Chapter 168 Aurélie
aurélie
I can’t protect the woman I love from the world she was born to set on fire. But it doesn’t stop me from standing in the flames with her. –Callum
Reckless.
The word should have gutted me. For a split second, it did, but I knew Callum Fraser.
I knew the man behind these words. I knew he didn’t mean it.
This was a performance. Our performance.
And I refused to let racing take anything more from me.
I wouldn’t let this own me. Not the circumstances, not that word, not this fight.
But when I climbed out of the car, a sharp cramp had twisted through my stomach. And I knew that if it was what I suspected, it would destroy Callum more than it would destroy me.
Another sharp pain pulled tight, making me shift my weight and press a palm against my abdomen for the briefest second.
Callum’s eyes dropped to the movement, and it felt like he saw straight to my core.
Guilt and heartache lanced through me, consuming me, but I swallowed it down, dropped my hand, and forced my chin high.
“You think I’m reckless?” My voice carried over the rain pounding the gravel around us. We were both soaked to the bone, and I fought a cold shiver as we faced off. I angled toward the cameras, deliberately feeding them the drama. “Racing 101, Callum! Commit to your line! That’s what I did!”
The muscles in his jaw feathered, his eyes—a brilliantly blue contrast against the grey weather surrounding us—narrowing just enough that I knew he heard the real message under my jab. We’re still on course, mon amour.
But for the crowd, I didn’t soften. I couldn’t soften, even though I wanted to call all this off and curl up in a warm bed with just him.
“Maybe I am reckless. Maybe I’m a mistake to the sport.
Maybe I’m a liability. But the only thing you know how to be is a champion,” I hurled, my statement a dagger for the show.
But in my chest, it rang with a different truth: reverence.
Because that’s who he was, that’s who he would always be. Mon champion.
Just as I’d called him back in Barcelona before he chased me through the paddock like we were young and wild and free. When we couldn’t risk getting caught and then I marched into my magazine photoshoot with his handprints on my ass.
Now that was reckless.
But it also gave me hope that we could handle anything together.
When Callum’s silence stretched, I shook my head vehemently, tears spilling as much for the audience as for myself, for the pain my body felt, for the toll this was all taking on me.
“I’m reckless?” I threw out one last time, for good measure, and much louder than necessary. Best to really hammer the point home. “What do you think happens when you study your idol for a decade? Maybe you shouldn’t be in the car either, Fraser. Because maybe you’re just as reckless as me.”
I turned away before he could answer. Every camera followed me, eating up the storm I’d conjured.
Exactly as planned. But the cramp still lingered low in my belly, enough to remind me I wasn’t invincible.
I pressed my arm tighter across my middle as I strode on.
A spectacle—that’s what this was meant to be.
And yet even a spectacle left bruises, inside and out.
They guided Callum and me toward the medical tent.
The noise of the track dimmed to a muffled roar, replaced by the hiss of rain against canvas and the shuffle of our boots.
Just as we were about to duck under the half-open flap, Callum got pulled into an interview.
I glanced over my shoulder at him, eager for all of this to be over so we could talk, then slipped into the tent.
I sat down only because someone pushed a chair under me. My gloves were still wet, and I was trembling now from both the adrenaline and the chill clinging to my body. The medical staff bustled around me as I unzipped my race suit, then pulled the sleeves off to let it hang around my waist.
Just as I was stretching my arms over my head to loosen my sore muscles, another cramp rolled through. I clutched my stomach, biting back a gasp at the sharpness of it. Jesus, these were strong. The medic said something I didn’t hear over the hammering of my heart.
Why now? Why me?
Through the flap of the tent, Callum was visible, speaking to the reporter, but he saw.
He froze mid-answer, eyes locking on me, on the hand pressed against my stomach.
Then he looked over his shoulder, muttered something to the reporter, and sauntered into the tent.
A medical staff member tried to motion toward a stool for him to sit, but he brushed them off.
His helmet still dangled in his hand and rain dripped from his strong, masculine jaw in a way that should have been illegal. The entire female population could go extinct just from watching that.
Then he dropped to one knee in front of me, and mon putain de Dieu, my heart stuttered.
