Chapter 178 Aurélie #2
He’d already built a world where he wasn’t mine.
A future where he could walk away clean, justified, righteous, and I’d just be another story in the archives.
Another beautiful footnote to the legend of Callum Fraser.
And the cruelest part? I couldn’t even be angry at him for it, because I believed in the cause too.
I believed in him. And that made this burn even deeper.
Reinhardt didn’t say anything. Just watched him like he was reevaluating every word Callum had ever said.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t breathe.
I stood there, fingers twisting together in front of me to distract myself.
He hadn’t told me this. Not once. Not in whispers after midnight or passing jokes when the pressure was too much. Not in any of the quiet moments we’d shared where the future was soft and glowing and built between us.
And now he wanted to leave the one place we’d found each other?
He wanted to retire… now?
Selfishly, I hated it. I hated the idea of the world losing him, of me losing him in that way.
The roar of the paddock, the shimmer of the grid, the look on his face when he took pole under pressure and laughed like the stars belonged to him.
How we touched helmets and frantically grabbed each other’s race suits in dark corners, like the world might end if we didn’t press closer.
But worse, I hated that I wasn’t part of the decision.
That I didn’t know this was where his mind had gone. That while I’d been planning strategy and fighting for our right to exist together in this sport, he’d been planning a possible exit.
It felt a lot like… betrayal. It twisted hot and sharp through me, slicing like a knife.
Disappointment filled me, because he didn’t tell me first. Because he waited until four other people were in the goddamn room and files were on the counter and political alliances were being drawn to drop this grenade and pretend like it hadn’t been ticking for days. Maybe weeks. Maybe longer.
He told everyone at once. As though I was just another stakeholder in his future.
It hurt.
Not because I didn’t want him to be happy. God, I did. I’d support him barefoot and bleeding if it meant he felt whole. But I wanted to know. I wanted to be there, in that thought process part of the conversation, not just the collateral.
It felt a lot like betrayal. Not because he owed me his loyalty—I would never cage him—but because he hadn’t even warned me before he lit the match and threw it.
And he did it here. In front of all of them.
An audience.
I could feel their eyes on me, waiting for my reaction. The girl he touched like she was sacred. The girl who’d designed her outfit tonight because of the bruises he’d left behind. The girl who said yes, please, more and je suis à toi, and gave him every part of her last night.
And he stood there with his broad shoulders, slow voice and his soft, tragic eyes, and dropped this like it was nothing. Like it was theoretical.
Like it wasn’t my entire world.
Shame burned through me. Not at him, but at myself.
Because I had submitted to him completely.
I’d knelt for him and opened myself to the kind of ruin most people never survived.
I let him in, past every wall I’d spent a lifetime fortifying, let him see every fracture and soft edge, and I did it willingly.
I gave him my body, my pain, my trust, my future.
And apparently, he couldn’t even give me a conversation.
We talked about marriage. About infertility and reproductive health and children. About what the next five years looked like if we stayed together, if we were careful, if we weren’t.
We mapped strategy, built plans for how to take on the FIA, how to bury Morel, how to change the world… but not this?
My brain couldn’t comprehend the weight of it. How could the man who’d walked to the edges of the earth to make sure I felt seen—who’d kissed every broken part of me like it was holy—be the same man standing there now, stripping away our future with a shrug?
He was supposed to be the one who stayed, who loved me despite all of life’s obstacles, who knew what I needed before I even knew it myself.
Callum’s hands braced against the edge of the bar. “If I can’t protect the people I love from the inside of a cockpit,” he said, quieter now, “maybe I can protect them somewhere else.”
Ivy’s expression softened, her earlier shock giving way to something quieter. “You mean that.”
“I do,” he said. “But I’m not there yet. I’m just… thinking. Out loud, I suppose.”
We were all thinking.
And they were all watching me not react.
I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Instead, I did what I always did, what I was trained to do. I put on a face for the rest of the world while shutting everything else down.
Because the pain this caused? It was worse than anything I’d ever endured. Worse than a bruised body from a sabotaged car, or a flare-up that left me half-paralyzed in the hotel bed. Not even the Vicodin could touch this kind of pain.
