard checking for threats.

Though I have one of those too—a bodyguard, I mean. Rodrigo Jimenez. He’s six feet six inches of absolute sweetness, unless you’re in my path and don’t move fast enough.

Dad and the team insisted on upgrading my security last season after someone got into my hotel room in Barcelona and stole some of my shit.

I pushed back then because I hated the idea of being shadowed all hours of the day.

But I changed my mind when photos from my summer break showed up online.

They were of me running with Cin, Dad, and the dogs on our estate near Buckingham.

That’s private property and miles from anywhere.

Some fucking wanker had sat in the woods for hours with a telephoto lens.

It felt like being hunted, and that’s when I agreed I needed someone to watch my back.

Rigo’s been with me ever since, and the fans have dubbed him “Fort Rigo”. It’s a nickname he pretends to hate but I think secretly loves. And, yeah, having the Fort around makes me feel safer. Dad was right.

Cin is a different kind of bodyguard, I suppose.

She oversees every aspect of my health. She keeps me focused and protects me from the madness that comes with being one of the top drivers in the world and the only woman competing in Formula 1.

She’s the buffer between me and a sport that demands perfection while offering no margin for human frailty.

We move out, my cousin in the lead and Rigo falling in behind as we leave the team’s temporary business unit for the paddock and the larger pit building that houses the team garages and larger F1 hospitality suites.

Most of the crowd here are well-heeled fans, members of the media covering the race, or associated with corporate sponsors.

People pay a lot of money for access to this part of Formula One.

I smile and nod, but I don’t have to be social right now.

I’m getting into the zone, focusing on the sixty-two laps ahead.

There’s a time to woo F1 fans and sponsors.

This isn’t it.

Singapore’s October humidity slaps us as we step outside into the paddock that separates the team business units from the garages where all the Formula One cars are being readied for the upcoming race. Cin puts up her umbrella. It’s been raining on and off all day.

The sound that greets us is astonishing.

Even after twenty-six years of being around the racing world, the noise of race day still hits me viscerally.

And I love it. I grew up with this, the only child of three-time world champion F1 driver, Coy Hayter.

I’m determined to follow in his footsteps and be the first woman to do it.

Twenty cars growl thunderously in their garages, the vibration traveling through my body. The sound of the crowd partying and the DJ cranking out the tunes vies for a close second in volume and impact, two hundred seventy thousand spectators all excited for the upcoming Grand Prix.

F1 fans are rabid and Singapore’s are no exception.

The roar from the grandstands echoes through the paddock, a wall of sound that includes chants and cheers I can’t quite make out from here.

But the energy is electric, and I hear my name being called from multiple directions beyond the circuit barriers.

“Tenacious P!”

“Petra, we love you!”

“Niiiitrooooo!”

My fans, the self-proclaimed Hayter Honeys, have made their presence known throughout the weekend, many sporting pink-streaked hair and nails painted to match mine. They’re absolutely the best.

Jacintha, Rodrigo, and I cross the paddock, threading our way around fans, crew members, and media. He parts them like the Red Sea so I can stay focused. Our goal is the PNW Nitro garage where a team of mechanics and engineers surround my green and pink car, readying it for the challenge ahead.

But someone catches my eye, and I veer off course. “Hold on, you lot.” There’s something I need to do before I reach our garage.

Cin stops and waits. Rigo follows me because the Fort is always nearby.

Nico Belmonte, the reigning Drivers’ Champion and driver for WolfBett Racing, is speaking with a pair of reporters.

His dark blue and gold race suit, unzipped and open, hangs around his hips, revealing the fireproof undergarments we all wear.

It’s a good look on him, I’m not above admitting.

Fans and photographers hover around him, bees around the finest flower.

His nickname is El Conejo—The Rabbit—because the blond Spanish driver is fast as all hell and slips in and out of the tightest spots.

I should know. I’ve been racing the bastard for twelve years.

He’s also one of the most disciplined drivers on the circuit.

He proves you can race hard and clean, and still win. A lot.

I stop behind his right shoulder, pop my hip, and raise two fingers behind my head and two behind his—rabbit ears. Nothing like photo-bombing the competition before a race.

The photographers laugh and grab the shot just as Nico turns to see my cheeky pose. His grey gaze meets mine and his lips lift into a sexy half-smile.

I’m also not above admitting that the fellow is very fine on the eyes.

“Get accustomed to the view. The back of my head is all you’ll see today, Hayter.”

“Fat chance, Bunny Boy.” With a wink for the photographers, I pivot and continue to the Nitro garage. But I’m pretty sure Nico’s watching me go.

As he should.

Inside the garage, the smell of fuel, rubber, and hot metal permeates everything—it’s a scent I prefer to any perfume. The odor of the circuit’s wet tarmac just adds to the bouquet.

This is home.

The place is a hive of activity. Mechanics crawl around my car and Reece Pritchard’s like ants at a picnic, each with a job to do, working in concert. Reece is my fellow driver. Every team has two. We’re nothing without this crew, and I can say with confidence that we never forget that.

Coy—Dad—stands at the head of the engineering station, arms crossed, observing the mechanics and engineers with a critical eye.

He’s not just my father, he’s our team principal, and at fifty-three he remains imposing—his salt-and-pepper hair perfectly trimmed, posture impeccable.

He spots me and gives a single, deliberate nod as I don one of the headsets that allows the team to communicate while in the garage.

The sound of the warming car engines precludes conversation otherwise.