OFF THE GRID

  K. BROMBERG

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Praise for K. Bromberg

  Also Written by K. Bromberg

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  PRAISE FOR K. BROMBERG

  “K. Bromberg always delivers intelligently written, emotionally intense, sensual romance . . .”

  —USA Today

  “K. Bromberg makes you believe in the power of true love.”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Audrey Carlan

  “Always an absolute must-read.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting

  “An irresistibly hot romance that stays with you long after you finish the book.”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “Bromberg is a master at turning up the heat!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Katy Evans

  “Supercharged heat and full of heart. Bromberg aces it from the first page to the last.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott

  ALSO WRITTEN BY K. BROMBERG

  Driven Series

  Driven

  Fueled

  Crashed

  Raced

  Aced

  Driven Novels

  Slow Burn

  Sweet Ache

  Hard Beat

  Down Shift

  The Player Duet

  The Player

  The Catch

  Everyday Heroes

  Cuffed

  Combust

  Cockpit

  Control (Novella)

  Wicked Ways

  Resist

  Reveal

  Standalone

  Faking It

  Then You Happened

  Flirting with 40

  UnRaveled (Novella)

  Sweet Cheeks

  Sweet Rivalry (Novella)

  Sweet Regret

  The Play Hard Series

  Hard to Handle

  Hard to Hold

  Hard to Score

  Hard to Lose

  Hard to Love

  The S.I.N. Series

  Last Resort

  On One Condition

  Final Proposal

  The Redemption Series

  Until You

  Holiday Novellas

  The Package

  The Detour

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2023 by K. Bromberg

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by JKB Publishing, LLC

  ISBN: 978-1-942832-72-0

  Editing by Marion Making Manuscripts

  Formatting by Champagne Book Design

  Printed in the United States of America

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  DID YOU KNOW . . .

  This book is available in both paperback and audiobook editions at all major online retailers! Links are on my website. If you’d like to order a signed paperback, my online store is open and can be accessed here.

  PROLOGUE

  Riggs

  Sugar.

  Little popping sensations burst and snap as I close my mouth around the fluffy, cottony substance. It soon dissolves on my tongue.

  I eat the pink cloud first.

  A small pinch of it for every lap.

  Another bite for every time my dad’s car flies through the narrow back straight making my chest rumble and my ears vibrate beneath my headset.

  I try to time it so it lasts until the halfway point of the race. I know it’s halfway when my mum moves to the front of the box we sit in. That’s her thing. Her good luck position. The place she stood when my dad last won a race.

  The blue cloud of sugar is next.

  I play the game again. One piece for each lap.

  Until one piece is left.

  I save it for him.

  I don’t eat it so that when he gets out of the car and rushes over to hug me, he can put it on his tongue, make an exaggerated smacking sound, and say, “Mm-mmm-mmm, victory is sweet.”

  I’ll giggle because he sounds silly saying it with his hair all sweaty and helmet marks creased into his cheeks.

  Then he lifts me up on his shoulders so I can see all the people patting him on the back, congratulating him.

  So many people love you when you’re a driver—especially when you finish on the podium.

  But not like I love him. Or like Mum does.

  My body vibrates as another pack of cars zoom through the final straight at the grandstands. But I don’t look up this time. I’m too busy staring at what’s left of my blue cloud of sugar. Too busy wondering if I take another small bite, if that’ll leave enough for my dad.

  There’s no way it’s going to last—I look up to the television in the booth to see the number on the screen—ten more laps.

  No way at all.

  I lick my lips—the sugar sticky there. Maybe if I skip a few laps. Maybe that’ll be okay, and he’ll never know I messed up.

  “Goddammit.”

  I hear the curse even with the headphones on and glance up. Mum has stepped back from her lucky spot. Gunther, the guy who tells Dad what to do, is mad.

  Again.

  He likes to yell at Dad and throw his headset sometimes.

  He takes too many risks.

  He’s going to get somebody killed.

  Why do we keep rewarding his daredevil ways?

  It paid off this time. What about the next though?

