“I am a strong, confident woman. I am qualified. I am knowledgeable. I am enough,” I mouth to the mirror for the umpteenth time.

Under the fluorescent lights in the office toilets, I resemble a panda waking up from a year-long bender. The bags under my brown eyes are no match for the foundation I attempt to reapply with fumbling fingers as my dad’s voice plays through my phone’s speaker.

“You can do this, Senna. You’re not my first choice to run my team,” he grits, “but your brother ditched us to find himself.”

“Find himself” is said with a bitterness that’s an increasingly large part of my dad’s personality.

It’s not my fault the great Jim Coulter retired from managing the Coulter Racing team. A heart attack brought on by bad choices and overwork was the final straw. I sink my teeth into my tongue. The last time I mumbled the words, he wouldn’t speak to me for a day.

Dad barrels on like he’s browbeating one of his engineers instead of his only daughter. “You will lead the team acceptably until he returns. Don’t forget you were named after Ayrton Senna.”

As if I could forget. I tap the tiles, sighing inwardly. “Sorry you didn’t get two sons, Dad.”

“Senna,” he cautions.

I swipe mango lip balm over my lips. “Dad, Niki needed to work out who he is and what he wants because of his accident. An accident that nearly killed him, remember?” I reply, managing my tone.

“I am well aware. He was going to send my team into the stratosphere this season.”

My heart races faster than a car on soft tyres. We’ve had this argument several times over the last week. Niki should be standing here, ready to speak to the board and drivers in preparation for the new season. He wouldn’t be staring into the bathroom mirror, limbs trembling, while Dad lectures him.

“And before you ask,” I add, trying to redirect the conversation, “I don’t know where he is. He’s not checked in since he told me I’m the new boss of Coulter Racing as he left the country several days ago.”

“He knew that crashing is a part of racing. He should’ve manned up and taken on the team. Now it’s up to you,” Dad grumbles.

I rub the scar on my hand from when my car slammed into a wall in a British Formula Three race when I was a teenager. The silver thread warns me never to race again, and that if I’m to achieve, I have to do it alone. Trusting the wrong person nearly ended my life that day.

The bathroom entrance bangs open, and my best friend Jackie’s, aka Jacs, boots smack against the tiled floor. Her mechanic’s uniform hangs open. A glare clouds her freckly face and makes her red eyebrows dive together as if they’re squaring up to each other.

“Dad, I’ve got to go. I’ll update you.”

“That’s right, Jumps. Get in there and ensure we win the Constructor’s Championship this year. It’s all on you.” His finger is probably pointing at the mobile while my mum is telling him to calm down. “It was a travesty when we lost it by one point twenty years ago.”

“Bye, Dad.” I sigh. It’s all I can do to keep from asking him for the umpteenth time not to use the nickname he gave me when I started karting and I’d accidentally jump the lights at the start.

He doesn’t need to remind me of the story he’s repeated every season since I was five, either. He hangs up as I’m visited by the haunting image of tears rolling down his cheeks as he told me how he’d be the greatest F1 boss one day.

I hold a fist to my lips as Jacs taps her foot against the floor. She strides to me, grips my shoulders, and forces me to confront my face in the mirror. “Who is this?”

I try to shrug her off, but she’s got the grip of a racing driver competing for first place. “What do you mean?”

“Who is this?” Her Scottish accent makes her words punchier. Her green eyes pierce mine in the glass.

“A woman who could do with a makeover, especially a new haircut and a change in style, but doesn’t have the time because she’s too busy failing at everything she does.”

My average body with hints of curves gives away my passion for running and secret love of doughnuts. My blond hair falls limply to the middle of my back, and my lips are too thin, although I won’t get fillers. With my luck, they’d go wrong, and I’d be called Ducky for the rest of my life instead of Crasher. Another nickname that’s more about my failures than my achievements.

“For fuck’s sake, Senna.” Her grunt echoes off the marble sinks. “This is the new boss of Coulter Racing. This is a woman who—”

One of the administrative assistants from the marketing and communications department bustles into the toilets, causing Jacs to roar. The assistant squeals as she turns and runs back out.

“Jacs, don’t shout at my team.”

Jacs strides over to the bathroom door and locks it. “She’s not your team, because you’re not the marketing and communications department director anymore. You’re the boss of the entire company.” Technically, that makes her still part of my team, but there’s no point arguing. There’s a reason why Jacs hit the glass ceiling of the mechanics team and kept going. “And why are you in these toilets and not in the ones attached to the big boss’s office? You have a private bathroom now.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” she replies. She walks back to me at the mirror and makes me face it again. Her five-foot height means I tower above her at five six, but her power obliterates mine in that second. This time, she says in a softer voice. “You are Senna Coulter. Who knows more about cars than any other person in this place, aside from me?”

“Me,” I mumble.

