Driven to Distraction: Gamble Racing, #1, page 1
Driven to Distraction
Also by Renee Dahlia
BeST
Count Me In
Strum Me Hard
Desiring The Dexingtons
Love Wasn't Built In A Day
Gamble Racing
Driven To Distraction (Coming Soon)
Driven By Passion (Coming Soon)
Great War
Her Lady's Melody
Her Lady's Fortune
His Lord's Soldier
Kapow
Out of Her League
Rekindled
His Buxom Beauty
Craving His Spotlight
Her Pregnant Rival
Seraph's Burlesque Club
Show Up
Show Off
Show Queen
Show Time
Show Dance
Standalone
The Shipwrecked Earl's Bride
Watch for more at Renee Dahlia’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Also By Renee Dahlia
Driven To Distraction (Gamble Racing, #1)
About the author
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Author Notes
All Books by Renée Dahlia
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Also By Renee Dahlia
Driven to Distraction
Renée Dahlia
A race to the finish line, and a family secret ...
Car racing driver Ondrej D’Grieg has one goal in life. Be a champion. To achieve that he needs to focus. That's why Ondrej has no time for his father's insistence on him being involved with some old family drama about a missing rare car. He can ignore the mystery, if only Hudson, the historian investigating it, wasn’t so distracting.
Hudson Lockley has a research job to do, and falling for the son of his employer is a no-no. But only one thing is more fascinating than this puzzle; Mr D’Grieg’s famous racing car driver son, Ondrej.
When their interest turns to kisses, then more, the race to figure out this attraction between them starts. But a small mistake could cause a crash that breaks both their hearts.
About the author
An avid reader, Renée Dahlia writes contemporary and historical queer romance. Renée is a bisexual cis woman who is fascinated by people and loves to explore human relationships, with a side of humour, through her writing. Renée has a degree in physics and mathematics, using this to write data-based magazine articles for the horse racing industry. Her love of horses often shines through in her fiction, and she loves a good intrigue and to escape the real world in the pages of a book. When she isn’t reading or writing, Renée spends her time with her four children, usually watching them play cricket.
Foreword
Welcome to DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION, the first book in the Gamble Racing series.
If you love gay sports romance with a coming out theme, workplace tension, rich/poor, and a little mystery thrown in, Driven to Distraction is the book for you. This series contains a few mystery plots that continue between each book; however, I have tried to make each book a standalone read.
Please note this book contains forced outing (off page).
This book is written in Australian English and some spelling and phrases may be unfamiliar to American readers.
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I hope you enjoy reading this book!
Renée
Chapter 1
Australia.
Ondrej had become accustomed to the gut-wrenching pain of being alone while surrounded by people. He braced himself for more of the same as his throat thickened. Heat haze rose from the asphalt, created by the Australian summer sun, and he zipped down the front of his racing suit as he walked into the pit garage after parking his car by the weighbridge. Today should have marked the beginning of his rise back to stardom ... except he’d just finished eighth in the Australian Grand Prix.
“Ondrej. Awesome drive.” One of the mechanics called out and Ondrej fist pumped him as he walked past. After consistently finishing at the tail of the field for a whole season, he ought to share the jubilation on the faces of everyone in the Gamble Racing Team. He didn’t. He expected to win. Two years ago—a lifetime in S1—he’d been a key member of a winning team, but so much had changed since then. Ondrej went through the motions in the garage easily, outwardly smiling, and blank on the inside. Gamble Racing was one of the smaller teams in Series One with around six hundred employees. Less than a quarter of them were here in Australia, supporting him—the number one driver—and his rookie team-mate, Paulo Sanchez. Ondrej shook hands with each of the mechanics, thanking them for their hard work, and listened to them all gush over the way he’d driven today. Eighth wasn’t worth this amount of praise. They should wait until he’d fought his way back to a podium finish.
“Great drive, Ondrej.” His race engineer, Jaxxon, slapped him on the shoulder and pulled him in for a masculine sporty hug. It was almost worse to have someone touch him like this; with such familiarity and joy. “I told you the crash in quali wouldn’t matter.”
“It matters.” Ondrej pulled away from Jaxxon. “I might have done better than P8 without it, and the mechanics wouldn’t have spent all night fixing my car.” Australia—the first race of a new season—should be all about hope and new beginnings.
“Most passes by any driver today, Ondrej. Own that. Next race, use it.” Jaxxon wasn’t just stroking his ego. He knew his stuff. But no one here understood the longing that came with wanting to be himself and being utterly unable to. Ondrej was gay. A simple fact that stole his goals. He would never be world champion in this mid-field team. No other team wanted a gay driver. If he thought about the unfairness of his situation, his chest compressed as if he’d been winded in a heavy crash. So he didn’t think about it. He painted on his arrogant sneer and gave everyone the ego they expected from an S1 driver.
