The W by Wattpad Books version of BURN is releasing January 2! Pre-order your copy today here. You can also request an early review copy on NetGalley here. Don't forget to leave a review!

Procrastibaking is the art of delicious distraction. Since I lost my job a month ago, I've become an expert.

I've used baking — something I was never much into before — as an avoidance tactic. A way to deflect from the fact I was fired. A vehicle to avoid looking for a new job. A break from real life.

And today, the afternoon of the Florida Grand Prix race, my newfound baking habit is serving as a stress release of sorts. I'm channeling my inner Martha Stewart and making double chocolate chunk cookies.

I tune the small TV monitor in the kitchen to the race and line up my ingredients. Flour, sugar, butter, eggs. I'd even found some gourmet, fair trade chocolate chips at a health food store. Like there's anything healthy about these things.

As the television blares with pre-race interviews, I plop the stick of butter in a bowl and dump a cup of sugar on top.

Dad's at the race, probably pacing in the garage. Ready to give his team a rousing, inspiring and legendarily gruff-yet-loving pep talk. There's no way he'll mingle with the crowd, so there's little chance I'll see him chatting with the Sky Sports announcer, who's roaming the track for his infamous interviews with celebs on live TV.

Grid Walk with Gordon, the segment's called. It's been on for years. Viewers love it, and watching it makes me grin, thinking how Dad's always loathed the cheesiness of Gordon's questions.

"Oh, there's Savannah Jenkins-Annunziata, the owner of Jenkins-Annunziata racing. Savvy? Savvy?"

I look up, straightening the glasses on my nose to watch. Her team is one of my father's main competitors.

"How are you feeling about today's race? It's the first Formula World in Miami, so it's quite historic. Your hair looks marvelous, by the way."

Of course Gordon would comment on her flowing red mane. "Do you compliment all the team owners' hair?" Savannah says in a flat tone.

I bark a laugh. Savannah's a friend. We're both about the same age but took vastly different life paths. She embraced the Formula World life, married a driver, became a team owner. I was once my father's intern in hopes of following him into the family business, but then I ran from the sport and pursued a safer path: business school and a job at an auto racing game developer.

It all worked out so perfectly, until it didn't. Maybe real-life racing would've been a more secure path, ironically.

I know Savannah well enough to detect she's worried about today's race. That little furrow in her brow tells me everything and am sure she's also annoyed with Gordon and his sexist questions. Plus, it's June, which means it's hotter than Hades and all of Florida today. Savannah's face has bypassed dewy and is well on its way to a full-blown sweat.

One more reason I'm glad I didn't attend.

"I believe we've worked out any issues with our cars that we had back in Toronto." Savannah smiles tightly and tries to edge away from the reporter.

"Any driver you're particularly worried about? Anyone you think could beat your guys?"

Savannah inhales sharply. "Well, I think everyone should always be worried about Max Becker on the Onassis team. He's the most experienced on the track, and as we all know, is ruthless when he's behind the wheel."

"Well, you'd certainly know, Savannah, since your husband and Max were rivals, and then teammates..."

I dip my head and focus on the bowl of butter and sugar. Initially I'd planned to use the mixer, but instead I take a fork and attack the butter, mashing it together with the sugar with harsh, almost violent, strokes.

I could be at the track. Drinking champagne, hobnobbing with the celebrities in the garage. I'd see friends at the track, maybe have a few laughs about the old days.

Dad would've been so thrilled if I'd been at his side, like old times, and that fact makes me feel guilty as hell. The track only about twenty miles from my condo in downtown Miami. But I just couldn't. Couldn't face the world after my career recently ended in a spectacular flame-out. Couldn't face the press asking about every detail of my life, once again.

And most of all, I couldn't face Max Becker, my father's star driver.

The reporter drifts away from Savannah and drones on for several minutes, interviewing an actor who obviously knows nothing about the sport.

"Aaaaaaaand there's a man here I always like to talk to. It's the driver of the hour, the man with everything to win and the most to lose. Max Becker, three-time world champion and odds-on favorite to take home a fourth driver's trophy this season. Max? Care to say a few words about your latest race with Team Onassis? Well done on that pole position during qualifying."