My PR face was something I’d perfected. And now he was on the receiving end of it. They all were.
The plan was never just to win races. It was to survive them. And I guess now it was also to survive each other?
A plan devised without me. Behind my back. In silence.
Because apparently, my opinion didn’t matter anymore.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, stuffed it down deep, buried it beneath the heat and hurt and heartbreak. I smiled, because I knew the cameras would be back soon, and no one could know I was crumbling.
Not even the people I thought I trusted the most.
Reinhardt moved then, giving me something else to pay attention to. He reached into his briefcase again and set another folder on the counter in front of us.
“There’s another angle you’ll want to consider,” he said. “Especially if you’re serious about removing Morel. Not just from the team or the season, but from the sport entirely.”
Ivy’s voice was the first to cut through the fog. “Define serious.”
Reinhardt turned to me. “You told me what happened before qualifying,” he said quietly. “You showed me the security footage. The photos. Your bruises.”
Callum tensed beside me. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t even want to look at him. I was currently fighting a deep-seated agony that threatened to consume me.
“I knew the moment I saw your face,” Reinhardt continued, “and the marks on your wrists, that this was not only a breach of FIA conduct but a violation of your basic safety. But I had to stay neutral in that meeting, no matter how sick it made me.”
He took a breath, eyes scanning each of us. “Because if I’d so much as twitched the wrong way, the board would’ve accused me of bias. And that gives them legal ammunition. A loophole they’ll exploit to keep burying things like this.”
His words barely registered. They floated past me like sound underwater. Muffled, too slow, too distant. I focused on the polished edge of the marble countertop, on the sharp burn in my throat I refused to acknowledge.
“But don’t mistake neutrality for apathy,” he said, voice hardening. “What happened to you wasn’t just inappropriate. It was criminal. And if it’s part of a pattern—”
“It is,” Ivy said, so quietly it made my head snap up.
Everyone turned.
She didn’t look at anyone, but her voice was taut. “He touched me earlier this season. In Barcelona.”
Marco froze. His entire body stilled like he was bracing to punch a wall, silently confirming what she was saying.
Reinhardt’s posture sharpened. “Tell me.”
“It wasn’t violent,” she said, voice hollow.
“Just calculated. Hand on my waist. Way too low. Calling me some foreign pet name, pressing me to go out with him. Told me if I ever got tired of being behind the scenes, he’d make room for me on the pit wall.
” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Said he liked women who knew how to keep quiet.”
Silence fell like a guillotine.
Callum swore under his breath.
Kimi muttered something in Finnish that sounded like a curse.
Marco reached for her hand, his shaking slightly. Her lip trembled, but she didn’t flinch.
But me? I was just reminded how quickly life could take away happiness.
Reinhardt nodded once. “That’s enough to build a harassment file.
Between your account and Aurélie’s documented assault, we’re no longer talking about rumors or personality conflicts.
We’re talking about a hostile work environment.
A lawsuit waiting to happen. And a media scandal the FIA won’t survive if they keep protecting him. ”
I leaned forward. Or maybe my body did. I wasn’t sure if I was still in it. Didn’t even want to be.
“So what do we do with that information?” The words came from my mouth, but I barely felt them leave my lips.
“That’s where Mercer comes in.”
Mercer?
He flipped open the folder, sliding several sheets across the bar. I stared at them without absorbing a single word.
“Maverick Mercer. Billionaire investor from New York. His wife works for InterPol. She’s offered to open an independent investigation to corroborate the pattern.
Morel’s racing history, personal conduct, prior infractions swept under the rug.
It’s part of their screening of Orion GP before they complete their investment into the rebrand and new ownership.
If there’s even a fraction of what we suspect, he’ll never drive again. ”
Callum’s voice was tight. “They’re investing in Orion GP?”
“Yes. Beckett Lachlan—” Reinhardt glanced at Callum. “You two know each other?”
Callum nodded slowly. “Old friend.”
“Good,” Reinhardt said. “He’s taking over majority control. If Mercer and his wife can build the legal scaffolding, and Beckett terminates Morel’s contract, which is currently airtight…” He looked around the bar. “Then we’re halfway there.”
