Page 45 of Redeemed (Dirty Air 4)

“Who the hell are you?” The happiness she had toward Matteo slips away as she stares at me with narrowed eyes and reddened cheeks.

I’m desperate to have her smile at me again. Anything but this angry version of her would do.

“How badly do you want to know the truth?”

“More than I want to hear a lie,” she bites.

I look up at the ceiling, praying for the right words. “Remember when you thought Noah was an actor?”

“Yes.”

“Well…he’s not.”

“You don’t say,” she spits out with heavy sarcasm.

“Have you heard of Formula 1?” I can’t believe I’m asking someone this question. This is most definitely a first for me.

“Kind of? Is that the one where they drive around in circles like the movie Cars?”

A laugh bursts out of me. “No. That’s NASCAR. Please don’t insult me again by comparing F1 to that.”

Her scowl deepens.

Okay... “Why don’t we take a seat?” I point to an empty table across from Marko. The kid hasn’t bothered looking up since we got here because he’s immersed in whatever movie is playing on his iPad.

I fumble, pulling out a chair for Chloe. “So, my brother-in-law is probably the best Formula 1 racer of the decade. Hell, maybe the whole sport.”

“Okay…” She sits. “And you are?”

I take a seat across from her. “...I was his teammate.” My eyes drop to my lap. “Before my injury.”

Her mouth pops open at the same time as her eyes widen. “You mean to tell me that you’re some famous race car driver, and you kept that a secret from me this entire time?”

I lift my hands up in submission. “To be fair, I didn’t have much of a chance to tell you. Between pretending we were in a relationship—”

“Oh, you mean the lie of a relationship you started?”

I swallow, hoping to ease the dryness in my throat. “Right...between that and everything else, I kept going with it.”

“Don’t give me some half-assed excuse. Own up to what you did because you had plenty of time after to explain who you were.”

Damn. I enjoy her form of bluntness. I’m not one for reading between the lines anyway.

“I’m sorry that I lied. It’s my fault, and I’m not excusing that part. But you have to believe me when I say I didn’t do it from a malicious place. Not at all.”

“Then why do it in the first place? Why not come clean once your sister left? You pretended to be someone you’re not in front of me for two weeks.”

“Because you didn’t look at me like I was that guy. You treat me like the man I am now, rather than the one I once was. And that was something special to me that I wanted to hold on to for a bit longer. My reasoning was purely selfish, but I didn’t mean to hurt you. I came here today to admit the truth to you because I couldn’t stand lying to you anymore about it. Because you value honesty, and I value the way you act around me.” The words pour out of me, raw and earnest.

There it is. The god-honest truth that made me desperate to keep my secret from Chloe.

Her eyes soften, and her grimace turns into a flat line. “And how do I act around you?”

“Like you want to get to know who I am without the fame, fortune, and baggage associated with my name. And that’s something that doesn’t happen to me anymore.”

“That’s because I didn’t know it existed in the first place.”

I shake my head. “No. After spending time with you, I know you wouldn’t have cared about it either way. It was stupid of me to think you’d change by knowing what I did before.”