Double Apex

Book 1: Frontrunners

by Josie Juniper

Genres: Women's Fiction; Sports Romance

Synopsis

This first book in a spicy Formula 1 romance series pairs a STEM-inist engineer with a cocky racecar driver, perfect for fans of Drive to Survive on Netflix and readers of Hannah Grace or Sarah Adams.

Phaedra Morgan is one of the best race engineers in Formula 1. She’s a math prodigy with dazzling skill, cutting wit, and no patience for matters of the heart. Of course, her job would be a lot easier if she didn’t keep butting heads with their team’s cocky and infuriatingly hot new driver. 

Cosmin Ardelean is intense and committed, but as famous for his off-track romantic exploits as his on-track wizardry. Yet his devil-may-care façade conceals a haunted past. When the pair strikes up a secret—and thrillingly forbidden—“arrangement” to improve their communication and bond of trust, the heat of their attraction turns to something more . . . 

But no secret stays hidden for long in the racing world, and soon things are spinning out of control. With everything on the line, will they be able to strip away all their defenses and go full throttle for a chance at love?

Release date: October 8, 2024

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 350

Sample

MID-MARCH

PHAEDRA

My focus prowls over the bank of monitors, studying the telemetry. I’m in the zone. My grip on the information is effortless, light, like breathing. When the car is out and data floods in, the numbers become part of me—they flow through, and I react. The rush is gorgeous.

As one of the two race engineers for Emerald F1, I’m part of the brain, the nervous system of the team. Others may be the heart. The bones. The muscles.

And some are just dicks. I’m talking to one now.

“We’re close, Cosmin,” I say into the radio. “Push push push.”

“I thought you’d never ask, dragă,” he returns.

My face goes hot with anger. It’s his third inappropriate comment this session, despite an earlier warning. I flick a glance at our engineering director, Lars, and he gives me a shrug as if to say, Cosmin is what he is.

“You know what?” I tell Lars and our team principal, Klaus, who’s on the next chair over. “Good enough for today. I’m gonna check in with Mo.”

Klaus nods, Lars offers a little salute.

I take my headset off and force myself to lay it down more gently than fury urges, then stalk away from the pit wall.

People call my dad Mo, short for Morgan—Ed Morgan, team owner. I do too, publicly. It’s hard enough being a woman in this job without verbal reminders to everyone that I’m the owner’s daughter.

Growing up in a family that owned a NASCAR team before making the jump to Formula 1 eight years ago, I all but cut my teeth on racing slicks. I traveled the United States with my father and NC Emerald NASCAR during the season and had a STEM-focused tutor who traveled with us.

Every swinging dick on this team (as my dad would say) knows I have this job because I’m a rockstar engineer. Mathematics has been my oxygen since I was five years old. I headed for college at sixteen, had a masters by twenty-two, and went to work for Emerald in a junior position the same year. Over the decade since, I’ve earned my stripes.

I make my way to Mo’s paddock office and find him lying on the sofa. The scent of peppermint hangs in the air—he’s having another of his headaches. I gently close the door.

“Hey,” I greet as quietly as I can while still being heard over the distant scream of engines. “Why don’t you go back to the hotel? This racket can’t be helping your head.”

“I’m fine, chickadee.” He lifts the wet washrag folded over his eyes. “Session done?”

“Almost. Jakob got 1'23.081. Cosmin had 1'22.784 when I left.”

“Left? Why’d you walk away? That’s not like you.”

I stretch my back. “Ardelean pissed me off. The smart-aleck comments, the nickname. It undermines me.”

“Want me to have a word with him?”

“Definitely not. ‘Ooh, Daddy, tell the sexist dickhead not to hurt my feeeewings!’ Yeah, no. I’ll rip him a new one myself when he comes in.” I tighten the loose bun in my auburn hair and rake my bangs aside.

My dad re-covers his eyes. “First year with the team, he’s testing boundaries. But the kid’s fast—slicker than snot on Teflon. Good chance he’ll haul our asses outta midfield.”

“Hm. We’ll see.”

My dad chuckles, and I’m happy to hear it until his words follow. “Man, you are stubborn. Still won’t forgive the boy for not being that reserve driver gal from Team Harrier you lobbied for.”

I fold my arms. “I do think it’s a missed opportunity, not offering a contract to Sage Sikora when we had the chance. Emerald could’ve been pioneers in the sport, giving a seat to a woman with that kind of talent, and—”

“Phae.”

His tone is weary with a hint of stern, and I feel like an asshole for bringing it up again.

