Illicit Affairs

Chapter 12

It was well into the afternoon before I pulled into the executive parking lot at Hendrick Motorsports. The lot was pretty empty which was not all that surprising. I knew Jeff had accompanied William to New York on his media tour, as his parking spot was empty. Same for all of the drivers.

If I didn't have a few things to go over, I would have stayed in bed with Ryan all day, but I did have some pressing matters to take care of before tomorrow, which was going to be a whirlwind of a day.

Since I knew no one would be here, I ditched my corporate attire and dressed simply and comfortably in jeans and a hoodie. Makeup free and my hair in a ponytail. As I entered the executive suite, I saw my assistant Molly seated at her desk filing her nails. She quickly dropped the file and looked at me sheepishly, almost like the kid who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"Good afternoon Ms. Davenport. I wasn't sure if you would be coming in today." She said nervously.

Molly was about my age, maybe a year or too younger and although she was extremely polite and efficient, she always seemed very nervous around me. Did I intimidate her?

"Hi Molly." I smiled at her. "I just have a few things to take care of. Do I have any messages?"

She shook her head, her auburn waves tumbling around her shoulders. "No ma'am. It's been rather quiet today."

I couldn't help but cringe. Ms. Davenport was bad enough, but did I really look like a ma'am?

"You know, you can call me Mia." I chuckled and saw her visibly relax. Maybe I have been a bit of a dragon lady. "Have you had lunch yet Molly?"

She nodded. "Yes ma...Mia. My boyfriend brought me something since I was the only one here to man the phones." She replied.

"Why don't you take the rest of the day off...with pay of course." I offered. "As you said, it isn't really all that busy and everyone else is out as well."

Her face brightened. "Seriously? I mean thank you. Are you sure you don't need me?"

I laughed. "It's fine Molly. Really. Just go and enjoy the rest of the day."

"Thank you Ms....Mia. Uh...so you need anything before I go?" She asked.

"No. I'm fine." I replied. She then gathered her things and left.

Truth was, I kind of wanted the place to myself. That never happens and I was looking to stir things up a bit.

I bypassed my office and went straight to my grandfather's office. Using the set of keys he gave me, I unlocked the filing cabinet. Starting at the top, I rifled through all of the files until I found what I was looking for: driver contracts. They were sorted by past and current drivers, then alphabetically. I grabbed all four of the current ones because I needed to compare them.

Setting them onto the desk, I removed Chase's and Kyle's and set them to the side. I knew they were basically written in stone and I couldn't change them even if I wanted to.

Sitting down, I opened Alex's first, as his was the one I was most interested in. I scanned the document until I came to the terms of agreement and found just what I was looking for, which was basically nothing. Nothing as in no restrictions listed. The contract did not state that he was allowed to race other cars, nor did it state that it wasn't allowed. However, below that in small print was this statement:

Terms of contract are subject to change at any time at the discretion of Hendrick Motorsports.

Bingo.

Alexa...play Karma by Taylor Swift.

I pulled William's, and it was exactly the same wording. For comparison purposes I checked Chase and Kyle's contracts, which were very detailed in the fact that they were allowed to race other types of cars. Kyle was even going to be running the Indy 500 in May with an option for next year. As expected the terms and conditions were iron clad and would not be up for debate until the contract ended and was to be renegotiated. The only thing the four contracts had in common was the disclaimer: