His Driver: An Instalove Road Trip Romance Read online

  His Driver

  An Instalove Road Trip Romance

  Violet Caldwell

  Copyright © 2021 by Violet Caldwell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

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  Contents

  1. Marisa

  2. Cameron

  3. Marisa

  4. Cameron

  5. Marisa

  6. Cameron

  7. Marisa

  8. Cameron

  9. Marisa

  10. Cameron

  11. Marisa

  12. Cameron

  13. Marisa

  14. Cameron

  15. Marisa

  16. Cameron

  17. Marisa

  18. Cameron

  19. Marisa

  20. Cameron

  21. Marisa

  22. Cameron

  23. Marisa

  24. Cameron

  25. Marisa

  26. Cameron

  27. Marisa

  28. Cameron

  29. Marisa

  30. Cameron

  31. Marisa

  32. Cameron

  33. Marisa

  34. Cameron

  35. Marisa

  36. Cameron

  Epilogue #1: Cameron

  Epilogue #2: Marisa

  About the Author

  Marisa

  “Mr. Cole?” I can usually tell at a glance whether a rider expects to be called by their first name or last. This guy, decked out in a full three-piece suit that looks overdone even in the state capitol of Sacramento, is definitely a last-name-demanding type of guy.

  “Yes, thank you.” He doesn’t meet my eyes, and as usual, I feel a bit of relief that I don’t have to deal with his reaction to my scars. I hate that about me. Not the scars so much, but the fact that even though it’s been years, I still haven’t learned to manage my reaction to other people’s reactions. And it’s always the first thing people notice when they look at me. Someday, if I can afford therapy, I might try to get help with that. For now, I just dip my head and get creative with makeup.

  I pop the trunk and make a move to get out, but perhaps surprisingly, most men are either too courteous or too macho to let a woman handle their luggage if they’re able to manage it themselves. Sure enough, he waves me away and hoists his nondescript suitcase into the trunk of my serviceable compact car.

  In the moment that it takes for him to close the trunk, slide into the back seat, and buckle up, I’ve done a quick inventory of all my expenses, not the least of which is the lease on this car. The app tells me I’m taking this uptight man of business or politics to the airport, a trip that should take about half an hour and net me about ten bucks, more if he’s a decent tipper. With these types, you can never tell.

  “Can you turn on the air conditioning,” he asks. Then, almost as an afterthought: “Please.”

  “Yes, sir.” It’s a slightly strange late-December request that makes me wonder how this guy fares in the one-hundred-ten-plus summer heat. But I crank the AC, though it means dollar signs in the form of gasoline. I want to tell him that he could take off his tailored jacket, but that’s not my place. And I do know my place.

  “It will be Terminal B,” he says, as if he’s confident I will remember that in a half an hour when we get to the Sacramento airport. Actually, I will.

  I focus on the road. If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s drive. My parents made sure the wreck didn’t scare me away from cars. I didn’t disagree. If anything, my injuries made me more determined to be the one in control.

  The stereo is playing, and I turn it up when I realize that this guy isn’t a talker. I’ve got a few channels on my presets for the riders—inoffensive stuff like classic rock or Top 40. When it’s just me in the car, the presets are for country, alt rock, and public radio.

  I catch a glimpse of sudden movement in the back seat and tense up, which is silly of me. But then again, maybe not. Who knows what could happen with a young woman alone in a car with a stranger? Sure, we’re in the city, and the app company knows who’s who, but that won’t help me much if someone decides to go berserk on me. I haven’t told my parents I’m a rideshare driver; they would lose their minds.

  Mr. Cole—Cameron Cole, the app informs me—leans forward. He’s good looking, because of course he is. Through the rear-view, I observe that his light brown hair is closely cropped, and his blue eyes crinkle slightly around the edges. I’d put his age at early to mid-thirties, at least a decade older than my twenty-one years.

  “Sir?”

  “Just turn the music off, please.” He leans back with a sigh.

  “Yes, sir.” My arm shoots out to switch off the stereo system.

  “Do you have water?” he asks in a clipped tone.

  “Pocket in the back of the seat,” I reply, my voice just as short as his. What I want to say is: I’m not your dog. It’s the type of thing I’d wanted to say to everyone who made fun of me in high school, calling me Scarface and shit like that.

  The next thing I know, he’s handing me one of the bottles of water. “Thirsty?”

  “Um, no thank you.” I’ve been a rideshare driver for months now, and this is the first time that a rider has offered me water. It’s a bottle I bought myself, but still. I’m more used to the random low-key insult or proposition. Or, more commonly, just being ignored.

  A ripple of warmth runs through me, followed quickly by resentment. Am I that bad off that I amplify the slightest gesture into an extreme kindness? At this rate, I’ll be in love with Mr. Cameron Cole by the time we get to the airport.

  “Fuck.” He utters the word low, but I hear it. Then he amplifies the curse. “Fuck!”

