Chapter 3
‘Red is your colour.’ Marco’s hushed voice in Savi’s ear caused her to jump, her heart racing more than it had when she’d almost spun out on the track during testing. That had been Marco’s fault, too. He’d got in her way and had the cheek to laugh over the radio.
‘Why are you in my trailer?’ she snapped.
He leaned against her closet door while she pulled her socks on.
‘I’m your buddy for race week. So you can treat me like your own personal fountain of knowledge, take all your stress out on me…
’ Marco smirked like he wanted to add more to that last part.
Perhaps she was imagining it, or maybe he really was attempting to flirt.
Regardless, she was going to ignore it. They didn’t have that kind of dynamic in their relationship.
Savi slammed the door to her shoe cupboard. ‘I don’t need a buddy.’
‘Has the big boss not spoken to you?’
‘About… ?’ She looked at him quizzically, because of course Jasper had spoken to her. Countless times over the last few days. But clearly, somewhere along the line their team principal had failed to fill her in on something.
‘He’s matched you, Miko and Kodie up with Julien, Brett and I to guide you through your first season with the team.’ He grinned. A genuine, enthusiastic smile that threatened to piss her off even further.
‘Great, my team principal is playing cupid.’ She rolled her eyes, more so at his obvious enthusiasm, and shooed him out of the way so she could finish putting the last of her things in the closet.
‘I don’t need a buddy, Marco. I may be a rookie in this championship, but I have been a racing driver for a number of years.
You’ve seen me in the support races, might I add.
Watched my name rise to the top of the leaderboard. I know the drill by now.’
Marco smirked again, eyeing her up and down. ‘You haven’t driven for Revolution Racing before. We do things a certain way round here.’
His fixated gaze on her was making her feel very hot and bothered but she put it down to anxiety, something she had struggled with for years. ‘I’ve had a lot of in-depth talks with the socials team. I know what Faith and Lucie are expecting of me. The PR team, too.’
‘Savannah, let me do my job.’
He looked irritated now too, and it gave her a thrill. Savi had always been up for a challenge, and she performed better when she had a point to prove. ‘Let me do mine.’
With a blasé glance over her shoulder, she hopped down the steps of the trailer and left him standing there with his hands on his hips. Less of a superhero pose this time, and more of a pissed off co-worker vibe.
Savi played the role of sweet, wholesome country girl in front of the cameras, fans and her bosses but her friends and family knew she had some fire in her.
She never would’ve picked an equally sweet and wholesome Marco De Luca as her equal, but the way he had looked at her in her race suit had made it quite clear she hadn’t given him enough credit.
She was happy with Jesse, and she definitely didn’t see Marco in that way, regardless of his European charm and effortlessly good looks, but if she could get him riled up and frustrated with her, it would create one hell of a race out there.
‘Ready, girls?’ She joined Miko and Kodie outside the conference room, where they were standing with Julien and Brett. Matching red and zebra stripe racing suits on, other teams milling around nearby and talking animatedly.
The outside of the conference room could be compared to a zoo; everyone talking at once, yelling across the crowd and exuding chaos, and the atmosphere inside would be the same.
The drivers may switch into professional mode, but it was the media who would start acting like animals to get the stories they wanted out of them.
Despite this, everyone looked raring to go.
Hadn’t anyone warned them there would be an onslaught of invasive questions and borderline harassment from the media?
Savi had done this before. She knew what to expect.
But her rookie teammates were inexperienced and had only just started racing a couple of years ago.
Daddy’s money and a private school education couldn’t buy them a backbone.
‘Oh! Is Marco your buddy?’ Miko looked excited, her long dark hair swishing around her shoulders.
You wouldn’t catch that girl with her hair up unless she was putting her race helmet on.
She’d got lucky with Brett as her glorified tour guide slash babysitter, and Savi couldn’t help but think that Brett was more suited to her own personality.
Sarcastic, always cracking jokes. Jasper’s foresight hadn’t been the best here.
‘Something like that,’ Savi shrugged, catching the way Brett tried to hide his grin behind his hand. ‘Can I help you, Anderson?’
