Page 29

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

QATAR GRAND PRIX | FRIDAY | FREE PRACTICE AND SPRINT QUALIFYING

Reece tugs the zipper shut on his duffel. Ona will bring his racing kit, but he usually takes charge of his helmet and a change of clothes.

Though the sun’s barely up, he’s already moving on muscle memory. Routine, precision, discipline — that’s what’s required to win.

He glances toward the connecting door.

It’s still unlocked, but Reece doesn’t knock or open it.

The silence behind it is comfortable now. Last night, things changed between him and Maiken. Or, rather, they went back to the way they were the night they met, before Graham and F1 stormed in to get between him and his wife.

He stares at the door, wound tight and hurting, but he can’t afford to get drawn in by her this morning.

It’s a sprint weekend and he has qualies later.

Today is about racing. He has to extract every fraction of a second out of the car and the track, and that takes absolute focus.

There’s no room for anything else. Not today, tomorrow, or Sunday.

Reece doesn’t dare see Mai this morning because he remembers how she looked at him last night. How she stared at his mouth when he ate that bite of cake and how her breath hitched when he kissed her temple. He still feels her soft skin under his fingers and against his lips.

He hadn’t meant to start something. But he had, and now it lives in his veins and hums through his nerves.

If he knocks on that door… If she’s awake and opens it and smiles at him like that again, he won’t go to the track.

So Reece turns away and leaves his room, because he can't afford distraction.

Of course, the minute he thinks that, he knows it's already too late.

He meets Ona in the parking lot and they pile into the SUV he rented. Reece navigates the morning traffic. She sips from her thermos, respecting the pre-race silence that's become ritual for him over the years. Neither speaks. Neither needs to.

He thinks of the connecting door he didn't knock on, and Maiken's beautiful face when she'd asked him about meeting her mum.

Focus.

Bright morning sunshine has chased away the gold and pink of sunrise as they approach the circuit.

Modern architecture rises from the desert sand like some alien spacecraft.

Security waves them through the first checkpoint, then the second.

By the third, the small cluster of die-hard fans has already spotted his car.

"Reece! Reece!" They press against the barriers, programs and caps thrust forward for signing.

He parks, forces a thin smile, and steps out. Muscle memory takes over as he scrawls his signature for the waiting fans. He’s quick and efficient, and won’t linger. The die-hards know this.

This routine is comforting in its familiarity.

"Right then," he murmurs to a young boy in a Nitro cap, giving him a quick wink. "There you go, mate."

Ona materializes at his shoulder, right on cue. "Time to go."

With a final nod to the fans, Reece follows her into the paddock.

It’s sounds and smells envelop him — the distant whir of pneumatic wheel guns, the sharp tang of fuel, the low buzz of teams preparing for battle.

The circuit's alive. This is good. He's always needed the routine of the race weekend to focus him, and he expects today to be no different.

Some drivers talk and joke and kick around a soccer ball before getting into their cars. Not Reece. He prefers the solitude of his driver’s room. Just him and Ona and the step-by-step ritual of prep that he’s followed for years.

Team personnel hustle between their garages and their hospitality units.

Media wonks speculate about every little detail.

Reece moves through it all like he always does.

He’s head down, jaw tight, blocking out distractions.

The regulars know better than to talk to him.

It’s not that he’ll be an asshole; it’s just that he’s already in his own head and doesn’t want to come out to chat.

Nitro’s hospitality unit is buzzing when he steps inside as crew members meet over coffee and omelets.

One of the junior press interns straightens and smiles at him. “Hey, Reece. You want coffee?” She holds out a cup.

He barely glances at it. “No.”

The girl nods and retreats quickly. Lesson learned.

He keeps walking because he doesn’t need caffeine; he needs to get into the damn car.

Petra’s standing beside a table, talking with Bowie, her race engineer.

She raises her hand as Reece passes, and he high-fives her.

That’s all the interaction he has to give and it’s all she ever asks for.

It’s one of the reasons he respects her so much.

One of the others is that she’s a wicked-good driver, probably the best on the grid.