My head snaps to attention and I lean closer to the TV screen that hangs under a cabinet. A pair of bright blue eyes and rumpled, dirty blonde hair fill the screen. It's a face used to winning, the arrogant expression of a man used to getting everything he wants because of his incredible, ridiculous, all-consuming talent.

"It's going to be a tough race. Sensitive circuit. None of us know the track. All I need to do is stay away from the walls and I'll win. You know that." His smooth, slightly German-accented voice still makes my stomach flutter after all these years.

The reporter chuckles. "There's that legendary Max Becker confidence."

A self-assured smirk spreads on Max's pouty lips. "Could you flatter him any harder? Jeez, Gordon, just give him a big, wet kiss," I say aloud to the TV.

"This is half the battle. The mental part." Max taps his temple.

"How do you think your recent break-up with pop singer Ella will affect your driving?" the reporter asks.

I snort aloud. Like Max cares about anything but the sport right now. When I broke up with him, he was able to walk away from me and never look back. Not once.

Max shoots him a withering stare. The smirk is gone. "Ella and I were never a couple. We're just friends. Nothing, not even women, affects my driving. You know that."

"I sure as hell do," I reply.

Max claps the reporter on the shoulder and melts into the crowd on the track. I turn back to the butter and sugar mix, then give up and set the bowl onto the stand mixer. It's only then that I realize my heart's racing faster than the RPMs on those cars.

With a sigh, I pause for a glass of water while the mixer does its job. For the next twenty minutes, I pre-heat the oven and throw the rest of the ingredients into the mixing bowl. The cookie dough is ready when the drivers are in their cars and on the grid, and instead of scooping the dough onto the sheet in perfect round balls, I swipe a spoonful of raw dough.

"It's three o'clock here in Miami and the cars are pulling away for their formation lap for the inaugural Florida Grand Prix," the announcer says.

I know you're not supposed to eat raw dough, but whatever. I side the spoon into my mouth and stare at the screen while leaning against the island counter.

"So as the cars make their way around the track, this is the lineup: Max Becker from Team Onassis on pole position, Hsuki Morishita from Red Bull beside him in the front row, Esteban Alba from Team Onassis and João Olivera from Mercedes in the third and fourth places..."

I tune out the rest of the grid position announcement while I shovel more uncooked dough into my face. Max once told me that the moments before a race were the second most exciting thing he'd ever experienced, a rush like no other.

Back then, seven years ago, I'd asked him what the first most exciting thing was. I was twenty-four at the time, he was twenty-two.

"You," he'd replied.

Stupidly, I'd believed him. Maybe he'd believed it himself. He'd been a virgin. New to the world of Formula World and to the glitz, glamour and girls that came along with it. This was before he became a tabloid sensation before he turned into the superstar athlete he is today.

Back then, those blue eyes were wide and trusting. His hair was blonder, and his smile more genuine. His face was less angular then, padded with a little plump of fat. I adored everything about him, and even now, my heart aches when I see him on TV.

There are deep, dark parts of me that are still raw because I wonder about what was and what could've been between us. Which is the main reason I didn't go to the race today.

"The cars are making their way around the final corners to start this Grand Prix during an uncharacteristically sweltering English afternoon."

I set down my spoon and open the second package of chocolate chips, shoveling a handful into my mouth. The formation lap is a casual drive around the circuit to warm up the tires. Soon the cars will be back in place on the grid, then pause for a few seconds before the race formally begins.

"Becker is about to start on pole position, and he leads this new season in the championship by twenty points. Adrian Onassis watching in the garage..."

The camera cuts from the track to my father, who stands in the garage with his arms folded, staring at a monitor. His white hair is rumpled, and face looks uncharacteristically beet-red. Perspiration runs down his cheeks and I grimace at the sight.

"Goodness, Dad. Get into the air conditioning. Drink some water," I murmur to the TV. Why he insists on being in the garage when he could be in one of the team's air-conditioned trailers with all the TV monitors is beyond me. He knows the Miami heat is brutal.

