The Chase Read Free Page A

good-looking, clearly intelligent woman coming on to him, and that had potential. Plus, he couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that this flirtation was going down in front of Kendall. Proof to her that some women found him attractive.
    “Sure. How about I meet you at the wine bar at seven?” She looked like a wine bar type.
    “Excellent. See you then.”
    It was a dismissal. Again, Tuesday was very smooth.
    “Looking forward to it. Have a good afternoon.” He gave a smile to Tuesday, then a brief nod to Kendall. “See you around, Holbrook.”
    “Yep.”
    That was her answer. Yep. Evan fought the urge to “what the hell?” her. But it didn’t matter. The past was the past and Kendall might be in his present, but like she said, they were coworkers. Competitors. Not friends.
    So Evan walked away, strolling towards his buddy Ryder Jefferson, who had just recently remarried his ex-wife. Why the hell anyone thought that made sense, Evan couldn’t imagine. He wasn’t even going to get married once, let alone twice.
    “What’s up, Jefferson?”
    “Not much.” Ryder bent over and pulled his shoe off, frowned at it, then put it back on. “Saw you poking the bear over there.”
    “Huh?” Evan didn’t even want to think about poking. It brought to mind all manner of inappropriate images for daylight at the track. Especially since for the first time in years, the star of his mental video was a petite blonde. Good God.
    “Kendall Holbrook. Saw you talking to her, which is a brave thing to do. Most of us have tried to be friendly only to have our heads bitten off and rolled down the track.”
    “Really?” Evan glanced back at Kendall, who was pulling her helmet on.
    “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. That girl has a major chip on her shoulder.”
    “I don’t think about Kendall Holbrook.” Liar.
    Ryder gave him a skeptical look. “Really? That’s funny considering she got pulled up out of the truck series to drive for our team, securing a fantastic sponsor and getting media coverage like we haven’t seen the likes of in years. So you’re telling me you haven’t been watching her?”
    “I watch her driving, not her. And she can have a boulder on her shoulder for all I care. That’s her problem, not mine.”
    “She’s going to need to learn to smile if she wants to make the suits and the fans happy. Doesn’t matter if she doesn’t want to be pals with any of us, but she needs to play the game smarter with her image.”
    Evan glanced back at Kendall thoughtfully. She’d only been driving in the series since Daytona and he had been abiding by a policy of trying not to notice she was around. He knew she was getting a lot of media coverage because his sister Eve, his PR rep, was complaining about it, but Evan hadn’t watched any of it. Was Kendall really pulling attitude?
    If the way she had spoken to him was any indication, yes. But that was different. They had a history.
    “Well, isn’t that what her PR person is for? To tell her to smile pretty for the camera?” And why should he care? It was her career, her life. None of his concern.
    “I’m sure. But I have to say, I’m curious how all of this is going to play out.”
    “I’m not,” he declared, in a voice he knew was short and clipped and bordering on childish.
    But he couldn’t help it. He was already having enough problems getting around the track each week. He didn’t need Kendall Holbrook distracting him, too.
    “Didn’t you used to date Kendall?” Ryder asked casually, tossing his helmet in his hands.
    Was nothing a goddamn secret in this town? Everyone was always in everyone else’s business, and Evan was tired of it. “For about a minute a hundred years ago.”
    “You still have any feelings for her?”
    Evan lost patience with the conversation. He did not have feelings for that woman, other than a lingering annoyance that she’d been such a total wimp about breaking up with him. The least she could have done was have the