Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX | SUNDAY | RACE DAY
Nico glances at the time as he emerges from the hotel bathroom. Someone’s knocking on his room door. It’s fifteen after six, which means it’s either room service he didn’t order or someone without a clue. He’s half-dressed—sweatpants on, team shirt in hand—when the knocking turns persistent.
“Mierda.” He pads to the door and looks through the peephole to see Nia standing in the hallway. She knows not to disturb him before a race. It’s the one rule Nico enforces with everyone, and not even Papá interrupts his morning ritual.
He opens the door. “What’s wrong?”
She pushes past him into the room. “I volunteered to fall on the sword and piss you off before you head to the track.”
“Piss me off about what?” He closes the door and gestures at her with the shirt. “I was about to leave.”
She plops onto the edge of his made bed and pulls her phone from her purse. “You’ll thank me for this, hermano.”
“Nia, social media can wait.”
“No.” Her intense expression says he needs to shut up and pay attention. “You’re walking into an ambush and there’s no way I’ll let you get blindsided.”
He slips the shirt over his head and tugs it down. “Explain.”
“Papá texted me this morning. Graham Pritchard’s called an emergency management meeting at seven hundred hours.”
Nico scowls. “Why?”
She turns her phone screen toward him. “Because of this.”
The image hits Nico like a shunt into a concrete wall at three hundred km/h.
It’s the kiss. Last night, on the service road.
He’s used to seeing photos of himself during podium celebrations, at press conferences, plastered all over the paddocks.
But this is different. This captures something intimate that belonged only to them, something he’s never let anyone else see.
Years of careful control, of keeping his feelings locked down, and now it’s global entertainment.
The angle shows everything. The way he’s cradling Petra’s face like she might disappear. The way she’s clutching his shirt, pulling him closer. The soft focus makes it look like a damn romance film.
“Fucking paparazzi.” He sinks into the chair opposite his sister. “Good pic, though. Where did it come from?”
“It was posted anonymously at midnight and already has a quarter of a million views.” She scrolls down, showing him an endless stream of comments, reactions, fan art.
“The Slipstream’s lost its collective mind.
Half of them are planning your wedding, the other half are predicting the end of F1 as we know it. ” She pauses. “Where were you guys?”
“COTA service road.” Nico thinks of Rodrigo, then immediately rejects the idea. The man’s paid well enough to not be that stupid.
“So no way this was taken by some fan with a phone camera.” She glances up at him, studying his reaction. “Whoever took it was following you or Petra and knew exactly where to go to line up the right shot.”
One of Graham’s people. The realization slices through his mind, clean and sharp as a scalpel. Somehow he just knows. Nico runs his hands through his hair. “Petra will be pissed.”
“Yeah.” She studies the screen. “Great lighting. You should use it as your engagement photo.”
Nico snorts.
She grins and he knows she’ll use this against him for the rest of their lives. “Just saying.” She leans forward and grasps his wrist, turning a little serious. “I’m glad you finally did something about your crush, Nico. Looks like Petra didn’t object.”
“Mm.”
Nicolina’s brows arch. “Or did she?”
He shrugs. “Unclear. She accused me of playing head games.”
“What? Like over the championship?” He nods and she rolls her eyes, bless his sister.
“That’s ridiculous and she knows it.” Nia frowns, but her brows almost immediately arch and her eyes pop wide.
“Oh my God, Nico. She’s scared.” She glances down at the photo and nods.
“Yeah. Wow.” She meets his gaze. “I didn’t think Petra Hayter was frightened by anything. ”
“Creo que sí.” This same thought had occurred to him while he was showering this morning. “I think she’s afraid to let anyone close because Kelley made such a mess of things.”
“Ay, Dios. True. I bet she’s terrified of caring about someone who could use it against her.
I mean, think about it. Petra’s the only woman on the grid.
Every relationship becomes a story about whether she can handle the pressure, if she’s a distraction, if she belongs.
” Nia’s voice softens. “And now this photo makes it look like you’re both completely gone for each other. ”
He is, but he’s unsure about Petra, and that might be worse than never admitting his feelings to her at all. Nico despises having lost control of this situation. When she didn’t know, when the world didn’t know, he could regulate his feelings.
Because she’s Nia and she’s always been able to read his mind, his sister asks, “How do you feel about Petra and the world knowing about this?”
He stares at the image again. Petra’s face, soft and trusting. His own expression completely unguarded. “I feel like someone broke into my head and published my thoughts.”