  I grip the steering wheel. I’m used to riders having all manners of weird transactions, relationship dramas, and so on play out in my back seat. Sometimes, I ignore it. This isn’t one of those times.

  I steady my voice. “Everything all right, Mr. Cole?”

  “No,” he snaps, and I can see him in the rearview scrolling through his phone. We’re only about twenty minutes from Sacramento International Airport. “I just got a notification that my flight has been cancelled. Keep driving to the airport. I’m going to make them find me another flight.”

  “You were nicer a minute ago,” I mutter under my breath. But he’s already punching in numbers on his phone.

  I don’t know if I expect him to be an asshole to the agent, but he’s not. He’s matter of fact, like he’s used to people doing his bidding. I’m not surprised, with that voice and those looks. The beautiful people of the world know how things work. I’m not bitter. I used to be one of them, using my pretty face to get what I wanted, whether it was a store discount or a role in the school play. The joke was on me, though, because I finished out high school by making out with Parker Stevens, who then proceeded to tell me I should put a bag over my head. Then I spent my first year and a half of college avoiding guys in favor of grades that may not end up mattering. So don’t blame me if I’m shut down sexually.

  This time, though, the pretty man is not getting what he wants.

  “I understand that there are no more flights to Tucson out of Sacramento today. But if I can get to Phoenix, I can rent a car…” He pauses, listening to the agent. “Tomorro
w night is too late.”

  He suggests other airports in other cities, and I can tell from his reaction that it’s a no-go. I hear him literally count to three under his breath. Maybe Cameron Cole not being as asshole comes harder than I thought. “No, a flight out of Oakland or SFO won’t help. No. Fine. I’m sorry, too.”

  I butt in. “Sir? Perhaps Sac to Reno to Phoenix?”

  He looks up as if he’s forgotten I’m here. But he nods politely and suggests the route to the agent. His face falls a moment later, and for whatever reason, I feel bad for him. This brusque, mysterious man is going to miss his business meeting or bachelor trip or whatever it is.

  Cameron

  Fucking nightmare.

  “There must be another option. Can you please check again?” I grit my teeth so hard I think they’re going to chip. “Perhaps through LAX or Burbank?”

  I shift my gaze to the front seat while I listen to the agent tap away on her keyboard. I can see the driver looking at me in the rearview, her pretty brown eyes framed by long lashes. A momentary distraction from the hell that’s raining down on me. She’s polite and patient, but then again, that’s her job. I notice that she turns her head slightly toward the driver’s side window and I can’t see her entire face.

  The agent is back, telling me I’m out of options. Planes are grounded, etcetera, etcetera.

  Unbelievable. Today of all days. Why can’t a widespread aviation shutdown take place when I’m traveling to another stupid trade show or even vacation? This is life-or-death shit. Literally.

  My stepmother said my father only has a day or two left.

  After a few more minutes of back-and-forth with the airline rep, I call another airline, then my travel agent, before I give up. And Cameron Cole does not give up.

  My father’s words enter my mind unbidden, and I dig my nails into my hands to make the memories go away. I squeeze my eyes shut, then stare forward. Once they focus, I see the pretty driver assessing me with a look of empathy that makes me draw in a breath.

  The only good thing about this day is that I get to eyeball my hot rideshare driver. She barely looks old enough to drive. Okay, that’s hyperbole. She looks about twenty. Too young for me to be ogling, but with the shit show of a week I’ve had, I feel like I deserve a treat, and this young woman is definitely eye candy. Even in my distracted state, I couldn’t help but notice her gorgeous curves as I got into the car. And that long, dark hair that would look like black velvet wrapped around my hand as I…

  I force myself to abandon the fantasy. I’m not a lecherous asshole, just a regular asshole. The hotness level of my driver is irrelevant to the task at hand. It’s just another thing to notice, like the stock market numbers or the figures on my bank account. Important things.

  “That’s it,” I say aloud, in tandem with the thought. “You can drive me.”

  “Pardon?” In the rear-view mirror, I see her eyebrows rise and her full lips purse together, then release.

  “You can drive me to Tucson.” My idea isn’t genius, but it’s the only option I can think of. I add charitably: “Or Phoenix.”

  “Arizona?”

  “Is there some other Phoenix?”

  “There’s one in southern Oregon, sir.”

  I want to snap back at her, but I stop myself. I’m suddenly dependent on this young, earnest woman with a sensible car and an even more sensible way of dealing with me.

  Instead, I say: “Please Miss…”

  “Marisa,” she provides. She pronounces the “i” with a long “e” sound.

  “Marisa, I need to be in Arizona by…” I count the hours in my head, as if what my stepmother said is some kind of finite timeline, like my dad will turn into a pumpkin if I don’t get there by midnight. Instead, he’ll turn into nothing, and I have zero control over when it happens. “I need to be there as soon as possible, okay?”

  If we head south now, and make good time, my chances of catching Sebastian Cole alive are decent. My chances of catching him lucid are less so. Either way, I get my inheritance.

  “Is this a family thing?”

  I infer from her question that family is important to this girl. She probably has an array of equally gorgeous relatives waiting for her at home. Which makes it even more surprising that she’s even considering driving me hundreds of miles two days after Christmas. “Yes. Please, turn the car around,” I bark.

  She eases to the side of the road, preparing to execute a perfectly calm and safe turn. “I’ll head south,” she says calmly, putting on her blinker to merge back into traffic. “But I’m not sure if I can do what you ask.”

  I count one-two-three in my head like my therapist taught me, forcing my frustration down. People generally end up doing what I want, but my batting average is down today thanks to the airlines. I need to convince Marisa that it’s in her best interest to shelve whatever she had planned and tote my ass to Tucson.

  Marisa

  We’re back on the road, heading in the opposite direction, and my rideshare app is flashing violently.

  “Look, if I take you, even at the rate the rideshare place will charge you, I won’t see that in my bank account until…” I trail off. Until it’s too late.

  “How much money do you make in a day? In an hour?” His voice is stern and demanding, and I hate that it rattles me. There’s a lot about this job, gig, side hustle, whatever you want to call it that is not great. In the past six months, I’ve been yelled at, stiffed for tips, and even received a few ethnic slurs.

  “About two hundred a day, twenty an hour.” I’ve rounded up, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  “I’ll tip double your daily rate,” he says. “And I’ll cover your drive back as well. Or turn off the app and I’ll pay you cash. I just need to get south, and I can’t waste time finding another ride.”

  Damn. I do the math in my head. I’m good at math, top of my class, not that it matters anymore. If he pays me four hundred in tips, add that to what the rideshare assholes kick down… it’s still not enough.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Cole. It’s against company policy.” I pause, not sure how much I should tell him. “I mean, it’s not like I’m afraid to go rogue on them. It’s more that without their tracking and security measures—”

  “You think I’m dangerous?” He doesn’t sound offended. He sounds like I’ve hurt his feelings.

  “I mean no offense—”

  “I’m not dangerous.” He loosens his seatbelt and finally takes off his jacket. I force myself to keep my eyes on the road, because while his muscles may be to die for in the figurative sense, they definitely aren’t in the literal sense.

  I pull onto Interstate 80, still headed south. It’s fifty-fifty that I’m taking this guy any farther than Stockton, but I might as well get him headed in the right direction. Maybe he can find another driver who is willing to play this game.

  He slaps a driver’s license and business card onto the center console. “Sir, I’m driving. I can’t look at those.”

  His picture is displayed on the app on the phone mounted to my dashboard. I’m sure he looks just as chiseled and just as stern in his government-issued ID. I can’t imagine what photos he puts on his dating profiles. Maybe one of those bathroom mirror selfies. Him at a board meeting, or maybe working out. I steal a quick look behind me. He definitely works out.

  He’s leaning forward, peeling off bills like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, and I feel more like a sex worker with each hundred that drops onto the seat beside me. But I have to swallow my pride, because each of those crisp bills is another step close to my goal.

  “Here’s two thousand,” he says, his tone gentle now. “Please, put it in your glove box or your purse or whatever you want.”

  I pop open the compartment and shove the stack of bills in alongside my mace and my snack stash, keeping my eyes on the road the entire time. I reach up and log out of the rideshare app. Then I send a quick voice-to-text to my best friend, Lucia. I keep it short and sweet.


  I hand the guy my phone, the message app still open. “Take a picture of your license and text it to my friend, please.”

  I hear a click and a whoosh before he hands me back my phone. “Done.”

  “You have a deal, Mr. Not-Dangerous Cameron Cole.”

  The sigh of relief he lets out almost makes it worth the literal pain in the ass this is going to be. I’m stuck with this guy for the next eleven hours, minimum.

  “Where in Arizona are we headed?” Not that it matters. But I’d at least like to know what I’m going to be dealing with in terms of road conditions.

  “It’s just north of Tucson.”

  He names a town, and memories flood my mind. My team had passed by signs for the area during a youth soccer tournament in Phoenix.

  I swallow hard. “I know the place.”

  I’ve finally surprised him.

  “What’s your name?” he demands.

  I bristle. I know that drivers, like most service workers, are often treated like robots or worse, but with this much road left to go, he needs to at least treat me like a human being. “I told you. It’s Marisa.”

  “Your last name,” he clarifies.

  I glare at him in the rearview. “Just Marisa, thank you.”

  He backs down and shifts tactics. “Don’t you have to be somewhere for New Year’s, Marisa?”

  I don’t owe him an explanation. Maybe I have no family, like Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping. Maybe I don’t celebrate holidays. Maybe a new year is an arbitrary construct. Most of all, maybe it’s none of his damn business.