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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

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Geoff Askew: We’re back in Espana for race four of the Formula 1 world championship, and things are heating up on the racetrack.

Charlie Amor: For the first time Vanessa Lennon qualified ahead of her teammate, Lars Bachman. And I’ll tell you, Geoff, I wouldn’t want to be in the Paragon garage today. Lars is fiery on his good days, and with the tension between the drivers, this is certainly bound to be interesting.

Geoff: She didn’t out-qualify him by much. She qualified P-3; he qualified P-4. Now, for those of you at home, the difference between third and fourth place? Eight one-hundredths of a second. That’s what we’re really chasing in these races. The razor-thin margins between driver and machine. So will she hold on to the place? Time will tell.

Charlie: It will. And it will be interesting to see how these racers take on the track now that their cars are in fighting shape. Now that they are? All bets are off.

If anyone ever doubted I was an Omega, all they ever had to do was see me in the morning when the last thing I wanted to do was to leave the glorious warmth of my bed. Snuggling under a good blanket? Top tier. Snuggling with your Alpha under a good blanket? Whatever tier was higher than top tier. A toppier tier.

River curled around me from behind, our legs tangled together. We’d separated during the night and found our way back to each other this morning.

Both of us needed to get up and head to the garages. Do our warmups. Everything we needed to do on a race day. But the bed was so warm and he felt so good.

The door to the room opened, and I closed my eyes a little harder, wanting to ignore whatever Grayson would say to get both our asses moving. But Grayson’s voice didn’t come. Instead I heard a soft gasp.

My eyes flew open to find a woman staring at us from the doorway, sheets in her hand. I recognized her as a housekeeper from the hotel. I’d seen her in the halls. But…

Had we really slept that late?

The panic hit me a second later. She was seeing River and me in bed . Given that this whole place was full of Formula 1 staff, it was unlikely she didn’t know who we were.

Fuck.

“River,” I whispered.

He stirred, swore softly, pulled me to him and rolled, hiding me on the other side of his body. The damage was already done, but deep inside, I loved the protective instinct.

Grayson’s voice finally came, speaking in Espanan to the woman. She spoke back, and the door closed softly. Their voices were still audible, but my brain was busy spiraling through everything which could happen.

“Guess we’re about to be public,” I whispered.

“Not necessarily,” River said. He had me against his chest, the perfect place where I could breathe in the point of his pulse and savor the nose-tingling mint and warm chocolate. “Grayson will ask her not to say anything. He won’t force her, but he has a way with people. And if we are about to be public…” I felt his shoulders move up and down. “Then I’m ready.”

The way he said it so simply made my heart calm. We would be okay. It was easy to get caught up in the terror of the unknown, especially when people were so vicious. But we were in this together now, and no matter how the news broke, we would get through it.

“I’m coming for you today,” I told him.

River chuckled. “I know. You’ll be right on my ass at the starting line. I’ll make sure to wave in my wing mirror when I leave you in the dust.”

“You so sure about that?”

One searing kiss later, River threw the blankets off us and smirked. “You’re welcome to prove me wrong.”

“Maybe I will.”

Tugging me to the edge of the bed, River sat me up and ran his fingers through my hair, making me look up at him. Something about that movement and this view—especially when we were both naked—made my perfume explode. Made heat rise under my skin.

River leaned down, and I thought he was about to kiss me again. Yes .

But he didn’t. His lips brushed mine. Barely. “See you on the track, baby.” Then he was walking into the bathroom and I was left wondering how the hell I was supposed to get up and walk .

Grayson opened the door again, this time alone. I glanced at him. “Are we okay?”

He nodded. “We are. She seemed more embarrassed than anything else. I called the front desk. Miscommunication about when we were checking out made them come to clean earlier. But I asked her not to mention anything, and she said she wouldn’t.”

“That doesn’t mean she won’t.”

“No,” he admitted. “That’s her choice. We’ll deal with it if she does. But I think we’re fine.”

“We need a plan,” I told him.

“James and I have a conversation about it planned for this coming week.”

I nodded, finally standing and stretching, watching heat flare in Gray’s eyes. He blew out a breath. “I’m only walking away to keep you from being late, little one.”

“Aren’t you the one who decides when people are late?”

He swore under his breath as I retreated, and I laughed. Teasing them was too much fun. Wrapping myself in a blanket in case there was cleaning staff in my room, I went to get dressed.

The track looked different from third place. River’s sky blue car was right in front of mine, and it was fucking exhilarating to only have him and Ronan in front of me. Lars was beside me, and I did my best to utterly ignore him. He was more pissed than usual. Though, at the very least, he seemed to have stopped throwing aggressive Alpha energy in my direction every time we were in the same space. We just pretended the other didn’t exist, which was fine with me.

He was the one with the problem. I couldn’t help existing .

The crews began to stream off the grid, and Beck’s voice crackled in my ear. “Thirty seconds.”

“Thank you.”

“Remember what we talked about.”

I bit my tongue before I could ask him what exactly he meant, because we’d talked about a lot of things. But he meant the strategy. Which was not to overtake on turn one. The opening straight on this track allowed everyone to build up speed, and overtaking in the first turn was likely to cause a crash between myself, River, Ronan, and Lars. Once the pack spread out a little bit we had a plan to push and overtake.

