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Reece holds his line, unwilling to yield to his younger brother, blocking the WolfBett car with surgical precision. Wyn’s forced to back off in the first turn.

Laps pass.

I try to keep up with what I’m seeing and hearing. Timing deltas. Tire degradation. The layered ballet of it all. It’s not just driving. It’s strategy quietly orchestrated in code words and milliseconds.

Then it happens.

Misho’s voice crackles on the team comms. "Yellow flag — sector 2. Car 37 off at turn 11."

A replay flashes on the screens before me.

A purple and orange car is spinning. No. Crashing .

The impact is brutal. Nose-first into the wall. Debris flies everywhere, carbon fiber shards glittering like deadly confetti against the barrier.

My stomach drops clean through me.

The garage goes still, and not in a good way. It’s not the focused silence of strategy, but the held breath of dread, and it radiates from everyone around me, a collective pause where time stretches and contracts simultaneously.

Ona murmurs at my side. "Sartelli. Veteran driver. Struggled all year. His seat's going to another driver next season."

On the screen, the cockpit remains still for two seconds too long. Two seconds is everything. Two seconds is the difference between walking away and not. Between a story you tell at dinner and a memory that haunts the people who loved you.

My breath locks in my lungs. This is what they don't show you in the glamour shots, this moment when physics and flesh meet and only one of them yields.

Death is what lurks beneath every champagne spray, every victory photo, every casual mention of "going for a drive" at three hundred kilometers per hour.

Reece is out there right now, his hands on a wheel, his foot heavy on a pedal, trusting that carbon fiber shell to keep him whole.

And I face a lifetime of mornings when I might wake to a phone call instead of his kiss. Race after race that might end not with a podium but with a hospital bed or a casket.

Then there’s movement on the screen. A marshal scrambles up the barrier. Sartelli lifts himself from the cockpit, stands upright, and raises a hand toward the crowd.

Misho’s voice comes through the radio again, calm as a summer morning. “He’s okay.”

The cheer that goes up in the grandstands echoes through the feed in my headset and kickstarts my heart.

He's okay, but the reality of what could’ve been settles into my bones like cement.

This is the price of admission to Reece's world. Formula 1 isn’t just glamour and adrenaline, it’s also this horrific, inescapable sinking dread, and the acceptance that every time he straps in, he's making a calculated bet with his life as collateral.

The garage exhales collectively, returning to normal rhythms, but I can't quite shake off the horror of what could’ve happened.

Hands trembling, I grip the edge of the console.

Ona touches my arm, and I meet her dark gaze. There’s understanding behind her eyes. She knows what I’m feeling. She’s already accepted this risk. I nod, release the console, and return my focus to the screen.

I've spent the last week thinking about whether I could fit into Reece’s world, but I've been asking myself the wrong question.

Because belonging and adapting is easy. The real question is if I can carry the weight of loving someone who does something this dangerous, this astonishing, and this absolutely fucking terrifying week after week after week.

Can I say goodbye to him over and over not knowing if I’ll get another chance to say hello?

I look around the garage at all these people who've made their peace with this threat. They show up every race weekend knowing that any of these cars could turn from machine to missile in the space of a heartbeat. They love these drivers enough to build their lives around this calculated madness.

I turn back to watch as Reece's car weaves behind the safety car.

He’s been through so fucking much to get where he is.

Endured mental and physical punishment, obstacles his own father threw in his path.

Reece Ayrton Pritchard is a master class in sheer grit, and he loves racing.

He must. There’s no other explanation for why he carries on despite the unrelenting discipline and undeniable dangers of this sport.

That’s a kind of bravery I understand. Not because what I do is dangerous, but because it’s defiant.

And that’s what I think I love about Reece. While my defiance is naked, raw, and in your face, his is quiet, methodical, and unrelenting. The world says we’re crazy for what we do. We shrug and do it anyway. Because we love it. It’s the blood in our veins and the breath in our lungs.

We are wired wrong for society, but right for each other. Two sides of the same coin.

I watch his green and pink car flow around the track, and I feel it.

Not just acceptance.

Choice.

This is what he loves. This is who he is. If I'm going to be his wife, then this is what I'm choosing too. The glory, terror, podiums, crashes, champagne, risk.

All of it.

I’m choosing all of Reece, just like last night he chose all of me.

The safety car pulls off the track. The lights go green. And they're racing again without fanfare or drama. It’s just the pure violence of speed snapping back into place.

This time I don't flinch. I lean forward like everyone else in the Nitro garage. Only a fearless idiot would do what Reece Pritchard does, and only a bigger, more fearless idiot would fall for him.

His green and pink car remains in P4. He explained last night that part of being a team player is protecting the faster car.

Today that’s Petra. It means Reece needs to get ahead of Lynch’s red and white car, then keep the Telco driver behind him.

He’s slowly managed to close the time gap between them over the course of the race with relentless, inch-by-inch precision.

Now, the safety car has bunched up the field, giving him the perfect opportunity to seize third place from Lynch, just like he did yesterday.

Reece drives like a man who uses Crest toothpaste and only wears black boxer briefs and classic watches. Consistent, reliable, dogged. This man I married isn’t flashy or aggressive. He’s relentless.

Which, I realize, is why we work. I’m the pizazz he needs. He’s the reliability I’ve been missing.

Misho’s voice crackles in the headset. “DRS window. Deploy as needed.”

“Copy.”

The timing screen shows that Reece understands the assignment as one more tenth, then another, fall between his car and the Telco just ahead.

My husband is hunting Lynch Sutton.

Two laps later, he gets it done. The pass is clinical and so fast I almost miss it. A blur of green and pink slices inside the Telco car’s line, then slips back onto the racing line like it was nothing.

There’s a soft exhale behind me from one of the tire techs. A subtle nod from someone near the telemetry station.

They don’t cheer here. Not during the move. They feel it, and right now, that feeling is good.

Reece locks into third place, a defensive wall between Petra and the rest of the field.

In first place, Nico’s too far ahead and untouchable today; there’s a reason he’s already clinched his fourth Drivers’ World Championship. Reece holds off Lynch and Wyn, lap after lap.

Even to my newbie’s eyes it’s obvious he’s not driving defensively. He’s locked in and controlling his position.

When the checkered flag waves and his name lights up as P3 alongside Petra’s in P2, the Nitro garage comes alive. There are shoulder claps, quiet grins, and daps all around. It’s pure satisfaction.

Someone taps my arm. It’s one of the media handlers.

“Time to move to parc fermé .”

I hand off the headset and follow her and the rest of the team. God, it’s amazing to be included in this. Everyone’s excited and happy, drawing me into their inner circle like I’ve always belonged.

The logistics of getting from garage to podium area pass in a rush of credentials, checkpoints, and guided movement around barriers designed to keep the public at bay.

Then comes the podium ceremony — national anthems, champagne, and smiles.

Reece takes the third step, helmet off, hair damp with sweat, looking out at the crowd with something between satisfaction and hunger.

When they hand him the trophy — a sleek silver and blue column that catches the floodlights — he holds it up briefly, then immediately looks toward our section. Toward me.

Even from this distance and with hundreds of people between us, that moment feels private, like he's saying, "This one's for us."

The champagne comes next. He gets doused by Petra, and I laugh as he tries to shield his eyes while drenching her right back. Nico joins in, and for a few seconds, they're just three people who've survived another dance with physics and won.

I'm grinning so hard my cheeks hurt.

When it's over and the crowd disperses, Reece remains at the track for media obligations and a team debrief.

Someone makes sure I get back on the transport to the hotel. There’s a sponsor event tonight, and after watching Reece stand on that podium, and seeing what this sport means to him, I'm determined to show the assholes — cough, Graham, cough — I’m worthy of being by his side.

Back at the hotel, I stand before my open closet, hands on my hips. The party’s in two hours and I’m staring at a selection of clothes that aren’t going to work.

The jumpsuit I wore to the race is folded across a chair, and Branca’s carefully selected cocktail options are beautiful but completely wrong. Everything’s too safe.

AetherX isn’t a company that rewards deference. Their tagline is Power in Motion , for fuck’s sake. They make six-figure enterprise software look sexy and their branding screams, “Ultramodern and forward-thinking.”