“I admire your grit, chickadee,” he says with a sigh, adjusting the washcloth over his eyes as if to remind me of his headache. “But we’re not spending over a hundred million bucks a year running this team to make a statement.”

A dozen testy comebacks spring to mind, but I know how and when to pick my battles with Edward Morgan. It’s so much easier to make Cosmin the target of my anger. Though it’d be a hell of a lot more satisfying if the guy didn’t seem to love it so much.

“Bitter pill or not, I trust you to work through these growing pains Klaus says you and our hotshot driver are having and give him your best,” my dad concludes. He lifts the rag and shoots a scold-softening, crooked smile my way. “And if Cosmin keeps sassing you, roll up a newspaper and give that pup your best good smack.”

I cross the room to press a kiss to my dad’s cool, damp cheek. “You know I won’t let you down. Need anything before I go—water, food?”

“I’m good, thanks. Dim the lights more on your way out.”

I’m striding down the hall toward the garage when Lars catches up.

“Cosmin shaved three-tenths off his lap time,” he tells me, beaming.

“What? No way.” I chew at the inside of my cheek. “The douchebag can drive—I’ll give him that.”

Lars’s expression is careful. “Try not to yell at him. Again. For, y’know, the comments earlier. Sometimes you just have to smile and let it ride.”

“Don’t tell me to smile, for fuck’s sake. Ardelean’s insufferable.”

“People love Cosmin. He’s a cut-up.”

“More like a pervy party clown.”

Lars shoves his hands in his pockets, sighing. “Listen, can I be candid?”

“Could I stop you if I wanted to?” I wave an arm grandly. “Have at it.”

He clears his throat. “You’re being too free with the pro-Sage-anti-Cosmin stuff. Mo and Klaus made the choice, and the ink is dry. But your resentment is like… a thing. Everyone feels it. And don’t think the press wouldn’t have a field day with a ‘girls versus boys’ war. Race-day radio comms are public, so it’ll be more than just the team noticing tension pretty soon.”

Our watchful head of communications, Reece—the woman in charge of PR and media relations—has essentially told me the same thing.

I keep my face neutral as I try pivoting to another point of contention. “That’s in the past. I’m over it, seriously. It’s Ardelean’s lack of respect that bugs me. The faux-flirty back talk. It’s—”

“Trust me, you need to ignore that. I’ve already heard people joking around in the garage, saying your annoyance with Cosmin is the result of, uh…”

My jaw goes hard. “I’m not entertaining any sexual tension gossip, thanks. I acknowledge that most women find F1 Dracula irresistible, but I’m not one of them.”

Since the era of ’76 world champion James Hunt, few drivers have puffed the panties of female fans like our swaggering new acquisition. Last year, Cosmin Ardelean drove for a team that couldn’t find its own ass with both hands and GPS, and his pretty face was still everywhere in the media.

Lars shrugs with a weak smile. “All right. Don’t kill the messenger.”

“Copy,” I grumble, walking away. “Understood.”

I duck into a conference room and grab a bottled water from the mini fridge. When Cosmin’s car rolls in, I wait long enough for the fawning to die down and for that dipshit to climb out of the cockpit, and then I head to the garage.

Our new golden boy is talking with a pair of mechanics while combing his fingers through hair the color of blond sand strewn with amber. It’s hair most women would kill for. He doesn’t deserve it, much like his stupidly long lashes and plump lips with a perfect Cupid’s bow. When his hair isn’t sweaty and helmet-squashed, it’s a tousled dream that’d be in effortlessly beachy waves if it were long.

Cosmin. Fucking. Ardelean.

I sink my hands into the pockets of my black slacks—we all wear the same style of hideous middle-aged-dude pants with the green polo bearing the team’s logo—and cross to where the summit is happening.

“Hey there, Legs,” I direct at Cosmin when there’s a pause to cut in. “I need a word.”

He thinks I call him this because he’s tall—just shy of 188 centimeters, which is like six foot two. What he doesn’t know is that I call him “legs” because in the body of the team, this peacock may be the movement, but he’s far from the brains and sure as hell not the heart.

I recognize the PR value in a good-looking, charismatic driver. For the team’s sake, I want Cosmin Ardelean to be so magnetic that the press can’t stop talking to him, guys buy the pricey sunglasses he wears and the beer he drinks, and women douse the men in their lives with Cosmin’s cologne. Sponsor cash is what oils the gears in a Formula 1 team.

We all want a championship for Emerald, full stop.

But for my own amusement? I wouldn’t mind Ardelean being taken down a few cocky pegs by tripping over his feet and stumbling into dog shit, preferably after asking out the woman of his dreams and being publicly shot down.