Beck was practically giddy as he helped plan how to beat River, and River was amused that the rest of us were so determined to take him down. It never shook that cocky grin he had whenever he strode onto the track, and I knew he didn’t doubt himself for a second.

But I would get him. Eventually, I would get him.

“Ten seconds.”

The lights went on, adrenaline surged, and we were driving. I didn’t overtake on the first turn, but I did keep my place in front of Lars by a shred of a miracle. I was just far ahead of him on the line that he had to give it to me.

Fuck , that felt better than it had any right to.

“Good job,” Beck said. “He’ll try again.”

“He will.” But I felt good. The car felt good. I could keep him behind me.

It was coming through the chicane and into the final turn that I felt the jerk of the car. I slowed without breaking, the steering going sluggish in the back.

“I think I have a puncture,” I said.

“Box now,” Beck said. “We see it.”

If that had blown at any other point on the track, I would be out of the race. Punctures usually slowed you down so much that if you were even able to limp to the pit lane, you’d lost so much time you would never recover. Or they made you spin and caused other damage. But the pit lane was right there. And even though this would cost me places, I could get them back.

This was what Formula 1 was . Things happened, and you dealt with them. If you dealt with enough problems and created enough solutions, you could win the race. Because things always happened.

The crew was still running into place, but the tyres were changed fast, and I got myself back onto the track as soon as physically possible.

“You are now P-7,” Beck told me as I came out of the pit lane and slammed on the gas. “Not ideal, but we can come back from this. Don’t push too hard. Yellow flag on turn nine.”

I eased off my speed and took the time to weave back and forth a little to warm the new tyres. It wasn’t great to change tyres so early. We had enough in reserve that we could still do another pit later in the race, but it was a risk. But there was no way I was making it to the end on a single set, either.

“Looks like it was just a skid,” Beck said. “Green flag. Switch engine modes and feel free to push.”

“Got it.”

Everything settled in my chest, true focus snapping back in.

“Ortiz is in front of you. Three second gap.”

The orange car was in my sight, and my first target. I wanted that third place I’d earned in qualifying. I wanted to be on the podium. My first podium in Formula 1 on the third race? I wanted it more than I could even say.

Two laps later, I overtook on the straight, and it was a good thing the cameras couldn’t see through our helmets to see how wide I was smiling.

“Next target?”

Beck chuckled. “Lockwood.”

It had been a while since I went wheel to wheel with Johnny, but I could do it. When we were together he always claimed he was the faster driver, even though both of us knew it wasn’t true. He was good. I was better.

“Gap?”

“One point five seconds. You have DRS if you can close it.”

“Done.”

He chuckled again, the warm sound both comforting and more that I ignored. Just like I’d told him, I could separate Beck the engineer from Beck the Alpha. I’d just put those feelings aside and jump him later.

Glancing at the displays on the wheel, I pushed, going faster, chasing the midnight blue car. Two more turns and I could use my battery to catch him.

I felt the pop before I heard the sound. The world spun, pressure crushing down on my chest and body. My vision went dark for a second before I felt the car hit the wall, slamming me against my harness. Fuck . I was fine, but that would bruise.

Blinking, I looked around, seeing myself in the gravel and my car crunched up against the barrier along turn seven.

“Vanessa? Are you all right?” Beck’s voice hid the panic well, but I still heard it. Now that Grayson had told me his deepest fear, I understood why. They all felt it. Hell, I felt it about them too.

“Yeah,” I said, powering the car down through the shutoff procedure. “But I don’t know what happened.”

“Looks like another puncture. The safety car is out. We’ll bring the car back and take a look. Sorry about that, Nessa.”

I frowned. Multiple punctures weren’t unheard of, but it was still strange. “At first glance is there anything I could have done to prevent it?”

“I doubt it.”

Having my first DNF stung a little, but I felt better knowing it wasn’t driver error. Things happened. Tyres failed. “All right. Thanks.”

I popped the steering wheel out so I could exit the car and then put it back so it could be controlled and pulled back to the garage. By the time I was back in the garage and had been cleared by the medics, the race was halfway over.

Tying the top half of my racing suit around my waist, I went to the pit wall where Grayson and Beck sat. Gray turned on his chair and looked me up and down, drinking me in and checking with his own eyes that I was all right. Based on the fire in his eyes, it was taking every ounce of control he had to be sitting here and not touching me.

He set a hand on my shoulder. “You’re all right?”

“Good as new. Disappointed, but things happen.”

Grayson smiled tightly. “Sorry about that.” He nodded behind me. “They’ll look to see if it was just the tyre or something else. And, of course, do our best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

I looked at Beck, and his face was grim. He wanted to touch me. They both did. I needed to get out of here so I wasn’t distracting them and making this whole thing worse. “I’ll get out of your hair and do whatever media I can before the press conference.”

It wasn’t normal to have a full driver conference after the race. Usually just interviews here and there, but there were scheduling conflicts this week so we were having one later. Lucky me.

Gray nodded. “All right.” Then, in a lower tone, he spoke after pushing the button to mute his mic. “Check in with me later, please.”

“I will.”

But first, I needed to let the world check in with me. Let’s get this over with.