“I was third fastest in Q1. I shouldn’t have needed to pass seven people to get a good result.” He’d crashed at the end of the first qualification drive—clipping the apex curb in turn one and spinning out—meaning he didn’t drive in Q2, so he’d started fifteenth on the grid for today’s race. Bloody twitchy new car.
“Bloody drivers and their impossible egos. Getting points in a mid-field car should be good enough.” The team owner and boss, Socrates, stuck out his hand and Ondrej shook it automatically.
“Is mid-field good enough for you?” Ondrej was too good to follow other cars around the track. Two years ago, he’d finished third on the championship table, in a team that won the constructor’s title. Before he’d been unceremoniously sacked for being gay.
“Today it is. You’ve just scored Gamble Racing’s first points in four years.” A world champion driver in the late eighties, Socrates had a typical S1 pathway as a wealthy white Brit. He stood out as different to all the other, mostly white straight European drivers in S1 history as the only openly gay man in S1. There were rumours about others, like retired driver and media personality Freddy Hiptonstall, but never out. Even Socrates hadn’t come out until long after he retired from driving, when it didn’t matter anymore. When Ondrej’s old team had dumped him, Socrates had stepped in and offered him a seat in the worst team on the grid. If Socrates knew the reason why Ondrej had been tossed away like garbage, he’d never mentioned it. Being gay wasn’t something people openly acknowledged in S1.
“History is irrelevant in S1.” Jaxxon was one of the few people Ondrej took advice from. He was a brilliant strategist, and he knew how to fight for what he wanted. Jaxxon was a Black man who’d grown up in one of the poorest suburbs in Liverpool and he had ambitions. Jaxxon wouldn’t be content until he was Team Principal. Having a race engineer who matched Ondrej’s desire to be the best was the only good thing about ending up in this team. “The only thing that matters is how to take today’s success and improve on it.”
“Eighth today, podium in two weeks at Bahrain.” Ondrej made it sound like he believed it.
“This year’s car is very fast.” It was hard not to sneer at Socrates who’d finally sacked his old Lead Engineer Reginald Whitehall after years of terrible performance, and replaced him with a young gun, Victor Tsui, who’d completely redesigned the car for this season.
“Yes.” Ondrej didn’t want to get into this argument now. Victor’s car had a lot of potential. Once they got the balance sorted, it would be quick and drivable. Right now, he needed some space to
“Brilliant drive.” Papa looked up from his laptop as Ondrej stepped inside. “This year’s car is so fast. Are you pleased?”
“I should be.” Ondrej could always be honest with his father and agent. It’d always just been the two of them with no secrets. Ondrej trusted Papa with his career and his life.
“You should be, and I can see that you aren’t. You are worth more than this.”
“Thanks, Papa.” He collapsed into a chair, staring blankly at the wall ahead.
“Yes. I’ve noticed that you’ve been very hard on yourself since...”
“Since I was sacked for ‘inappropriate behaviour with a staff member’?” Ondrej had hooked up with one of the mechanics in his old team, Alex, a couple of times, and his old boss had caught them kissing in a storage cupboard. It had been a fucking bad choice—definitely ill-thought-out on his part—to tempt fate at work. Gamble had offered him a seat, and he’d been desperate enough to accept. The worst team on the grid was better than not driving at all. Now ... after a year of following all the other cars around the track, he wasn’t so certain he’d made the right choice.
“Yes. You are an adult ... and I think we mopped up that mess quite well.”
“You don’t judge me for that?” Ondrej cursed the question. For over a year, he’d skirted around this subject with Papa.
“I think that if he’d been a woman, no one would’ve cared. The standard placed on you is unfair. No one should blame a driver for needing to let off steam. S1 is a high-pressure environment. You need some ... ahh, release. Your mother always needed that.”
Ondrej cleared his throat. He knew his parents must have had sex at some point—his existence was evidence of that—but he really didn’t want to think about it. “Papa.”
“She did.” Papa’s gaze glazed over, like it always did when he reminisced about Ma.
“How is the Bugatti project going?” Ondrej had to change the subject, even to one that he found irritating. The weird heat along the back of his neck must be the reason that Papa never wanted to talk about what happened with Alex either. This was the problem in working so close with family; some things were awkward to talk about when considered with a father/son dynamic, not an agent/driver one.
“The last historian was very disappointing, as you know.” For years, Papa had been searching for the missing Bugatti. He was obsessed with it. Ondrej sighed. When he was a kid, the idea that his great-grandfather had been gifted a rare car was thrilling. Now he was a disillusioned twenty-eight-year-old, he knew the car would never be found, but he tried to indulge Papa, because as far as hobbies went it was fairly harmless.