His black-flecked blue-gray eyes hold a smug glimmer as he looks over at me. “You like my time? 1'22.486. How’s that for a push?”

“Congrats on doing your literal job,” I reply, bored. “You guys done here? Let’s talk.”

“Beautiful.”

God, I’m already so sick of how he says that. It’s like he learned English with a Romanian-to-bullshit dictionary. Among the things it taught him: “beautiful” is a synonym for “yes,” and every woman should have a goddamned pet name.

I stalk toward the hallway. I assume he’ll follow, if for no other reason than to stare at my ass, despite the universally unflattering cut of the team blacks.

In the conference room I was just in, a couple of aero techs are talking, gnawing on sponsor-supplied gluten-free granola bars.

“Gents,” I announce, “I need the room.”

They look confused until Cosmin follows me in, at which point their expressions imply they know why I want to be alone with him. Thanks to the heads-up from Lars, I now have to assume everyone thinks I’m carrying a torch for F1 Dracula.

Great.

I close the door behind the exiting men and turn to find Cosmin with the fridge open, taking his sweet time to search for the perfect water bottle. I refuse to let it needle me, staring at the back of his dumb head until he’s done.

He reclines against a table in the exact place I was standing while waiting for the car to come in. It bothers me, his being in precisely the same spot. It’s as if he knows. Like he’s taunting me, touching me.

He cracks the cap and drinks, Adam’s apple dipping, gaze unflinching, a faint smile on his lips.

“Can I help you, dragă?” he asks after a breath.

“Yeah, perfect—let’s start with that. What does it mean? Is it Romanian for ‘bitch’ or something?”

His eyebrows draw together. “What the shit? No.”

The accent is not unattractive, I reluctantly concede. His words come out like Wot the sheet? and it’d be cute if he weren’t a total fuckwad.

“It is like, ‘dear’ or ‘darling,’” he goes on to explain. “A simple word.”

“Gotcha. Not appropriate. Unless you’re gonna come up with cutesy-pooh Romanian endearments for every man on the team, knock it the hell off.”

He nods, looking down as if trying for humility. But I notice he also doesn’t agree.

“Next order of business,” I press on. “Your cheeky sass over the radio? Not cool. I’d like to be able to use the word ‘push’ without you firing back some junior-high sex joke.”

“I only said, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ If you heard something provocative”—he tilts his mouth—“that might be you.”

My hands grip the table edge. I notice him notice, and it annoys me enough to hit below the belt.

“Okay, look, you horny cliché. I get that you think you’re ten pounds of brilliant in a five-pound sack because of the job you did last season with the bucket of bolts you drove for Team Greitis. Debut year in F1. Huzzah.”

I lean in and enunciate as if talking to a child.

“You may be a better driver than I am, but I’m smarter than you. Don’t cross me, or I won’t rest until your Transylvanian ass gets busted back down to F2. Or better yet, no one will give you a seat, and you find yourself hawking protein shakes on late-night infomercials.”

I tap the center of my chest.

“Smarter. Than. You. I was doing calculus and rebuilding engines for fun when you were still wetting the bed.”

For a moment I think I’ve gotten to him. There’s a hardness to those blue eyes. Points, me.

He smiles. “I’ve made a lot of beds wet…” Pushing off the table, he strolls to the door with infuriating leisure. “But not for that reason.”

RACE DAY

COSMIN

My eyes skim the track, the traffic, making micro-adjustments. The engine’s roar is the blood coursing through my veins. I’m in the zone, my control firm and organic. I don’t fight the car. It’s my body and breath. We flow together, and the rush is incredible.

“Ortiz has a botched pit stop,” Phaedra tells me over the radio in her no-nonsense tone. “You’ll be ahead at pit exit.”

“Copy.” A jet of adrenaline flares in my chest, like a coal that’s been blown on.

Her voice again, smooth and natural, like she’s living in my head: “P5 in sight. Bring it home, Legs.”

Mateo Ortiz is still in the pits, and a psychological shiver goes over me as I pass the exit. Fifth place sharpens from a hazy mirage to steel-cold reality.

I was not born for this, but I was made for it.

First race with Emerald: TEN. FUCKING. POINTS.

My teammate, Jakob, landed P9—two points. I like Jakob. Nice kid, though uptight. Twenty-two, already married, and it’s certain Inge is the first and only girl he’s had. He refuses to enjoy the extracurricular benefits of our career. Absurd. That’s like owning a mansion and living in one room. Champagne would only touch Jakob’s stern lips if someday it’s poured over him on the podium. He’s a reliable, top-ten-finishing workhorse—consistently in the points—but not championship material.

