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CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

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Charlie Amor: We’re at round ten of the Formula 1 World Championship here in Italia. It’s the last race before the summer break. Already the rumors of contract negotiations and what we like to call ‘silly season’ are already under way. But what most of us are looking forward to during this Grand Prix is whether or not rookie Vanessa Lennon’s meteoric rise continues.

Geoff Askew: She’s been on fire since round 7 in the Americ Union, taking another third, and placing second behind her teammate Lars Bachman last week.

Charlie: It seems like she’s hit her stride. All praise to the Paragon team for getting the car right, and to her for extracting everything she can out of it.

Geoff: As we head into the break, will she bag another podium and have four in a row? We’ll see. But I, for one, am hoping she does.

“You received our offer?” The voice over the phone asked. Lars Bachman’s agent. Well, his new agent. I could never remember the man’s name. Turns out Lars was just as unpleasant off the track. In the time he’d raced for us, he’d had three different agents.

“We did.”

“And your thoughts?”

I held back a sigh. “As I’ve communicated both to you, your client, and your predecessor, we are not discussing contracts until after the summer break. Your offer has been received. James and I will review it, and we will speak when the sport returns.”

This wasn’t a video call, so I didn’t have to school my facial expressions. Lars was breathing down my neck about a contract extension. As far as performance he certainly deserved it. But I didn’t want to renew his contract, and I needed more time to get my head around the possibility that I might have to.

My reasons weren’t professional, they were personal. He hated my Omega. Openly. I believed part of it was simply that she was better than he expected. Vanessa was not only performing, she was competing with him. After his outright dismissal of her at the beginning of the season, her doing well had him spiraling.

If Vanessa hadn’t taken to our car and the higher speeds like a swan to water, he would likely hate her less. Which had my jaw clenching and my hands curling into fists.

“Very well,” the man said. “But you should know that not all teams are taking that stance, and if you choose to delay, we may not.”

“That’s well within your right.” Though I doubted whichever team he referred to was one Lars wanted to be on. The only team above ours at the moment was Xelerate, and Vic would never hire Lars. Revas, maybe, since they’d made good strides this year. “And we are willing to take that risk. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to the paddock.”

I didn’t bother to wait for his response and ended the call.

Beyond the personal reasons I didn’t want to keep him, Lars wasn’t great at fostering a team environment. And while Vanessa was on the team, I didn’t see that getting any better. Her contract went past his, so if we were going to sign him again, he needed to make some serious changes.

Scrubbing a hand over my face, I grabbed my phone and headed out of the Paragon trailers toward the track.

Vanessa was already in the garage. She sat in the corner, the straw from her water bottle between her lips. The same lips I couldn’t get out of my fucking head. I was glad the break was about to happen. Two weeks of nothing but the five of us and whatever we wanted to do.

Finally.

Annika hovered, ready to take the things Vanessa didn’t need when she got in the car. My Omega’s face shone with sweat, but so did mine, and so did Annika’s. Italia was hot in the middle of June. She looked warmer than we did, but the racing suits were hotter. I wiped mine away before she saw me.

“Hey, little one.”

She startled and looked up at me. Her eyes looked dazed. “Hi.”

I frowned. “Are you all right?”

Vanessa nodded, but it wasn’t with the energy I was used to. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Mmhmm. Just… focusing.”

Leaning in, I kissed the top of her head and breathed in the caramel sweetness that haunted my dreams. The richness of it stole my breath even through her suit. I loved her warmth, even the little bit I felt with my lips. “You’re incredible,” I whispered.

I still hadn’t said the words I love you out loud. No moment had felt right . But she knew, and I knew she felt the same way. There wasn’t panic in needing to tell her, because there weren’t any questions as far as we were concerned. Still, the words were there. At some point in the next two weeks, my Omega and I were going to spend some time just the two of us.

“Thanks.”

“Good luck.”

All she did was smile. None of her usual sass. I wanted to push, but I didn’t. If she was taking a different way to focus today, no need to break her out of it. Kissing her hair one more time, I inhaled her scent again. Fuck she smelled good today. My mouth watered.