“Find another.” Ondrej would have to meet them and ensure they weren’t going to get Papa’s hopes up too much. Just like driving Victor’s car, it was a balancing act between letting Papa have hope and not destroying his dreams.
“I did.” Papa’s eyes lit up. “And better still, he works for a company who has a queer friendly website.”
Ondrej leaned forward. “You found a gay historian?” Ondrej imagined some pompous old balding man in a dapper pin stripe suit with a purple silk handkerchief in the jacket pocket. Each of the twelve historians who had tried—and failed—to find the rare car had been retired.
“If I find you’ve match-made me with some dull bookish old man...” He grinned as Papa’s eyes widened. “I’m kidding.”
“I would never. Love is too distracting from your job. We’ve already seen what happens when—” Papa didn’t need to finish that sentence to reinforce that Ondrej couldn’t be gay at work. Not if he wanted to be in a team capable of winning races. No one ever told the straight drivers they couldn’t think about sex when they weren’t in their race car.
Two days later, Ondrej parked his Maserati outside his childhood home and once again stared at the perplexing text from Papa.
Papa: I’ve taken a leaf from Socrates’ book with this new historian.
Ondrej assumed this referred to Socrates being gay and the new historian also likely being gay. He walked inside, holding his breath, ready to cringe at Papa trying too hard. All his breath whistled out in a rush. Seated at the dining table was a stunningly handsome white man, who was probably the same age as himself. Papa’s eyes gleamed with his usual excitement; that this time, this historian would finally be the one to do the impossible and find the fucking car. Logically, it’d probably been melted down during WWII and made into machine guns. Logic didn’t seem to matter to Papa when it came to this topic.
Ondrej stared at the man, unable to speak. He was nothing like Ondrej had imagined. The man’s vibrant red hair was swept back off his face in a fashionable cut, and he wore wire rim glasses balanced on a straight nose. The gentle patient expression on his face made him look incredibly kissable, and when combined with the blue sweater that clung to his broad shoulders, Ondrej struggled not to stare hungrily at him. It’d been months since Ondrej had fucked someone. Hell.
“Ah, Ondrej. I’m so glad you are here. Please meet Mr Lockley, he’s just arrived from England to solve our little mystery.”
“Hello. Pleased to meet you.” Ondrej didn’t offer his hand for the historian to shake because his words were a lie. He wasn’t pleased. He was confused as fuck. Papa had said he wasn’t match making, that love was distracting. Ondrej wasn’t looking for love, but he definitely could spend more time with someone so smoking hot. After a couple of short breaths, he couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed at Papa’s choice. Confused, yes? Irritated, fuck no. More like intrigued.
“Let me read you this letter and you’ll see what I mean.” Papa turned back to Mr Lockley, who nodded his agreement. Ondrej had read this letter often enough that he could probably recite it. The thin yellowing paper had a crest printed at the top, and the writing was that old fashioned scrawling script with a few ink blotches at random.
February 12, 1940
My dearest friend,
I do hope this letter reaches you under these most difficult of conditions. We have now been in England for the past few months, safely ensconced at the estate of the wonderful Lord Benburgh, who you may recall raced against us both in the Le Mans of ’37. He kindly offered us safe passage when this infernal war broke out, and we leaped at the chance. I am writing because I have one regret and I was hoping you might assist me.
If you recall that race in ’37, our mutual friend Robert Benoist gave me La Voiture Noire, a Bugatti Atlantis (chassis number 57453), as a prize when I won. We had a good couple of years, enjoying driving the somewhat experimentally designed car around France. What a car! So elegant in design, with an engine that purred. Unfortunately when we had to rush over here, we were forced to leave her behind. I rang Robert before we left, and he promised to try and collect La Voiture Noire from our old place of residence. I won’t include the address here, but you visited there on several occasions. The house with the stone front wall, and the rather impressive elm tree in the front yard. Robert mentioned he would try to store La Voiture Noire back at the Bugatti factory. I haven’t heard from him since, so I’m not sure if this was achieved. Given the increasing problems, I was rather hoping I could ask a favour of you. Would you mind checking our garage for La Voiture Noire, and if she’s not there, checking the factory? If you find her, I have included the spare key. I hope that you would relocate La Voiture Noire to a safe location, and in return for such a difficult mission, she is yours to keep. She was a gift to me, and I gift her to you, because such an incredible machine surely deserves to be kept safe from those who dare invade our beloved France; the location of many of my race victories and a place dear to my heart.
Yours always,
William Grover-Williams.
“Papa, you know that letter only means the car existed until the war started.” Ondrej used to dream about this car and the letter, hoping that it had been saved. There were only three Bugatti Atlantis cars still in existence—only four were ever made—and the sleek long design was still one of the most beautiful vehicles ever designed.
