‘Not yet,’ Ade shouted from the other side of the car.

‘What?’ Anna yelled back.

Ade circled the car and came towards her. ‘You haven’t finished yet,’ he said.

‘I haven’t?’

He gave her that cocky smile again and Anna’s blood pressure reached a new peak for that day. ‘Nope. Your experience includes a high-speed passenger lap.’

Anna began shaking her head. ‘I… I don’t think…’

‘You’ve already paid for it,’ Ade replied, not smiling now, and his eyes glittered with challenge.

Anna started to feel a little queasy. It was the sort of look Spencer would have given her in a situation like this, full of boyish arrogance, so sure he was right about everything. She couldn’t help thinking about what he’d have done if he’d got to use this voucher as planned. She could imagine him diving out of the driving seat and jumping into the passenger side, banging on the dashboard to make Ade hurry up and get on with it.

You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you? she said to someone. Whether it was Spencer, God or her conscience, she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t mean the answer didn’t come back just as clearly.

Yes.

She set her chin and looked at Ade as she tightened her helmet back up. ‘Let’s do this.’

THREE MINUTES, THAT was all it took to do one complete circuit of the racetrack, and Anna was sure she was going to be reunited with Spencer every second of it. ‘Oh, God! I don’t want to die!’ she wailed as they took another corner at what seemed like two hundred miles an hour, even though Ade had patiently explained while zooming through the chicane that the turns came too quickly for the car to reach its maximum speed. But as they accelerated into yet another bend, Anna decided she wasn’t quite sure she believed him.

She was doing her best not to shout out or brace herself against any part of the car’s interior because she’d already worked out that Ade took it as a sign to stamp his foot down. When she got out of this car and got the use of her legs back, she was going to kick his butt, she really was. Let’s see who’d be smirking then!

The G-force as they went into the turn threw her against the car door, making her head bounce around like a puppet’s, and she’d barely got her breath back when Ade began to accelerate along one of the straighter patches. Tarmac and greenery streaked past the window in a blur. She glanced across at him and he was laughing, actually laughing.

‘Only one more turn,’ he mouthed at her as she closed her eyes and began to pray again. She could already feel the car surge forwards as he floored it.

It was worse with her eyes closed, she discovered, like being locked in a washing machine on the spin cycle, so she quickly opened them again, only to discover they were hurtling towards a safety barrier. The back wheels skidded, and she flung her arms out and gripped onto the dashboard. She didn’t care if Ade saw her fear anymore, because they couldn’t possibly go any faster than they already were.