‘No, no. Just… Lucie warned us about you.’
‘What?’ Savi frowned. She thought she’d been getting on well with the socials team.
‘She didn’t say anything bad about you, at all. Sang your praises, in fact. She just said you were fiery. So, God only knows why the boss paired you up with baby Mars.’
‘Oh, someone agrees!’ She high-fived him, although from the sudden one-sided flirting and lust-filled gazes she had been on the receiving end of just now, she could safely say there was nothing baby about Marco De Luca.
‘Agrees with what?’ Marco appeared behind her, almost managing to murmur into her ear for a second time today. Only this time, it didn’t send shivers down her spine, it just wound her up. She wasn’t in the mood, given the hell they were about to walk into.
Savi crossed her arms, ‘You and me, we don’t work.’
‘Just as well we’re not getting married then, ain’t it Savannah?’ His Italian accent, which she had grown rather fond of, had a weird twang to it all of a sudden.
‘I’m sorry, was that meant to be my accent?’ she shot back.
‘It’s time to go in.’ Kodie shoved Savi through the door before they could cause a scene.
The girls headed straight for the stage while the guys lined the back wall, alongside Jasper and the socials team.
As the only all-female team in the entire IEC, the Revolution Racing girls had a spotlight on them this season and it made Savi nervous.
She had to make a name for herself all over again in a new championship, and it meant answering questions and avoiding conversations she had managed to steer clear of over the course of her career so far.
Privacy was a privilege most drivers weren’t entitled to, especially when they were put in rooms like this where all the attention was on them and it was their job to provide stories and headlines.
Savi kept her brother’s identity under wraps for a multitude of reasons, but there had been a couple of reporters who had been paid to keep quiet over the years.
Journalists who were desperate to get a reputation for the dirt they could dig up, but valued the money her team’s lawyers could offer more.
If people really wanted to know every detail of her life, they could probably figure it out with a deep dive on the internet but for the most part, thanks to cheques and the good graces of people in her hometown and in the rodeo circuit, she had been able to maintain that privacy when it came to her family.
As the first reporter stood up from her seat, clutching her microphone and recording device, Jasper shot them a supportive thumbs up.
‘Savi, this first one is for you. It is widely known you had offers from multiple teams this season. What made you choose Revolution Racing over and above the others?’
Savi had to fight to keep the sarcasm at bay as she whipped up an Oscar-winning answer in record time.
Obviously it was the money primarily, but she wasn’t going to say that.
‘Not only are they consistently at the top of the leader board with very few mistakes and strategic misjudgements,’ she nodded at her boss, ‘but thanks to their incredibly fast growth on social media in recent years, I could see that this team puts their relationships first.’
‘Could you expand?’ The reporter smiled, encouraging her to keep going.
‘Well, their bond is next level, and I wanted in on that. When you’re on the road for so long and your whole life revolves around your job, you need to be in a team where everyone has your back.
I’m also very easy going, and as much as I am a professional, I want to be able to have fun with it.
Nobody does that better than Revolution Racing. ’
The reporter nodded politely and moved on to Miko, while the rest of the team gave Savi a silent cheer from the back of the room. She sat back and let the others have their time answering questions, chiming in when necessary, and waiting patiently for the more personal ones.
Then she spotted him, his tortoiseshell frames perched on the end of his nose in that same precocious way they always did.
The reporter who had been at her first-ever press conference years ago and seemed to have a personal vendetta against her.
Hugo Schmitt, ego the size of Jupiter, zero manners and a serious problem with boundaries.
He had made it his mission to find out every single detail of her personal life, although she did have to laugh at his lack of knowledge regarding her dating history.
Her team back then had paid him off so he didn’t reveal too much about her family, but since her new team didn’t know, they couldn’t protect her from him. She knew she should’ve listened to her agent when he’d told her to come clean to Jasper.
Mr Schmitt all but yanked the microphone from the moderator, itching to fuck up Savi’s day and attempt to humiliate her again. For the first time in a while, she worried he might succeed.
‘Savannah, what do your family think about you abandoning them to chase your dreams?’