  I memorize what Gunther says in the booth. Then later, when Dad’s tucking me in, I tell him what he says. We giggle at how silly his threats sound.

  I won though, right?

  I took a podium though, right, Spencer?

  I finished high in the points though, right?

  That’s what he says with a smile, a wink, and then a ruffle of my hair before turning out the lights. “Victory is sweet” is then repeated before he clicks the door closed so I can fall asleep and dream one day of being just like him.

  “Goddammit, Riggs,” Gunther mutters again.

  I take another bite of candy floss and grin from ear to ear. I’ll get to use the GD word tonight when I tell Dad what Gunther said. He never makes me pretend.

  Mum gets mad at that.

  Dad will hold his finger to his lips to tell me to say it quieter so she can’t hear.

  Gunther says something else. Loudly. But between the whoosh of the crowd and another person’s shout, I can’t make out what it is.

  There’s a scream. Then gasps.

  I look up at the wall of people in front of me.

  Then I look where they’re looking—the big television overhead.

  Smoke and parts are flying everywhere.

  Tires.

  Gravel.

  Blue parts.

  Dad’s car parts.

  It’s quiet in the boo
th. I rip my headphones off but it’s still silent.

  “No. No. No. No.” My mum repeats the word softly. Over and over as she shakes her head back and forth, her hand to her chest.

  If I’m ever in an accident, watch my hands, son. If they’re moving, that means I’m okay.

  They’re not moving.

  I stare at them. Waiting for them to move.

  Then the fire erupts.

  Then my world changes forever.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Camilla

  My shoes squeak on the slick floors of Moretti Motorsports headquarters. The hall from the reception to my dad’s office is like a timeline of our F1 history from the 1960s through to the present. Pictures line the walls. The livery for each year. The drivers under contract. The victories had.

  I move slowly through the walking museum, taking in the pictures around me while reliving some of them in my mind too. The moments only a young girl would remember. Being on my nonno’s shoulders as he walked through the paddock. Hiding behind my father’s legs as he listened in on drivers’ meetings. Looking up at podium after podium with a Moretti driver on it and worrying if the spray of champagne touched my skin in any way, that I’d get drunk and be in trouble.

  I can feel him here with me in these halls. My nonno. His broad smile and rumbling laugh. The sour sting of the lemon drops he’d let me sneak out of the container he always carried with him. The way he’d lean over and explain something in my ear so I’d understand. How my little hand disappeared inside his. His curse-filled verbal tirades when the car went into a wall or spun across a chicane. The way he’d lift a glass after a race and toast his drivers.

  My smile is automatic thinking about him. The man who started this empire for our family. I bet he never would have thought his father, my great-grand nonno, making a fortune selling off his olive oil businesses would result in starting and owning an F1 race team that has stood the test of time.

  Just barely.

  So many years. So many memories.

  And then I approach the pictures of the year that I stopped caring about racing. The summer that made me never want to be around F1 again.

  My feet falter as I stare at the pictures. I fight the memories from coming. Memories I’ve buried but that still exist under all the hardened scar tissue.

  “That was such a great summer, wasn’t it?” My father’s voice booms down the hallway as he slowly makes his way toward me. The cane in his hand is new and something I try not to focus on too long despite how hard it is for me to see.

  I glance back to the photo he’s looking and smiling at as he approaches. “It was your last summer before leaving me for university in the States. We took eight podiums that year. Had a run at the championship. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

  So do I. And so wish I could forget.

  “I don’t remember all of it,” I say truthfully but lie about the reasons why. “I was overwhelmed, settling into university life, fighting being homesick, adjusting to the American way of doing things”—dealing with everything else that happened—“that I have to be honest, following the team that year wasn’t a top priority.”

  “Or any year after that for that matter,” he says, the comment made without malice, before finally stepping up beside me, placing his free arm over my shoulder, and pulling me against him. He presses a kiss to the crown of my head like he used to when I was little. I focus on that, on the feeling of him being there—my hero—and not the fact that he needs a cane now. Not the fact that his physical body feels weaker than I remember the last time he hugged me.