They reward impact, and they worship Petra Hayter for being part of a male-dominated power sport’s vanguard.

If I walk into their party looking like a hesitant plus-one, no one’s gonna see me as anything more than what the tabloids called me Monday morning — a glittery, accidental wife who won’t last a season.

Reece wanders into my room from his, towel slung over his shoulders. He’s damp from a shower and still glowing from the podium. He got back fifteen minutes ago, and I try very hard not to be distracted by him clad in nothing but his boxers, water beading on his chest.

“Are you okay?” He starts drying his hair with the towel.

“I need a dress.” I wave vaguely at the selection hanging before me. “Something that’ll make me look like a strategic investment, not a liability.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “The closet’s full.”

“Yes, of things for press pens and casual dinners. Not for a tech-forward, AI-designed art exhibit masquerading as a party.”

He grins and brushes a kiss just below my ear. “Then call the concierge and get whatever you need to feel comfortable in that crowd.”

“I’m not trying to be comfortable . I’m trying to be undeniable .”

“Brilliant. Be both.”

Right answer.

He disappears into his bedroom, and I pick up the phone. I could get used to this fast fashion lifestyle.

Not twenty minutes later, there’s a knock at the door.

It’s a stylist named Amyn and he’s come with three garment bags, a makeup kit the size of a carry-on, and the look of someone who’s been tipped well enough to make miracles happen on short notice.

We narrow it down quickly. Two of the dresses are beautiful — one satin, one architectural silk — but it’s the third that stops me.

A black column dress that clings just so. High neck. Long sleeves. Sheer mesh panels at the back and sides suggest secrets, rather than sex, and a tasteful slit lets me walk without revealing too much. There’s a skinny silver belt to nip in my waist.

I step into it and Amyn goes quiet, then nods and says, “It’s modern, but sharp. This is a dress that doesn’t ask for space. It assumes it.”

“Shoes?”

He gives me three options, but there’s an obvious choice.

They’re matte black, sharply carved, and open-toed.

The angular cut of the vamp hugs the curve of my foot, and the heel itself juts back in a slanted, almost brutalist shape.

They don’t sparkle. They’re a statement.

Paired with the dress, they complete the look: sharp, modern, and impossible to misunderstand.

Reece walks into the room, now wearing dark suit pants and an undershirt. He freezes mid-stride. His gaze tracks down my body. “Bloody hell, Mai.”

I smile. “Exactly.”

Makeup comes next.

Winged, smoke-soft liner with a graphite sheen. Shimmer pressed into the center of my lids and dabbed in the corners. Pale, glossy lips. Bronzer feathered at the cheekbones just enough to make me look like I belong in a high-end campaign instead of a hotel suite.

My hair is trickier though.

“I don’t want anything bridal. No buns, no romantic waves, nothing soft and demure.”

Amyn pulls my hair back into a low ponytail — sleek and structured with a soft lift at the crown that nods to the '70s without going full retro. No curls. No romance. Just clean lines and power.

Then he opens a velvet-lined tray.

Inside is a series of brushed metal barrettes. They’re oval-shaped and irregular, some silver, some gold. Varying sizes, like polished river stones. They’re carefully arranged for balance and contrast.

Reece leans in the doorway, arms crossed, watching.

“These are yours,” Amyn says. “Mr. Pritchard asked the concierge to find something bold, but not flashy. Something that felt strong.”

I run a finger across the cool surface of one. “They’re perfect.”

Amyn begins placing them; one at the base of the ponytail, two along the crown, another tucked just behind my ear. A few smaller ones trail around the side of my head. They catch the light differently depending on the angle, like tectonic, unshaped power that’s refined just enough.

Reece steps closer. “Hang on. You’re not quite finished.” He reveals something from behind his back.

A silver cuff bracelet. Curved to echo the barrettes, it’s organic but bold with a soft sheen instead of sparkle. He slides it onto my wrist with quiet ceremony.

“For balance.”

I meet his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen the whole package.” His chin tip indicates me from head to toe.

When I finally stand and look in the mirror, fully dressed, hair set, cuff gleaming against the sheer black of my sleeve, I see what he means. I’m ready to crush the naysayers.