Beck nodded to me as I put my headset on. I muted the mic and watched him do the same. “You’ve talked to her?”

“Earlier this morning. Why?”

I shook my head. “She seems a little low energy, that’s all.”

Turning, he found where she sat, knees pulled up to her chest. “I think she’s just in the zone.”

Hopefully that was the case.

Beck’s gaze shifted behind me. “Why does Bachman look like he’s about to take you out with a tire iron?”

“Because I told his agent we wouldn’t be speaking about his contract until after the summer break.”

My packmate carefully schooled his expression. He was holding back laughter. “For what it’s worth, no one on the team would miss him.”

“I’m very aware.”

“Incoming.”

I turned to find the subject of our conversation approaching with Roger, his engineer. “May I speak with you, Grayson?”

There were only a few minutes before he had to be in the car. Fine with me. It gave us a firm end time for this conversation. “Of course.”

He led me a few steps away and crossed his arms. “Are you firing me?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said.” Anger seethed in his tone as he spoke under his breath. “Aaron said you won’t look at the contract.”

Aaron . That was the man’s name. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “For fuck’s sake. That’s not what I told him. I told him we’d gotten it and that we weren’t going to talk about it until after the break. That’s all.”

“Oh.” He had the grace to look chagrined. “My apologies. That’s not the way he made it sound.”

Shrugging, I scanned for Vanessa again. She was now in her helmet, and being strapped into the car. “It’s been a busy season for everyone, and I’d like my head clear when I’m dealing with things like negotiations. So we’re just tabling it until we’re all back. No need to overthink it, and no reason for Aaron to threaten us with other negotiations.”

“Right.” Lars’s face hardened as he saw where I was looking. “As long as I’m not being written off entirely.”

I pinned him with a look and slid my hands into my pockets. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response. You know better.”

“Do I?” His eyes flared, Alpha energy flaring. Which was laughable, honestly.

Ignoring the fact that I’d rather toss him out the door than onto the racetrack, I sighed. “Keep your head in your own car, Lars. You’ve been around long enough to know that the only thing you can control is yourself. That hasn’t changed just because you don’t enjoy your teammate. And to be clear, I am saying this as Team Principal. Not as Vanessa’s Alpha. You’ve won two races so far this season and have been performing well across the board. Keep doing that.”

He nodded, but his jaw was tight.

“Good luck.”

Beck smirked when I came back. “That looked fun.”

“More like a pain in my ass.”

Vanessa’s voice filtered through the headphones when I put them on. “Radio check?” She sounded dreamy. Detached.

“Loud and clear, Nessa.”

“Good.”

Beck looked over at me sharply. I nodded. He muted his microphone. “That’s what you mean?”

“Yeah.”

He flipped the switch back. “You ready for your fourth podium, love?”

None of us usually used pet names for her on the radio, but I understood why Beck did it now. He was testing her reaction.

Vanessa laughed softly, the sound going straight to my dick. “You bet I am.”

She still sounded soft. Like the voice she sometimes used when we weren’t in public. The sleepy tone she had when I came back late and woke her up with my tongue.

“Ten seconds,” Beck said.

The track was clear, and the lights flipped on one by one. Then turned off. The sound of twenty Formula 1 engines was unmistakable. All of them racing at once.

“Beck,” Vanessa said. “Keep me posted on the car temperature every few laps, please.”

“All right.” His brow furrowed, and he glanced at me. Not a usual request. Why would she need to know? There were ways to sense if a car was getting too hot, whether it felt sluggish or you simply felt the car get hotter around you. Not to mention the engineers were all over it if a car needed to cool quickly. It wasn’t something the team would ever hold back from her.

Why would she?—

The way she’d looked at me, soft and dazed. Clinging to the water bottle. The sweat on her skin. Looking hotter than I expected. Her scent being rich and sweet, so much more than it usually was when she was in her scent-cancelling suit.

She needed to know how hot the car was because she couldn’t sense it. Her own reactions were already slower, so she might not notice the sluggishness, and she couldn’t sense any temperature change because she was already too hot.

Vanessa was going into heat.

I looked over at Beck before leaning on the console and dropping my face into my hands. “Fuck.”