For me? The podium is so close I can taste it, with a strong car under me this year.

Communications manager Reece gives me a bracing clap on the shoulder as we walk toward press gathered outside the corral. She has a critical eye and misses nothing. If cool, composed Team Principal Klaus is Emerald’s father figure, Reece is a demanding mother who doesn’t suffer a fool. Her personality is as direct as her style—short hair, no makeup, quick eyes. She speaks seven languages (including Romanian) and sometimes reminds me of my elder sister, Viorica. They’re both nearing forty.

Reece scans the group with her uncanny ability to untangle a dozen comments at once. “That’s Natalia Evans,” she says near my ear, pointing at a brunette in purple. “New reporter from Auto Racing Journal.”

I give the journalist in the skirt suit a once-over. “I will talk with her first.”

“Don’t tempt me to muzzle you, Cos,” Reece warns.

“They love when I flirt.”

“And you love when you flirt.”

I flash a grin. “Everybody wins.”

The brunette is stunning. Midthirties, tall, hourglass figure, eyes like a cloudless sky, irises ringed in black that matches her lashes. I check her left hand—bare—as she adjusts one earring, fingertips brushing her neck. Subconsciously, she’s imagining my hand there. Moving lower. Undressing her.

Perhaps I’ll spend tonight between those thighs.

“Cosmin! I have questions,” she says, tapping her voice recorder.

I lean on the metal fence and send a wink her way. “I have answers, iubi.”

Combing a hand through my hair, I take a drink of water. She watches the straw in my mouth, and as I remove it, I lick my bottom lip. I know the steps in this dance so well I could do it blindfolded.

“Let’s move straight to the good stuff,” she begins.

I cock one eyebrow. “I’m all for that.”

“Excellent. So. First grand prix, double-digit points. You’re looking good.”

“Glad you noticed.”

“Are you worried it could’ve been luck? Mateo Ortiz had a heartbreaking twenty-three-second pit stop. Akio Ono and Anders Olsson suffered mechanical failure DNFs. João Valle and Drew Powell, taken out by a collision. Was the fifth-place finish your magic, or merely attrition?”

This just got less fun. I may have to spank her for it later.

I drop my gaze with a smile. “That’s racing. Sometimes you hunt opportunity down, sometimes it shows up with an apple in its mouth. When those circumstances arose, I was the one in the position to take advantage.” I lean closer. “It’s not the tool, but how well you use it. And I’m an exceptionally skilled craftsman.”

She smirks. “Oh?”

“That, iubi,” I say, tapping the back of her hand, “is a promise.”

Reece touches my elbow, pointing at a short man in chinos. “From the Herald Sun,” she prompts.

I tip my head in the man’s direction, still looking at Natalia. “Everyone wants a piece of me. If you’re hungry for a second slice, I’m at the Park Hyatt. Nine o’clock in the lounge?”

A figure steps into my peripheral vision.

“Nat!” Phaedra leans over the fence, and she and the reporter hug. “What do you think of our leggy libertine here?” she asks Natalia, giving me a backhand slap to the stomach.

“I think he’s going to be disappointed at nine o’clock,” Natalia replies. “And your description was spot-on.”

I might be able to camouflage my annoyance if Phaedra weren’t watching for it like a cat with her green gaze fixed on a mouse’s den.

“Aww, Legs.” Those naturally candy-pink lips tilt, and her little nose with its smattering of freckles wrinkles. “Did you think you were playing with her? Natalia was playing with you.”

“Clever girls.” I give Natalia a level stare. “Shame—I had quite a story to share with you over a bottle of wine.”

Her eyes narrow in consideration, and she throws a chummy arm around Phaedra. “These boys do hate to lose, Phae. And you and I were going to hang out tonight anyway. Let’s all have a drink in the lounge. We’re in the same hotel—why not?”

Phaedra looks alarmed. “Hells to the nope. Negative. I thought we were going to binge Peaky Blinders and raid the minibar?”

“Just one drinkie,” Natalia tells her in a tone like it’s settled. “It’ll be fun.”

She saunters off to interview Jakob, and the Herald Sun reporter heads my way.

“It would appear we have a date,” I tell Phaedra. Putting my lips near her ear, I add, “Wear white.”

She recoils, frowning. “Oh, suck it. Even if I gave two shits what you think, I don’t own white clothes—they get filthy. Who the fuck wears white?”

