Driving in Neutral Read online

  “Oh, dear God,” Pete groaned, “I just worked out that for you, suits are like Samson’s hair. Without Gucci or Boss on your back you’re pathetic, inept, bumbling. That baseball shirt has sucked away all your finesse.”

  “What?” Emerson’s hands shot up in a defensive, palms-up pose. “What did I say?”

  “Do you know what Olivia does?”

  “She’s a translator.” He looked at her. “You’re a translator, aren’t you?”

  Olivia did nothing to hide her amusement. Laughing, she unlocked the driver’s side door.

  Pete laughed too. “What the hell happened to you in that elevator today, Em? No, no. Sorry. Forget I asked. Forget I mentioned it, Liv. Don’t wanna know.” He cleared his throat. “You didn’t read her CV, did you Em? You didn’t even glance at it.”

  “I didn’t exactly have time for more than that. You shoved it in my hand this morning, downstairs, just after you told me about the project. What did I need to read it for anyway? Was I going to say no to nepotism? So what else do you do, Olivia, what other mad skillz do you have that I missed?”

  “She tests race cars.”

  Olivia tossed her purse on the floor in front of the passenger seat. “I used to test race cars, Pete.”

  “Yeah, but I still think of you racing and shooting around the track in that old Porsche.”

  “Wait a second. You raced cars?” Emerson shot a glance to Pete. “She raced cars?”

  “Once upon a time.” Olivia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “So, you thought Pete wanted me just to translate German?”

  “Well…yeah. We needed someone to check out old pre-war race film footage and production documents. We needed someone to translate the German design simulation for an animated documentary.”

  Annoyed, Pete whistled. “We needed someone to translate the design simulation as well as interpret the schematics and the language, not just translate the words. Do you know the difference between a translator and an interpreter?”

  “I’m sure you’re about to tell me, Pete.” Emerson crossed his arms.

  “Oh, never mind. Forget all that now. Olivia raced before she started working for BMW as a test driver and automotive engineer. Did you see that part of her CV, the bit about working for BMW?”

  Emerson twitched a shoulder.

  “Really, Em, you should read stuff instead of waiting for Finn to fill you in ten minutes before a meeting. I’ll see you tomorrow. Dress casually, Liv, and thanks for being sporting enough to put up with this dumbass.” He kissed her cheek and clipped a fist into Emerson’s arm. “Say goodnight, dumbass.”

  “Keep calling me dumbass, Pete,” Emerson cocked his head to one side, “and you won’t get a goodnight kiss.”

  “Neither will you.” Pete started walking backward toward a red Jeep Wrangler.

  Emerson gestured, middle fingers on both hands extended.

  With a grin bright in his dark face, Pete climbed in the Wrangler and stuck the keys in the ignition. Olivia laughed again and turned to get in her car too.

  Emerson reached for the crook of her elbow. “Would you mind if I had a look inside before you got in?”

  “Knock yourself out,” she said and moved aside.

  Tech geek to the core of his soul, Emerson knew next to nothing about cars—beyond knowing how to change a tire and check the oil—but this white bit of British automotive technology appealed to the teenager inside him. It was sexy and he could appreciate that. Unfortunately, its compact size made it the type of car he would never consider owning or riding in. Regardless, he was curious. Hand on the headrest, he leaned in and checked out the car’s interior. “Is it a five speed?”

  “Yes. And it has electric windows too. Are you disappointed there isn’t a secret panel that pops up a bulletproof shield or dispenses an oil slick?”

  “No. It’s a nice car.” He propped himself against it, casually crossing his legs. “I like it.”

  “So what do you drive?” she said. “I assume something roomier, less claustrophobic.”

  While his thumb and forefinger stroked the point of his chin, Emerson looked at her sideways. “Guess.”

  “Something like that white Lexus IS 300 sedan over there.”

  “Are you sure I’m not the Cadillac or Mazda 6 kind of guy?”

  “Yep.”

  Pete shouted from the Jeep, “Hey, dickhead, let’s go!”

