Page 26

Thomas

Reid Coleman isn’t thrilled to see me. I can’t blame him.

We’re in one of the venue’s back rooms, allowing us some privacy for our chat, though the man looks like he might bolt any second. Still, he offers me a weak smile, which I’m taking as a good sign.

“Congrats again on the championship,” I say to ease us into the conversation. I fear it would be bad manners to simply blurt, Can you please put me in contact with your teammate so we can clear the goddamn air?

He drags a hand through his golden hair, smile twisting into something more authentic, even though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Thanks. Still can’t believe it.”

Me neither, considering how he managed to win it. But I like the guy, so I won’t question what, if anything, has been going on behind the scenes. I’ve got enough of my own drama to worry about.

“I’m sure it felt a little more real with that trophy in your hands last night,” I joke, knowing he had to attend the prize-giving gala. Such is the life of a champion—not that I would know.

I’m relieved when he chuckles, even if it’s slightly forced. This is awkward, we both know it, but what makes it worse is that it didn’t used to be like this.

We used to joke about the joy and trauma of coming into F1 at the same time, trying to find our footing not just in the highest echelon of motorsport but at teams with long legacies and even longer lists of championships. Dev and Axel were rookies with us too, but their situations weren’t quite the same. They went to teams that had either never won a Constructors’ Championship—like Dev and Argonaut Racing—or that were just finding their footing—like Axel and Specter Energy. They didn’t have the pressure of historic teams and fan bases weighing down on them like we did.

Of course, Reid and Dev were always closer, just on the basis of them being American and growing up in the same karting circuits. But Reid and I? We had our own thing. And it all went straight to shit when his teammate nearly killed me.

Personally, I don’t think Reid blames me for what I said about Lorenzo Castellucci. How could he, when his own teammate pushed him off-track, brake-checked him, and ignored team orders that favored Reid dozens of times? If I were Reid, everyone would have known how much I loathed the man.

But I guess that’s why Reid’s still sitting pretty at D’Ambrosi while I’m hated by every single one of their fans and possibly going to be out of a job. He kept his mouth shut. I didn’t.

“How’s Lorenzo doing?” I force myself to ask.

Reid sighs softly. “He’s…coming to terms with what happened.”

That’s not the encouraging answer I wanted to hear, but then again, what did I expect? “Have you seen him?”

“When I left Abu Dhabi, I went to visit him at the rehab center.” Reid’s gaze skims the floor before lifting back to mine. “He’s keen on keeping a low profile at the moment.”

“Do you think you could convince him to see me?” I hedge. “Or, hell, just take a call? I really need to speak with him.”

Reid is quiet for so long that I know I’m going to get shot down. But I have to make this happen. Even if our chat doesn’t lead to Lorenzo publicly announcing that he doesn’t hate or blame me for anything, I still need to clear the air, face-to-face. Selfishly, I need to know there are no hard feelings. And I need to know that, even if he’s not right now, he’s going to be okay one day—whatever that looks like for him.

“I’ve already asked,” Reid finally admits.

My brow shoots up. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t have an answer yet,” he quickly tacks on, “which is why I didn’t want to tell you anything, so don’t get your hopes up. But I did ask if he’d be open to speaking with you when I went to visit.”

“How did you know I—”

“Your wife got Willow to hound me about it.” This time, I get a wry smile. “They’re both very insistent women. And if Dev has taught me anything, it’s to never piss off your social media manager.”

He’s not wrong about any of it. What hits me harder, though, is that Stella managed to pull off exactly what she said she would. She has me here talking with Reid and even got him to reach out to Lorenzo on my behalf, two things I haven’t been able to do myself. Not even my manager, with all his connections, could get me in touch with anyone. But Stella did it.

“You’re lucky to have someone fighting for you like that,” Reid continues when I can’t find my voice. “I honestly thought you’d lost your mind when I heard you’d gotten married in Vegas, but you landed yourself a good one.”

There’s no doubt about that. Even if it was all by mistake, even if it was drunken lust guiding us, I chose the perfect person.

“I really did,” I say, not fighting a smile. “Stella’s…amazing. I need to thank her for setting all of this up.” I would run to her now if I didn’t need to chat more with Reid, to make sure everything’s okay with us too.

But he can see I’m itching to leave, because he nods to the door. “Go get your girl. We can talk again before the break’s over.”

“You’re done following the D’Ambrosi protocol of shunning me then?”

He lets loose a grin that solidifies his golden boy moniker. “I guess I could break the rules.”

I’ll believe it when my phone rings, but for now, we’re on steady enough ground that I don’t feel bad when I slap his shoulder in goodbye and then stride out of the room.

Finding Stella when I return to the ballroom isn’t a challenge, only because there’s a crowd around her. She’s sucked in a group of people and is regaling them with some tale that has her motioning with her champagne glass, and they can’t take their eyes off her. Neither can I as I slip past bodies and make my way toward her. My hand settles on her elbow, drawing her confused gaze away from her audience. When she realizes it’s me, her face lights up so brightly that I have to blink to keep from staring at her in a daze.