But even as Reece exits the dining area and heads down the narrow hallway that leads to his room, he knows he’s missing his edge.

He’s off balance.

Fuck.

This isn’t how he wants to start his weekend.

Ona follows, tablet in hand, compression sleeves ready. She doesn’t speak until she’s checked his vitals and reviewed his overnight metrics. Then she glances up. "Didn’t sleep well?"

Reece shakes his head. "I slept just fine."

"You dreamed, then." She logs the data. "Your pulse spiked twice between four and five."

He doesn’t answer.

She looks at him, sharp and calm, and dead-on. Nothing escapes her and she proves it with her next statement. "You left without inviting her to the track."

He stares at the wall for a beat too long. "I didn’t want to wake her."

"That’s bullshit."

He meets her dark gaze. “Yeah, it is. Now, let's focus on the drive, shall we?”

She presses her lips together, but doesn’t push him. Instead, she hands him a protein shake and starts prepping his neck harness. They’ll spend an hour firing up his body and mind. "Focus on your lines today. Your brain’s carrying noise. Clean it up before FP1."

Reece nods and sips his liquid breakfast and tries not to think about a beautiful blonde wearing only black lingerie.

After stretching and a track run, he changes into his fireproofs and his race suit, then heads into Nitro’s garage.

Cool and controlled despite the heat outside, the space is its own ecosystem. Fans hum, monitors flicker, tools clink in practiced rhythm.

“You're late.” Misho’s focused on a computer screen, eyes not leaving the data scroll.

“I’m three minutes early.”

“Which is late for you.” He looks up, eyebrow raised. “You miss your alarm or your girl?”

Reece just zips up his suit.

His race engineer steps closer, crossing his arms. “You’re off.”

Reece frowns. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You’re on the pace, but you’re not sharp.”

“I’m focused.”

Misho snorts. “You’re distracted. Big difference.” He holds Reece’s gaze, calm but unrelenting. “You’ve got too many windows open in your head.” Misho taps his own temple. “Close all of them except the one with the apex in it.”

Reece exhales, short and sharp. “Sorted.” His race engineer is right. Reece’s priority needs to be finding the best racing line into each corner and maximizing his on-track speed. Everything happening off-track will have to wait.

Misho nods, then jerks his thumb toward the car. “Good. Because Asuka’s in a mood today, and if you throw off her run plan, she’ll skin us both.”

When the time comes, Reece straps into the car and everything sharpens.

Helmet on. Hands on the wheel. He locks in, breathing slow and steady as the mechanics move around him, finishing checks, tightening his harness. His world narrows to throttle, brake, apex.

He needs this. Needs the clarity the car gives him.

“Radio check,” Misho says in his ear.

“Loud and clear.”

“We’ll run the first block on mediums. Let’s get clean laps and a feel for the surface.”

“Understood.”

The team lowers the car to the tarmac, and Miguel directs him out of the garage.

The first few laps are routine. Reece gets heat into the tires and cycles through the settings to be sure everything’s settled with the car.

But his driving isn’t fluid. His timing’s off by fractions — brake points a hair late, throttle pickups a shade too aggressive.

The rhythm’s there, but it’s uncoordinated.

In turn 6 he understeers.

Turn 11 he locks the front left.

Reece adjusts, resets, but he still doesn’t click with the car.

“Balance?” Misho’s voice cuts in.

“Rear’s skating in the mid-speed stuff.” Reece checks his mirrors and moves aside as Petra flashes past on a fast lap.

“Copy. Brake migration’s off too. You’re a tenth down in sector 2.”

“I see it.” It’s not absolute shit. He’s not in the gravel, but he’s not sharp and everyone knows it.

Two more laps, then Misho says, “Asuka wants you to come in. She’s seen enough.”

Bollocks.

Reece pulls into the pit, kills the engine, and climbs out as the fans start to whir around the car and the mechanics wheel it into the garage.

For the first time in a long while, he feels like he’s just driven to drive, not to win. He yanks off his helmet and balaclava. This feels too much like how he drove when he was struggling under his father’s unforgiving thumb.

