One Final Step. Stephanie Doyle

world.

      Now he was ready to turn his talents to mass marketing a car for the future. It was ambitious and noble, probably unlikely. Definitely unlikely considering the world still saw him as a frivolous speed jockey who liked to drink champagne from women’s cleavage after each victory.

      Strange, but the man who had sat across from her hadn’t looked much like the pictures she’d seen when doing preliminary research. His hair was natural brown with gold streaks rather than bleached white, as it had been during his days on the racing circuit. While his hazel eyes had been more prominent with the extreme color, they seemed fairly normal on a face that wasn’t as darkly tanned as it had been back then.

      Of course, in most pictures he’d always been wearing his custom-made trademark wraparound sunglasses. No real chance for a person to see his eyes and detect the intelligence and determination within them.

      “He was okay.”

      “Okay. What an abysmal word. Talk to me, Madeleine.”

      She wasn’t sure what to say. “He’s got potential. If he plays his cards right and changes his public persona, I think he would stand a better chance of having his ideas reach his target audience.”

      “Does he need your help to do that?”

      Yes. Madeleine was confident about that. She was sure he didn’t see himself the way she did. “I think so. You know my concerns.”

      “I know your concerns. I also know what it meant for you to leave your house to fly out there and meet him. And I appreciate that you did it because I asked. But, Madeleine, it’s been seven years.”

      She hated when people recited the number. It was like there was some magical timetable in the universe for recovery. After two years she should have moved on. After five years she should have put it in perspective. After seven years she should have forgotten it entirely.

      None of those things had happened. It made her feel weak. She hated feeling weak more than she hated people reciting the number of years since the incident.

      “I’m considering it.” She would sleep on it and decide if the fear of getting back into this line of work outweighed her need to do more than simply read or write about a subject.

      “Good girl. This job would be good for you. I know it. And Michael…well, Michael’s not what he seems. You know how the media can distort things.”

      “You mean like when they christened me the ‘Whore of the Twenty-first Century’?”

      Ben actually smiled. “Yeah. Like that. When you think about how ridiculous the name— It doesn’t matter. You can’t go back. Only forward. I’ve been letting you bury your head in the sand for five years coming up with idea after idea that other people take credit for. That time is over, Madeleine. You’re ready.”

      “Thanks, Pop.” It was a lecture she had received before, mainly from herself. She bristled a little to hear it from Ben.

      She understood she’d purposefully cut herself off from the life she once had. But it wasn’t as if anyone had come knocking on her door to pull her back into the political arena. She could be as ready to reenter the political world as can be. It didn’t mean she was going to get any job offers.

      “I’m not your father, I’m your employer. More importantly, I know you. Go research electric cars and Michael because you know you are itching to do it. Then call him in the morning and take the job. Consider my health-care costs. I need the money.”

      Madeleine snorted. Ben Tyler did not need the money. He did, however, need to think he was contributing to the group, helping its members. Especially at a time when he felt so physically useless.

      “I’m seriously considering it,” she told him.

      “I’ll take it.”

      “Yo, cancer boy. Dinner is on the way and you are going to eat some of it even if I have to sit on your pathetically weak chest and force the food down.”

      Ben leaned into the camera and lowered his voice. “Do you see what I have to put up with?” To Anna he shouted, “You’re fired.”

      “Nice try, Donald Trump. Start making your way into the kitchen. By the time you shuffle here the food will have arrived.”

      Madeleine laughed and she could see a hint of a smile on Ben’s face before she disconnected the call. That was what made Anna completely indispensable. She still made Ben smile. And a man, no matter how sick, still wanted to smile once in a while.

      Left on her own, Madeleine thought about Michael. Michael, who needed a kingmaker.

      This was probably not going to end well, but the urge to reach for it was impossible to ignore. For seven years she’d felt like she was living someone else’s life. Happily, because her own life had imploded into a disaster. Lately, though, she’d begun to feel a sense of urgency. Like if she didn’t try to overcome her fears she would waste away and forever become the quiet hermit she’d made herself into.

      She was going to take the job.

      God help her.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “THISISIT.”

      Madeleine turned her attention to the flat-screen monitor on the wall and watched a series of images appear. At Michael’s urging, she’d agreed to come back to his office for an in-depth look at the project. Despite having made up her mind to take the job, she still found herself hesitating to tell him.

      Sitting with him now, the presentation was less important than observing the man. She watched as he animatedly went through each screen, detailing design changes, enhancements and improvements for the standard Detroit-made car, while at the same time utilizing the factory machinery already in place. He talked about making more space in the passenger seating area and trunk without the need for driveshafts and chassis.

      None of it made any sense to her. She was the stereotypical woman when it came to automobiles. She knew they needed a key and gas to work and every three thousand miles the oil needed to be changed. That was about all.

      “Okay, let’s talk about money. Are you still with me?”

      Madeleine nodded, then listened to him expand on costs. He discussed how many to build against projections of what would sell. And the price of the car and the impact it would have on the average American. Not to mention the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

      Madeleine had to smother a smile. The average American. It had been a long time since she’d heard anyone use that phrase so effectually. Because it targeted not a specific group, but everyone in the country. It was something politicians learned long ago, all American people, rich, poor and those in the middle, still liked to identify themselves as average.

      This man wasn’t average. He was extraordinary.

      Again she considered the bio on him she had read before agreeing to fly to Detroit. Raised by a single mother in the poor section of Detroit, he found he had a knack for both fixing up cars as well as racing them. It eventually led him into crime when he began to steal them. Incarcerated at the age of nineteen, he’d served all three years of his sentence.

      His time served was actually an anomaly. As a first-time offender for grand theft auto, the sentence made perfect sense. But with parole and relatively good behavior he should have been out in half the time. Instead he’d spent the full three years behind bars.

      After being released he went to work at an auto body shop. Archie Beeker still owned and operated it, not too far from where Michael grew up. In countless interviews, Michael always credited Archie with giving him his start, with saving his life. While working for Archie he began to rebuild cars from the scrap heap and was racing them in what was called “Formula X” races all around the country.

      Not the sleek, sophisticated machines of Formula One and not the stock racing cars of NASCAR, the Formula X cars represented the best designs