  Emerson ignored his friend. “Why’d you choose the Lexus?”

  The Aston Martin’s keys jingled as she twirled them on one finger. “I’d have picked a Mercedes C-Class or BMW 5 series. The Lexus there is the only car with a sunroof and you’re not the kind of man who has to try to compensate for anything. It’s the image that goes with your suits—but not that baseball shirt you’ve got on now. That says Ford Escort or Toyota hatchback.”

  A tsk sound passed through his teeth. “Okay, you got me. I own a Mercedes, a blue one, and it’s home in the garage. Until my knee heals, Pete’s my chauffeur. So what does your Goldfinger car say about you?”

  “Cars are better than diamonds.”

  “I thought diamonds were forever.”

  “So Shirley Bassey would have us believe.”

  Olivia didn’t know how Maxwell did it, but one amused quirk of his lips hauled her all the way back to the elevator that morning. She remembered the feel of his mouth on hers, warm, firm, expert. And then she wondered how he’d taste outside, in air scented by diner chili con carne and wet parking lot pavement. Would his chin whiskers rasp over her cheek? Would he get as hard as he had when she’d sat in his lap?

  Pete leaned on the Jeep’s horn and thank God, it stopped her from thinking any further nonsense about touching and feeling and tasting.

  The horn did nothing to put off Emerson’s one-track mind. Blasé, he waved a hand at the noise and said, “You’re not married, are you?” He smiled, but a worried crease suddenly appeared between his brows. “Well, I’m assuming since you kissed me you’re not married. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t assume anything,” he said.

  Nonchalant, Olivia tucked hair behind one ear. “I was married.”

  He sighed. “I’m divorced too. She said we grew apart because I made business more important than her.”

  “And did you?”

  “Probably. Karen was a good woman. Now she’s married to a dentist. They have four little girls, she’s happy and I’m happy for her. What’s your story?”

  The keys on her fingers stopped swinging. He watched her breasts rise as she inhaled and exhaled with something he thought seemed like impatience. “Which story do you want, the one about my first or second husband?” she asked.

  The space between his eyes and brow-line widened, arched skyward. “You’ve been married twice?”

  “Don’t look so shocked,” she said. “I was eighteen and married my high school sweetheart right after graduation. Four months later he ran off with our landlady. I didn’t get married again until I was older and more sensible. Or thought I was more sensible.”

  “I take it you’re recently divorced?”

  “It took a while for the paperwork.” Olivia pushed a strand of hair out of her face and sighed. She was surprised he didn’t know the glossy scandal magazine details. But this was America, not Europe. Motorsport coverage here was usually limited to NASCAR and the Indy 500. “Karl,” she said, “engaged in a number of off-track events with a grid girl he met at the Australian Grand Prix. He made a few decisions that didn’t include me. Our divorce was finalized about seven months ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Does knowing those details make me a little more respectable now?”

  “I didn’t think you were unrespectable.”

  “Then what was with the surprised look on your face?”

  “What surprised look?”

  As she planted her hands on her hips she made a face, her mouth hanging open in a round O. “Your jaw made a pretty big clunk when it hit the pavement after I said
I was married twice. In fact, it made more noise that time than when you found out I used to race.”

  “You just don’t look the type.”

  “For what, racing and test driving?”

  “No, for being married twice.”

  “There’s a type?”

  “Sure.”

  “And that is…”

  “Las Vegas strippers and gold-digging girls in their twenties.” His eyes wandered over her, dipping low to glance at her breasts before returning to her face. “You don’t look like a girl to me.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. And I don’t like girls.”

  “I guess I’m not your type then.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “You don’t like girls.”

  “I don’t like girls. I like women.”

  “How old are you, Maxwell?”

  “Almost forty-eight.”

  “Then you’re old enough to know better than to play this kind of game.”

  “I’m not into playing games.”

  She moved to the car’s open door, leaving one hand on the frame and the other on the low roof before she swung inside. “You’re my boss, so how about we just keep this a strictly business, employer-employee relationship and handle it with good taste?”