“Come with me.”

She wastes no time turning her wide smile on her hangers-on and excusing herself from the conversation.

“So?” she prompts, clinging to my arm as I guide her through the crowd. “How did it go?”

“Reid asked Lorenzo to speak with me,” I rush to answer. “No guarantee that he will, but this is a start.”

Stella makes a sound of excitement and tugs me closer. “He’ll talk to you, I know it. We’re going to clear your name.”

There’s that we again. I love the sound of it from her lips, but there’s really no we here—this has been all her. With her insistence and her inability to take no for an answer when it comes to helping me. My own family is content to leave me to rot, but Stella? She’s been ready to help since practically day dot.

I take her to the room Reid and I were just in, though there’s no sign of him now. Good. I need this moment alone with her.

“Is there anything else I can do to help?” she asks, slipping her arm out of my grasp and staring up at me expectantly.

“Not right now. I just wanted to thank you.”

“For what?” she teases. “Annoying the shit out of Willow, who in turn annoyed the shit out of Reid?”

“For making this happen. For taking a chance on me.”

Stella’s expression softens from wide-eyed joy to tender amusement. “Oh, Thomas. Did you really think I’d let my own husband suffer? You know I like you better when you’re smiling.”

I lift a brow, almost glad she’s not taking me completely seriously. If she did, I fear I might confess something that neither of us is ready to admit—that we like each other more than just on a surface level of attraction or mere friendship. “Oh, you mean that British thing I do with my face?”

“What can I say? It’s grown on me.”

“Well, your grating American accent has grown on me.”

She gasps and slaps my chest, and even though she’s faking offense, there’s no hiding the laugh behind her words. “You never said it was grating!”

Because it isn’t. It never has been. I could listen to her talk about anything and everything for hours on end. She could read me every page in the dictionary and I’d be content to sit and drink it in, as long as it came from her.

I close my fingers around her wrist before she can pull back. “To be fair, it’s a very sexy kind of grating.”

“Are you flirting with me?” she jokingly chides, looking up at me through her lashes. “Does my terrible accent get you going?”

I could answer that verbally. I should answer, because it’s an easy fucking absolutely . But instead I wrap an arm around Stella’s waist and haul her against me. Then I dip my head until my lips find hers. That’s my answer.

If she’s surprised by the move, I don’t feel it. She leans in without hesitation, opening for me when I sweep my tongue over her bottom lip, inviting me in. Has she been thinking about it as much as I have? Because I’ve been hungering for this. Desperate for the chance to taste her again. She’s just as sweet as I remember.

This feels like we’ve picked up exactly where we left off in that Las Vegas strip club, before everything was put on hold for wedding vows and crisis control. And this time, I want to see it through. I want to see where it could have led. What a night together could have been like.

I just have to be so damn careful not to let the twinge of affection I feel for her get in the way.

Her mouth is pouty when I draw back, and it takes a second before her eyes flutter open. We’re still so close that we’re trading breaths, but I have no plans to move away.

“You just broke the rules,” she taunts, winded, and the threat has no edge. “Although, I guess you warned me that you would.”

I chuckle, my hands moving down from her waist to grip her hips. “What consequences am I going to face?”

“No consequences. That was…” She sucks in a breath, then lets it out on a shaky exhale. “Honestly, it was fucking fantastic.”

She can say that, but I’m getting a different message from her body language. She’s gone tense under my touch, her shoulders rounding, and although she isn’t pulling away yet, I can feel it about to happen.

“I sense a but coming,” I hedge, and my stomach falls inch by inch as Stella steps back.

“We can’t do that again, Thomas.” It’s a quiet sentence, said with the kind of resignation that tells me she’s already thought about this too much.

I sigh and lift a hand to rub the back of my neck, my skin burning as her rejection settles in. “I know.”

And I really do. I know the rules and why we have them. I know I shouldn’t be breaking them and tempting her to throw them away. It’s shitty and selfish of me, but how can I be expected to not want another taste of the woman I’ve been trying to get my hands on since the first night we met?

“We’ve been lax about things,” she goes on. “We’re introducing complications we don’t need. I’m guilty of it too, so don’t put all the blame on yourself.”

I deserve to, though. Sure, she’s done her fair share of flirting, but I’ve done nothing but encourage it. Because I wanted it. I still want it.

But this conversation is the death blow to that easy dynamic. And that’s completely my fault.

“I get it,” I make myself say. I even force a smile, one I hope comes off as casual. “We’ll be more careful moving forward.” Then, just to drive the knife further into my own gut, I hold a hand out for her to shake. “Friends?”

Something crosses Stella’s face that I can’t decipher, but it’s replaced by an easy smile that would seem almost natural if I hadn’t already seen the real thing so many times.

She takes my hand in hers and squeezes. “Friends.”

It’s the only word I don’t want to hear her say.