From the look on his face, all raw concern and quiet command, the way he knew I’d respond to that like a moth to a flame.
But also from seeing him on one knee, imagining a ring in his hand, asking a question that I shouldn’t be ready to answer but most definitely was because it was him.
Ugh, no. It was too soon to picture that.
We’d talked about it, sure, but right now my brain was clearly doing anything it could to protect me from the reality twisting deep inside my body.
“Auri.” He said it so softly, so carefully, that I nearly burst into tears. “Are you hurt? Did this–did our plan hurt you?”
The question shot straight through the armor I’d been building since the second the first cramp hit. My throat tightened, and my vision blurred. “I’m fine,” I whispered. “We have to keep it together a little longer.”
He exhaled, eyes flicking between my face and the hand still trembling against my stomach.
He dropped his helmet on the ground and then he rested his hands on my hips, throwing caution to the wind.
“What are you not telling me?” The gentleness in his tone nearly broke me.
It wasn’t for the cameras, wasn’t for show, wasn’t for the FIA. It was reserved for me, and only me.
Fucking hell, why did he have to know me so well?
This was not the place to have this conversation.
Not because he shouldn’t know—he absolutely should—but because I couldn’t do this right now.
The emotional turmoil this would cause regardless of the direction this went…
I wasn’t strong enough to deal with it in the public eye.
I didn’t know a single woman who was strong enough.
I forced a laugh, even though it cracked. “That you really need to stop making dramatic entrances mid-medical exam?”
He didn’t smile, didn’t even blink. Just waited, eyes narrowing the way they did when he was studying telemetry. “Don’t, Aurélie. Don’t deflect.”
I looked away, focusing on the zipper of his race suit that he’d only unzipped near his throat. “There’s nothing to tell,” I lied, hating how weak it sounded. “It was just—cramps. Stress, the rain, the crashes from yesterday and today.”
Callum’s gaze dropped again to my stomach and squeezed my hips. Fuck, he doesn’t believe me. “Cramps have never made you flinch like that.”
The words hit harder than the impact ever could. I wanted to tell him everything, but the timing was all wrong. The world outside was still watching. Everyone in this goddamn paddock gossiped. Cameras were everywhere.
So instead, I shook my head and forced a tired smile. “You worry too much, mon champion.”
His reply was quiet and deadly sure, landing like a vow. “Not nearly enough. Aurélie—”
Tears spilled over. “Not now, Callum. S’il te pla?t.”
He closed his eyes and dropped his head. “That’s what I needed to know.”
My breath caught and my heart rate accelerated. Oh no. “What?”
“That this is more,” he said quietly, lifting his gaze again, raw and searching. “That this has to do with what we talked about this morning.”
My heart lurched, and the nausea I’d been fighting all week hit me with full force. “Callum—”
Before I could say another word, voices erupted outside the tent. Henric’s deep tone and Dom’s clipped bark followed by a flurry of footsteps on wet gravel.
“Fraser! Dubois! You two better be explaining that circus out there!”
Callum barely had time to drop his hands from my hips before the flap flew all the way open. In a blink, he was on his feet, every trace of concern buried under his public persona, posture seemingly irritated as the world champion mask slid neatly back into place.
I scrambled for my own composure, rising beside him and swiping at my eyes with one arm as the team principals stepped in.
They were still mid-argument with each other about media fallout and stewards’ penalties.
My other arm wrapped protectively around my middle before I forced it back to my side.
My pulse thundered, nerves suddenly haywire when earlier they’d been grounded.
Henric stormed in first, with Dom close behind, both dripping and livid. Henric stopped in front of us, eyes narrowing. “What the hell happened?”
Callum didn’t even glance at me as he stepped forward. “A racing incident,” he said smoothly, voice cool, detached, professional. “Conditions were degrading. We both pushed.”
Dom scoffed. “You both pushed? You two nearly took out half the midfield! Do you have any idea what this looks like? Especially after the meeting we just had this morning?”
“She had the inside,” Callum stated. “I defended. We touched. That’s all.
Happens all the time.” He folded his arms across his chest, but I saw his hands curl into fists under his biceps.
It was the only sign of restraint in his muscular body.
I caught the faintest flick of his eyes toward me, protective and warning all at once.