  “I know exactly how good you taste.”

  Olivia maintained a blank façade. There was no way she’d let on she’d thought about how he tasted too. Kissing him had switched on a natural yearning to be touched, only she didn’t want him touching her again. She didn’t want to think about the flavor of his kiss or how it felt to sit in his lap, and she most certainly didn’t want to add more fodder to the office grapevine than they’d already managed to create from this morning’s elevator extravaganza. She’d ridden the gossip-go-round with Karl and had wanted to throw up from all the spinning.

  Never again. Never again.

  “Listen, Maxwell—”

  “Emerson. People who work for me call me Maxwell. My friends call me Emerson.”

  “I hardly know you—”

  The Jeep honked again.

  Emerson put his hand over the top of hers. “So get to know me,” he said, his voice low and full of promise. Her rich brown eyes wandered over his face and he knew his appeal was indisputable, he knew the chemistry was there and she couldn’t deny it. “Don’t be such a cynic and automatically think the worst of me because we had an unusual start.”

  “I’m not a cynic. I’m merely realistic. I don’t fool myself into thinking this would amount to anything more than a fling and I’ve got other things to concentrate on, more important things.”

  “Spoken like a true wet blanket.”

  “I think you mean wet rodent.” She pulled her hand away. “Good night, Maxwell.”

  A weekend of sitting around with his knee elevated was all it took to realize exactly how much his curiosity had been piqued. That first Monday morning, after he’d rummaged around in a pile on his desk and finally read her impressive CV, Emerson did an Internet search on Olivia.

  He was further impressed.

  She’d been a member of the Halray Touring Car Race Team before she turned design engineer and test driver for the team and moved on to BMW Formula One prototypes. She hadn’t competed in over fifteen years, but the Team Halray website had a photo history of past and present members. There was a sweet picture of Olivia Regen in a red fireproof suit, and she looked so damned cute standing beside a green car with a crash helmet tucked under one arm.

  Emerson enlarged the image and studied it. She wore dark sunglasses; the pointy kind popular in the ’50s. The pink scar near her mouth was missing.

  Chicks were supposed to dig scars on guys, but damn, that crescent-shaped scar of hers fascinated him. It reminded him of Cindy Crawford’s mole. That tiny brown button above Cindy’s top lip was the thing that made her stand out, what made her incredibly gorgeous. Little flaws like that were so much more appealing than china-skinned perfection.

  More curious than ever, Emerson continued his web search. He keyed her name into Google and a slew of web links popped up. Each one listed Olivia’s name with an Austrian driver named Karl Abenteuer, and the first line of every web link mentioned a video. There were other words too, words like raunchy, naked, and porn.

  Porn?

  Olivia had done a porn video?

  Emerson’s palm hovered on his wireless mouse, his finger poised to click a link.

  Well, well. Racing cars and kissing strangers in elevators certainly meant she was daring, despite the No Trespassing sign she wore like a pendant around her neck, but Olivia doing a raunchy skin flick? Now that was sure a surprise.

  Porn…home sex videos…YouTube links… They were out there. In the public domain. For everyone to see.

  It was like an itch, a devilish itch at the base of his… He glanced at sentence fragments in the YouTube link and read words like wife…threesome…nude actress…tattoos on her amazing…and Abenteuer’s Adventure.

  His finger was still poised over the mouse. He looked at thumbnail photos, grainy pictures of a couple. He made out shapes, what could have been the peachy curve of a woman’s bare buttock, a bare shoulder, an open mouth that was too small to see if there was a scar beside it.

  Emerson felt his tongue lick at the edge of his mouth. Ideas began to float about his mind, natural ideas that men were built to have, randy ideas that came without thinking. The film clips and photos were in the public domain and he was the public in that domain. Which meant he wouldn’t be the first or last to see what was freely available, what was broadcast worldwide.

  He was about to click his mouse, to watch a clip on YouTube, but something stopped him. While it wouldn’t be the first time he goofed off and played around on the Internet instead of doing work, it would be the first time he considered looking at adult content in the office. Yet that wasn’t what stopped him cold. The sweaty sleaziness stopped him from clicking the link. Well, sweaty sleaziness and the fact he suddenly remembered he was the boss.

  Her boss.

  An employer didn’t take advantage of an employee, even if she presented herself naked on what looked like…a bed of rose petals. Looking at nude photos or sex videos of employees was unprofessional and probably unethical.

  Annoyed with himself, and more than a little turned on, Emerson closed the page only to have his screen return to the Team Halray website. Olivia, in her red fireproof suit, smiled at him from behind her dark sunglasses.

  The practical, neck-to-ankle safety gear covered her up completely, and it stoked his imagination better than the partly downloaded images, the idea of a naked video, or the memory of how Olivia’s rain-soaked dress clung transparently to her breasts.

  He copied the picture and saved it in a folder on his computer desktop.

  Five minutes later, he was outside her office. She had music playing. It was an old song. The Electric Light Orchestra sang about an evil woman making a fool of someone. He tapped on her half-open office door.

  “Come on in,” she called out.

  Confident he was not about to make an ass of himself, he went inside and tried to think of something appropriately boss-like to say.

  For someone employed in a temporary position, Pete had given Olivia the most elegant and well-equipped workspace. It was huge and had a view that rivaled his. He whistled. “You can see nearly all the way up to the Drake.”

  When she turned down the volume on the music compilation she was listening to, he looked out the window instead of staring at her like he wanted to.

  “Yes, it’s a lovely view,” Olivia said, careful to keep her gaze fixed on images on a flat screen monitor.

  “Is translating that technical stuff difficult?”

  He came to the side of her desk. Olivia felt her pulse quicken. She pulled off reading glasses and set them beside the keyboard. “Not at all.”

  “I wondered because a lot was written in that German script, the one where an s looks like a
n f and then there’s that weird looking B that’s really a double s.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  “Is anyone giving you any grief about your underwear?”

  “Not since Timmons and Josh asked if I’d be willing to conduct an experiment to see if a thong could get you into an elevator faster than a bikini.”

  Emerson exhaled in annoyance. “I’m sorry. I’ll have a word with the little tadpoles.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “We made a deal. They keep their mouths shut and I reward them with a caffeine treat. They’ve responded pretty well since Starbucks is half a block down the street. So, it’s in the past and let’s leave it there.”

  Olivia watched him nod and sit on the edge of her desk. Holy hell he smelled good. No, he smelled lickable.

  Lickable?

  She groaned inside. Now that’s a little over the top, isn’t it Olivia? What is he, a big postage stamp? Pay attention to your work. Ignore the rising tide of middle-aged lust flooding your brain and be sensible.

  “Okay,” he said, “we’ll leave it in the past. Are you having any difficulties with the animation?”

  “Not really. That little guy, the shy one with the orange high tops, came in to explain the software. I guess he didn’t realize I have a pretty extensive technical computer base under my belt. He’s good. Keep him. After he showed me the ropes, he had me demonstrate that I grasped the process as well as the lingo. I know “bones” are the outlined skeleton system used to set up the shapes of the objects. I think he was stunned I picked it up so fast.”

  “Well, Pete knew what he was doing when he offered you the job. He’s good like that. That’s why he does all the hiring and I stand there and look good.”

  “Are you fishing for compliments?”

  “Do I look like I need to be reassured?” He cast an eye about the things she had on her desk. Most people had transferred their music collection to iPods and other digital music players. Olivia preferred CDs. Emerson pulled one from a tall stack she had on the desktop. He turned the jewel case over. “You like these guys?”

  “Would they be sitting on my desk if I didn’t?”

  He shook his head and looked through the pile. “Vampire Weekend, Daft Punk, The Dead Kennedys, and…” he picked up another CD, “Disco Super Hits?” He read the song list out loud. “Hot Stuff, Le Freak, Ring My Bell and YMCA. The Village People? You don’t strike me as The Village People type. At all.”