  “Isn’t that what kids are supposed to do?” I ask.

  He nods. “Yep. Going off to conquer the world is the natural evolution of things, but that doesn’t make it any easier on a parent when you do. I could tell you a thousand times how proud I am of you, but it will never quantify just how much.”

  I let his words resonate but then shake off the melancholy that comes with them. I smile and sink into the feel of him, so happy that I can. “Hell, I know where to come when I need an ego boost.”

  “Always.” He steps aside and winks. “Now, come on. I want to talk to you about a few things.”

  “Should I worry about what these things are?” I tease.

  “Nope,” he says with a hint of a smile in his voice as we head toward his office.

  “Nope? That definitive, huh?”

  “That definitive.”

  We enter his office and its glass wall of windows that overlooks the depths of Moretti Motorsports. The center area of the building is open with each floor visible. Engineering. Marketing. Training. Publicity. Logistics. The dozens of things that must be done daily to make this team work at the top of its game.

  “Things look . . . busy,” I say as I turn my back on the whole army of people working beyond and take a seat on the opposite side of his desk as he does. I notice the slight tremor to his hand again but don’t comment on it.

  “Things are busy. Very, in fact. It’s looking to be a promising year if the first few races are any indication.” He smiles. “Then again, every season starts out that way, huh?”

  “What did Nonno used to say? Fresh tires, untouched walls, and skilled drivers are all we need.”

  “True. Very true.” He smiles softly as we both think of my grandfather. The giant in our lives and in the sport. “Let’s hope to the race gods that we can have luck with all three of those for the entire circuit this year.”

  “So . . .” I prompt. I wasn’t nervous when he asked me to come see him. He’s an extremely busy man so I didn’t think twice of his invite. It’s just a dad asking to see his daughter while she’s in town. But now that I’m here, to say I’m cautiously curious is an understatement. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Always all business. Always keen to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible.” He smiles. “I’m hoping to change that.”

  “Meaning?”

  He stares at me for a beat and then drops the bombshell. “I want you to come home. Here. To work at Moretti.”

  “Oh.” That was not what I was expecting him to say. “But I do work at home. In Italy,” I say reflexively, talking about my position at the original family company—Moretti Olive Oil.

  But before I can properly process the magnitude of what he’s just asked me, he disregards my comment and drops an even bigger bomb.

  “More specifically, I want to start teaching you the ropes so you can take the helm from me . . . and run Moretti Motorsports yourself in the near future.”

  I stare at him, frozen in place and blinking rapidly as if that will make his words digest any faster. “Dad. I . . .”

  “I know. I know.” He raises his hands up, the tremor barely noticeable, and his smile bursting with pride. My chest constricts from competing emotions. “It’s a huge thing and I’m springing this on you out of the blue. I know you’re not good with surprises, and I should have led into it more . . . but is it such a bad thing that I want you here? With me? With us? Being a part of what you used to love? To carry on the legacy?”

  I’ve learned to block emotions, and right now it’s coming in handy. Otherwise, the emotion thick in his voice would have had me already agreeing.

  “Dad.” His name is a sigh. A question. A holy shit. “I don’t understand. What about Uncle Luca? Isn’t he—wasn’t he supposed to be the one?” I’m at a loss for words, and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. My uncle Luca is second-in-command here. Always has been. It’s understandable to think he’d be the natural successor when my dad stepped down.

  Or when his illness prevented him from performing his daily duties adequately.

  “Yes. That is the presumption everyone has. But Luca and I have discussed this at length. In fact, he wanted to be here to be a part of this discussion so you’d know you have his blessing, but he has meetings he couldn’t cancel. He’s a shrewd businessman who understands the why to this change in direction. He’ll remain the steadying hand behind the scenes while you’re the charismatic one to the public. You’d be a team, but it would be one hundred percent you, kiddo, if that’s what you wanted.”

  I fight the urge to shove up out of my chair and move. To abate the sudden restlessness in me that his request has just caused. “This is a lot. Like . . . wow.”