“You, too.”

When Carl walked away, Ty leaned against his car and picked at his T-shirt. “Lord, that man scares me.”

“Why? He seems very friendly.”

“Don’t let him fool you. He’s sharp as a tack and a killer businessman. I don’t think I’m afraid of anything for the most part. Not losing, not failure, not death, not snakes or spiders. But that man makes me sweat.”

“What could he do to you?” Imogen asked, amazed to see that for the first time she’d been in Ty’s presence, he did look genuinely uncomfortable.

“Fire me.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Anything. Then that’s it. Who am I if I’m not driving?”

Wow. Imogen would have never guessed Ty had insecurities in any way, shape, or form. She was about to reassure him that he wouldn’t be fired unless he did something catastrophic and that, even if he was, he could find another team to drive for, but Ty cut her a grin.

“Never mind,” he said before she could speak. “Just wasn’t expecting to see him, that’s all. Now, let’s get you into this car.”

Imogen bit down on a shriek when he scooped her up in his arms and turned her so her legs slid into the car. One minute his hand was on her butt, her weight supported by his lean but powerful muscles, the next she was sitting in the driver’s seat of a race car.

Ty watched Imogen sitting stiffly, her hands up in the air like she was afraid to touch anything for fear of what it might to do to her, and he felt immeasurably better. God, what had he been thinking, blurting out that crap about being afraid of being fired and being nothing more than a washed-up loser driver? He didn’t say things like that to anyone. He didn’t let anyone know at any time that the only thing he was really afraid of was being cut off from the one thing he loved and the one thing he was good at. If he couldn’t drive, there was no backup plan for a guy who couldn’t make sense of the words on a piece of paper or on a computer screen.

How did he explain that to someone as brilliant as Imogen? He couldn’t. Of course, neither should he be spending time with her, and he wasn’t planning to stop that anytime soon. She just made him laugh, made him feel good.

Turned him on.

Really, really turned him on. It was the way she blinked up at him with those big blue eyes behind her glasses, all curious and aroused, that made him lose focus on everything except getting her into his bed. Wiggling her cute little ass in front of him hadn’t hurt the cause either.

“Just relax, Emma Jean. The car doesn’t bite. Unlike me.” He winked at her as he leaned in the window.

“I don’t want to destroy anything,” she replied, not even responding to his innuendo.