“Because you’ve been hiding how you feel about her?”
The question hits too close to true. “Tortuga—”
“C’mon, hermano. You’ve always looked at Petra Hayter like she’s everything you’ve ever wanted.”
But don’t deserve. He shoves aside that doubt and runs both hands through his hair. The vulnerability in that image terrifies him more than any racing incident ever has. “It doesn’t matter how I feel, Nia. It never has.”
She scowls. “Nico, that’s not true.”
He shrugs. “I spent eleven years controlling those feelings. I can put them right back in their box. But I’ll hate myself if this damages her in any way.”
“Dios mío. Don’t be such a damn martyr.”
He ignores that and tips his chin at the photo. “Who alerted you to this?”
“Victoria texted me, asking if I knew if you’d seen social media.” Her expression goes fierce. “Which means they’re all protecting you from this, just like always. But protection only works if you know what you’re being protected from. I called Papá and he told me about Graham’s meeting.”
Mierda. Race day protocol exists to eliminate distractions for the drivers, but walking into this shitstorm blind would be worse.
“Show me everything.”
She angles her phone so they can both see, then starts scrolling through the chaos. The hashtags alone tell the story: #SpeedDating, #HoneyBunnies, #PetraNico, #F1Romance.
“Hostia.” He stares at fan-made graphics depicting them in matching racing suits, fake wedding photos, shipping names he can’t pronounce.
“It gets weirder.” Nia clicks to a video compilation. “Someone took every interaction you two have had on camera for the past three years and set it to a love song. It’s been viewed forty-two thousand times since midnight.”
The video plays moments he barely remembers—shared laughs during press conferences, them watching each other’s qualifying laps, that time in Monaco when she helped him up after he tripped over a cable, radio calls about each other’s driving they had with their race engineers.
All is edited together with dramatic music like they’re the stars of some romantic drama.
“I think some fans have been shipping you two for years.” She scrolls through comments. “They’re calling this the greatest slow burn in motorsports history.”
He leans back in the chair, processing. “And Graham?”
“Is probably losing his mind.” Her expression is calculating. “Or pretending to. The trending topics are all about how perfect you are together, that this proves F1 drivers are human, and how romantic it is. Graham hates genuine emotion, but he loves drama that makes him money.”
Nico nods. “That we all know from what he did to Maiken and Reece.” The man had been a monster to his own daughter-in-law.
Nia leans forward. “Think about it, Conejo. An anonymous leaked photo that must’ve been taken with a telephoto lens by someone who had access to the track after hours and knew your movements?
Graham’s media team is always following you and Petra around.
And now he gets to call an emergency meeting, create chaos, and distract you right before a crucial race?
Who do we think this will benefit? Oh, I don’t know. Wyn?”
Graham set this up.
Nicolina shakes her head. “The timing’s awfully convenient.
You have a private moment, it becomes global entertainment, and suddenly he’s positioned as the voice of reason trying to manage the crisis he probably created.
” She checks her watch. “Watch him walk into that meeting acting outraged while secretly calculating how much money this controversy will generate.”
Nico’s phone buzzes. It’s a text from Esteban:
Emergency team meeting at 07:00. Don’t check social media.
Too late for that.
Nico stands. “I have to get to the track.”
“I know. But listen.” Nia drops her phone into her purse and fixes him with a stare she learned from Papá. “Graham will try to make this about team loyalty and professional boundaries and all that junk. Don’t let him or anyone else.”
“It’s not that simple—”
“It is exactly that simple, Nico.” She stands, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “You kissed the woman you love. The internet thinks it’s beautiful. The only people with a problem are the ones who profit from keeping you off balance and alone.”
She heads for the door, then pauses. “And Conejo? When you inevitably win today and kiss her again in parc fermé? Make sure you do it properly. Four million people are watching now.”
“Shut up, Tortuga.”
She laughs as the door clicks shut behind her.
Nico shakes his head and puts on his trainers. His private moment with Petra has become public entertainment, and now he faces choices he hadn’t anticipated.
He can let this throw him off his race, he can pretend nothing ever happened, or he can lie and say it was meaningless fun.
He stands and reaches for his watch, phone, and wallet.
Or he can stay focused on his racing and on building a relationship with Petra.
He nods, pockets the phone and wallet, and puts on the watch.
Maybe Petra, the teams, and the fans think he’s heading for the biggest shunt of his life, but Nico Belmonte didn’t become a champion by letting fear and doubt stop him from taking risks.