“Who knows more about this team than anyone in this building?”

“Me,” I say a little louder.

“Who worked every hour that existed while all the men waggled their little dicks, pretending they knew what they were doing but never coming close to your skill or achievements?”

“Me.” I smile at our reflections.

“And who is a businesswoman, driver, mechanic, and ball buster who can bring greatness to this team? Something her brother recognised years ago yet her dad is too foolish to realise because, like so many men in this place, he’s decided women don’t compare? Shout it loud!”

“Me!”

“Yes, Coults. Exactly.” The nickname those closest to me use gives me an instant lift. “And if not for the stupid racing driver who shall not be named—Connor fucking Dane—you’d be the greatest racing driver this world has ever seen and better than him, too.”

Mentioning Connor Dane makes me snarl, which is precisely what she intended.

“It’s going to be harder to avoid him now,” I say. Connor was the guy who’d caused me to crash into a wall, effectively ending my racing career when I was a teenager. I’ve done a brilliant job of avoiding my brother’s best friend for ten years. “What if I see him on the track? Did you hear the latest? Apparently, he was caught with his last trainer in his boss’s car.”

She pushes my worry away with a flip of her hand. “You’re going to lead a record-breaking team—”

“We’re floundering at the bottom,” I cut in.

She glares back. “While he’ll slum it at Vessa—”

“Who are the best in the championship—”

“I’m trying to big you up!”

“Fine. This is our season because, hopefully,” I reply, whispering the last word and earning a glare from Jacs anyway, “our two drivers this season, Antoine and Dax, will change that, although neither care about the team. In some ways, I’m taking on a failure—”

“Senna,” she barks.

“But this team means the world to me, so I won’t compare our crappy performances to anyone else’s for at least ten minutes,” I say to her reflection. Her smirk makes me wrinkle my nose in amusement.

I pull back my shoulders, and wrestle my hair into a low bun.

“Take a breath, listen to your empowering song,” Jacs says, finding Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” on my phone. The song has a bridge that every old-school fan of racing loves. “Ignore that your dad is still the owner, and tell your directors and drivers you will rule this team and make it excellent.”

I smile at her as the music plays. Adrenaline floods my limbs, and as the bridge hits, I bounce up and down and ready myself for a fight. I am the motherfucking boss now, and the team will listen.

“Thank you,” I whisper, pulling her to me.

We step out of the toilets and stride through the corridors. Photos of Formula One racing greats adorn the walls, including Senna, who I’m named after, and Niki Lauda, who my brother is named after. My steps falter slightly as the pressure builds in my chest.

Jacs’s scent, a mixture of plum and rose, combines with the stench of oil that often lingers around her overalls. I breathe it in an attempt to centre myself. Trophies, including Niki’s from the races he’s won, glint in the cabinets outside the boardroom.

I stare at the last Constructor’s Championship trophy we won. It’s been a decade. I squeeze my eyes and sense the wrinkles sinking into the skin of my forehead.

“We won’t get any of those this year,” I mumble.

“Senna,” Jacs says. “Don’t forget you have trophies in there, too.”

I open my eyes to see the couple of trophies from my years as an F3 driver. “I was good. I could have been the best if not for the accident.”

“I didn’t mean those trophies.” She points to the shiniest award in the cabinet. “I meant the one I sneaked in after your dad retired.”

I stare at the Best Communications Sports Team award from last year’s British Sports ceremony.

“Your hard work won that, and your determination will make you successful this year. With the guys in there,” she says, nodding to the boardroom, “you need to be a bitch boss at all times, or they’ll take everything. Don’t show anxiety for a second. It’s you against them. Now, shoulders back and sass on. You’ve got an audience.”

I turn to find my new assistant, Jimmy, staring at me with raised eyebrows, tablet in hand.

“Morning, Jimmy,” I say with a nod, giving Jacs’s shoulder a quick squeeze of thanks before heading to the boardroom. “Are my board, Antoine, and Dax ready for me?”

Jimmy holds out a handful of notes, which I pocket.

“Everyone but Dax is there. Your brother left a message letting you know he’d changed something before he left. You have a new driver,” he calls out as I walk into the boardroom.

The words register slowly as I scan the pinched-lip faces of the suited men staring back at me, several of whom are struggling to hide their belief that they’re more qualified to run the team than me, a twenty-seven-year-old woman. Maybe some of them are still expecting Niki.

I bite the inside of my mouth as I search for the new driver Jimmy mentioned.

I glance at Antoine, who is frowning at the man to his side. My so-called new driver, the man my brother has replaced Dax with without consulting me, looks up from his phone. Our branded clothing covers his lean body. His black hair, beautiful blue eyes, and full lips will probably give me an ulcer. As his eyes lock on mine, he drops his phone and glares.

Connor fucking Dane despises me.

Suddenly, all my plans go straight to hell.