“Good girls who don’t mind getting filthy.”

“Is there anything you can’t turn into a double entendre?”

“You’re pouting because I outsmarted you.”

She snorts. “You have to get up pretty early in the morning to outsmart me.”

“For you,” I tell her, “I’d stay up all night.”

PHAEDRA

“Here—it’s yours now,” Natalia says, shoving a piece of clothing at me when I open the door of my suite. “It’ll look amazing on you, but my boobs are too big.”

I shut the door and follow her in. “Poor baby. What other problems do you have? You eat pastries all day but can’t seem to gain an ounce? You have orgasms too easily?”

“Haha. Seriously though—try it on. I bought it at L’Habilleur when I was in Paris, and c’est très chic, but I feel self-conscious wearing it.”

“Cry me a river.” I hold it up for inspection. The fabric is heavenly. Soft and clinging, with a deep crisscross front. “I can’t wear this tonight. It’s white.”

Natalia sits on the bed and adjusts the strap on one heel. “Why not? Planning to get sloshed and dribble all over it?”

“F1 Dracula told me to wear white. I’m not letting him think I wore this on his order.” I fling the closet wide and peruse my options. “I’m the one who tells him what to do.”

“I doubt he’d remember he said it. He’s like a fountain spraying out flirty comments. Try it on! You know I have a great eye.”

I whip off my CAMP SOH-CAH-TOA trigonometry tee and toss it at Nat, who ducks, laughing. She goes to the minibar and gets a tiny bottle of Courvoisier, then takes a bowl of chocolate-dipped strawberries from the refrigerator.

“Things are fancy up here on the top floors,” she says around a mouthful of fruit. “You know what’s in the fridge in my room? Mini Babybels and bottled water.” She cracks open the cognac and downs half.

I adjust the shirt, staring into the vanity mirror. It’s true I don’t own anything white—mostly because I assumed it’d make my pale, lightly freckled skin look weird. To my shock, white is divine on me. The cut of this shirt is magic: my waist looks tiny and my barely B cups are uncharacteristically alluring.

I turn to Nat and hold my arms out awkwardly. “Eh?”

“It’s sexy as hell. It’d help if you weren’t standing all stiff and pained, like you’re waiting to be sprayed down with delousing agent in a Siberian prison.”

“You know I’m more comfortable in jeans and T-shirts.” I grab the hem of the shirt to remove it.

“Don’t you dare!” Nat barks. “You look fantastic. If you schlump down to the lounge in a baggy nerd-shirt and ripped jeans, I will scream.”

“I don’t wanna play dress up! Especially not around the ‘randy rookie’—as they called that oversexed idiot last year.”

She lifts one expertly groomed eyebrow and pops another strawberry between her red-painted lips. “You can wear the ripped jeans, but with that shirt.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Hello—who understands fashion? Moi. The combination of an elegant Paris boutique shirt and jeans that look like you’ve had them since your teens—”

“I have had them since my teens,” I cut in.

“—will be very stylish. It says to the world, I’m refined enough for this gorgeous shirt, yet devil-may-care enough for threadbare jeans.”

I rotate to look in the mirror again. “Fine. But I’m not putting on makeup.”

“A touch of mascara,” she asserts. “Your green eyes are one of your best features. Ooh, and a dab of lipstick—those bee-stung lips need advertising.”

“I’m not for sale.” I pull my shoulders back and twist forty-five degrees, checking out everything the shirt is doing for my figure. “And if I were,” I add under my breath, “he couldn’t afford me.”

Team Principal Klaus is waiting to get into the elevator as Nat and I step out on the first floor. Near him is a starstruck blonde half his age, staring up at him as if a map leading to the Holy Grail is projected on the side of his head.

Admittedly, Klaus is an almost-silver fox. Forty-five, toweringly tall, rich, obsessive about his workouts. And with that brand of aloofness women find captivating—like he’d be doing you a favor to fuck you.

To the world it seems like arrogance, but I know him well enough to recognize that he refuses to let anyone get close ever since his wife died five years ago. He finds a different girl at every GP and—according to gossip—tells them he can’t exchange contact info due to “security protocol.”

Hilarious. Maybe Klaus’s disposing of women as if they were coffee pods is the last gasp of his midlife crisis, before he gets into model trains or bird-watching. But I’d still put my money on grief.

Klaus gives me what models call a “smize.”

“Good evening, Schatzi,” he says, using the fatherly nickname he’s called me for years. His gaze moves to Natalia. “And?” he prompts, raising his eyebrows at her while the blonde glowers in the background. . . .