The camera flashes to a different scene. "And look, there's actor Brad Pitt watching in the Mercedes garage. All eyes are on the pole position because Max Becker barely squeaked out that first spot over Hsuki Morishita. Can Morishita fight Becker back? I think the question is, has Max Becker finally loosened up and allowed himself to have some fun on the track?"

Another announcer comes on and discusses Max's well-known, and very calculated, risk taking while driving. I've heard this discussion a thousand times from announcers over the years. They try to categorize, analyze, and opine.

But Max Becker always surprises everyone.

Sure surprised me a time or two.

"The Florida Grand Prix, about to get underway before a hundred and fifty thousand fans in Miami. The lights go out and the race begins!"

I hold my breath as the cars pull away. This is always the best part of a race, seeing who will emerge from that first cluster of cars. Sometimes there are wrecks this early, serving to weed out the unlucky and unprepared drivers. Sure enough, a couple of cars collide and skid into the gravel.

Max pulls ahead of the competition with ease, as I suspected he would.

"Becker's got the best start..." The announcer chatters on about how Max is looking strong and the car's handling well. Good. Dad will be thrilled. But neither Dad nor Max will relax for the next fifty-seven laps, not until that checkered flag flies.

I exhale and turn back to the cookies, spooning them onto the sheet while listening to the race. I slide them into the oven and set the timer for twelve minutes.

As the smell of vanilla and sugar fill the air, I kick myself for not going to the track. Dad's eyes took on a certain sadness when I told him I couldn't attend this year, but mercifully, he didn't ask why. Maybe he knew. Or perhaps he just figured I wasn't up to such a crowded event just two months after a very public dismissal from my job as the human resources manager — excuse me, "chief people officer" — for a new and wildly popular tech company.

I'd told dad I didn't want to be a distraction to him or the team. It was true. But I also didn't want to see Max. Oh, sure, I'd run into him at races over the years, but he'd always been on another team so it was easy to avoid any lengthy conversations. Now that he's my father's driver, well, that's another story altogether.

The first batch of cookies finish, and I slide them onto a rack and bake another sheet. I keep one ear to the race as I clean up, and when the second batch is finished, I lose myself in organizing my fridge.

I can only imagine what an announcer would say if they were narrating my life right now.

"The disgraced executive of a popular auto racing video game company leads an exciting life, arranging her fridge on a hot Sunday afternoon. Most women like her would be having brunch at a posh New York hot-spot or vacationing in the Alps. Not Lily Onassis. She's a lone wolf, preferring cookies to Coach bags and sneakers to Saint Laurent. And look at her outfit. She can't even be bothered to change out of yoga pants and a coffee-stained T-shirt. So much money, privilege, and potential, and she chooses a plain-Jane existence. She's notoriously private, has been for years since she was rumored to have a relationship with Formula World superstar Max Becker. At the time, he was a driver for a rival team..."

An hour passes, and in between scrubbing the scuzz leftover from a rotting peach in the produce drawer and tossing a Styrofoam container of takeout that's a couple weeks old, I check the race. Max is still in first place, and it appears as though he'll win. Dad's excellent instinct for luring drivers from competing teams has paid off again.

The chirp of my cell jolts me away from the television. I pad into the living room, where the phone sits on the coffee table.

ADAM MCLEAN, the screen says.

Weird. It's my father's assistant. Surely he's at the race with Dad.

"Hey, Adam. What's up?" I ask in a brisk tone.

"Lily, I have some unfortunate news. Don't panic. We're sending a driver for you."

"What? Why? What's going on?" I press my free hand to my throat, as if to hold in my heart that feels like it's lodged there instead of my chest. Whenever someone tells you not to panic, that's literally the only thing you can do.

"It's your father. He passed out in the garage during the race and is on his way to hospital now. We need you here as soon as possible."

_____

Thank you for reading the first chapter of my new book! Please let me know what you think! This is the third in The Pretenders series — the other two are DRIVE and CRASH. I'll be updating this a couple of times a week, and be on the lookout for bonus chapters, too! BURN will be published by W by Wattpad books in 2024. xoxo, Tamara

_____