He’s barely set the helmet down when Asuka appears.

“You’re driving like you’ve got a shadow in your mirrors.” Her gaze is sharp, but her tone is quiet. “Whatever it is, deal with it before qualies.”

“Right. Got it.”

The thing is, he left Maiken behind so he could focus, but he hasn’t stopped thinking about her since he walked out of his room.

Reece heads to the back of the garage where the team's cooling fans create a pocket of bearable air. He downs half a bottle of water, the liquid barely touching his parched throat. The digital clock on the wall shows hours still to go before qualifying.

An engineer approaches with fresh telemetry printouts, then thinks better of it when he sees Reece's expression and retreats.

Good call.

Reece knows exactly what those sheets will show. Milliseconds bleeding away in corners where his mind wandered, where he braked a fraction too early or turned in a heartbeat too late. The data never lies, and today it tells a story of distraction written in lap times.

He rolls his shoulders. Tension always settles there on race weekends, but today it's not the productive tension of focus, but the knot of something unresolved. Something he left behind in a hotel room with an unlocked connecting door because he’s a fucking prat.

Petra strolls over from her side of the Nitro garage, helmet tucked under one arm, her race suit unzipped to the waist and tied off like his. She’s grinning, which means he’s about to get roasted.

“Well, well.” She drops to the bench and elbows his arm. “Didn’t expect you to let me top the charts on a Friday. Feeling generous?”

He huffs a dry breath. “Enjoy it while it lasts, mate.”

“Oh, I will.” She rests her helmet on the bench between them. “That car felt buttery as hell out there.”

Reece tips his head. “You looked good.”

She nods. “You didn’t.”

He doesn’t flinch. “Figured that was coming.”

“Yeah, well.” She leans back against the wall, eyes scanning the garage. “You’re usually locked in by turn 2. Today you didn’t look it until the lap counter hit double digits.”

Reece says nothing.

Petra turns her head. “You okay?”

He shrugs. “Just one of those days.”

“Uh-huh.” She folds her arms. “This got anything to do with the wife who hasn’t been seen around the paddock today?”

His silence is answer enough.

Petra doesn’t poke deeper. She just tilts her head. “You didn’t look this edgy after Monza, and that was a barrier and an actual engine fire.”

He grins faintly. “Wasn’t planning to make a habit of that .”

“You better not. I’m finally ahead in the season points, and I don’t need you tripping over your dick and taking me out of contention.”

There’s a beat, then they both crack up.

She grabs her helmet and stands. “Get your balls on straight, RP. I like beating you, but not when you’re half-asleep.” As she walks away, she tosses back, “Also, I saw the press chatter. Bring her tomorrow, or they’ll keep making up shit.”

Zara Devi walks toward him, tablet under one arm, phone in the other hand. She slows and holds her phone out toward him, screen lit with some garish motorsport gossip headline.

The words PRITCHARD brIDE A NO-SHOW: Trouble in Paradise? are splashed across a photo of Maiken from Vegas, half-cropped to make her look wild-eyed and drunk.

Zara stops. “They’re calling your wife a distraction. Saying you’re ‘off form’ because she’s not here.” She tucks the phone away, expression cool. “Which is ridiculous, but you know how this works. If you don’t control the story?—”

“They will.”

She nods, already walking again. “Bingo.” After two steps, she turns around. “If you don’t bring Maiken tomorrow, the entire garage will line up to punch you in the nuts.”

Reece blinks, then laughs. “Duly noted.”

“Glad we understand each other.”

She disappears around the corner, leaving him to stare at the floor.

Yeah. He really fucking should’ve woken Mai.

Reece stands and returns to his driver’s room. He retrieves his phone and pulls up the hotel’s concierge.

Maybe doing something smart will cancel out this morning’s stupidity.

He types:

Three dozen blush-colored roses. Maybe some of those little yellow ones she likes.

To: Maiken Pritchard, Room 2418

Message: You married a plonker. -- RP11

Regret makes a fist in his chest even as he hits SEND.

It’s too late for apologies. But maybe not too late for honesty.