I reached for the documents. My hands didn’t shake.
Because I was already gone, half a plane of glass away from my body, watching all of this from behind my own eyes. Disassociating to preserve myself.
“And the other half?” I asked.
Reinhardt met my gaze. “You take this to the GPDA meeting. All of it. Your report. Ivy’s statement.
These files.” He tapped the stack. “Frame it as a strategic proposal. A push for safety standards, ethical oversight, a code of conduct enforcement protocol. You’ll sound like revolutionaries with clipboards.
But trust me, that’s what terrifies them the most.”
We wrapped up the meeting, and then Reinhardt pulled on his jacket, wished us luck, and left. The door clicked shut behind him, and no one moved. For a long, suspended moment, the air just… hung there.
Then I turned away.
“I’m—” My voice broke before the lie could form. “Excuse me.”
No one stopped me when I slipped into the room, my feet carrying me into the bathroom. The latch gave easily under my trembling hand, the bathroom door closing behind me with a sound that felt final.
The quiet was deafening.
I gripped the edges of the sink until my knuckles blanched. My reflection stared back—the dress, the makeup, the careful glamour of composure—all of it trembling on a fault line.
For one breath.
Two.
And then it cracked.
I dropped my head, my hair creating a curtain around me, as if it could shield me from the world. My shoulders shook once as I fought the tears. Refused to let them win. Ivy had spent all that time layering powder and shadow; I wouldn’t let emotion ruin the only armor I had left.
Don’t.
Don’t you dare cry, Aurélie. You’ve done enough crying for one lifetime.
I blinked hard, forcing the water back down where it belonged. The counter blurred anyway.
And suddenly, I was a teenager again. Standing in my brother’s shadow while the world adored his smile. The burden. The spare twin. The one no one wanted. The backup plan everyone forgot existed until they needed something from her.
I’d built an empire out of the promise that I’d never be that girl again. Never the one left behind. Never the one who didn’t matter. Not after what Santino had done, what my family had said to me.
And now here I was, back where I started—loving a man who hadn’t even thought to tell me he might be leaving me behind too.
The shame came next. It was heavy and familiar, the kind that hollowed you from the inside out.
My throat constricted.
No. Not now. Not after everything. Don’t ruin your makeup. Don’t ruin the mask.
I lifted my head. My face in the mirror looked alien, beautiful and wrong. The kind of woman who looked worshiped, not discarded. The kind of woman who would never be this stupid.
My eyes caught on the counter. His razor. My lipstick. Two toothbrushes in the same glass. The lavender salve we both used like a lifeline now.
A domestic altar to a life that might not exist by tomorrow. A space, split between us.
It hit me all at once, how much of this was temporary.
How easily love could turn into a memory.
How every piece of him I’d let touch me might soon belong to the past tense.
And suddenly, I didn’t know how much of it was real.
How much of this version of us—our rituals, our rhythm, our future—was mine to hold on to.
Or how much of it he was already quietly letting go.
A knock broke through the silence. “Baby?” Callum’s voice was soft. Cautious. “You alright?”
My eyes burned. I stared at my reflection again, the woman who looked like she had it all under control. I gave her a smile. The kind I gave to the cameras, even when I felt like I was dying inside but no one was allowed to know.
“I’m fine,” I said, steady this time. “?a va.”
The lie settled in my chest like cement. I reached for my perfume and spritzed it on my pulse points just to give my hands something to do. The scent of lavender and citrus filled the air, a ghost of comfort that felt like home when Callum didn’t now.
I straightened my shoulders, the way I always did before a race. The world didn’t need to see me bleed, only that I could keep driving. And now he was going to get the version of me everyone else did.
Then I opened the door. He was standing there, leaning against the wall like he was afraid to come closer. His eyes searched mine for an answer he couldn’t name.
I didn’t give him one.
Maybe this was what he meant. Protecting me from the inside out, even if it meant breaking me open first.
“I’m ready to go,” was all I offered, voice smooth as glass.
And I walked right past him, the way you walk past a closed door you know you’ll never open again.
I thought we were stronger than this. After everything—every crash, every kiss, every whispered I’ve got you, I love you—I thought we were unbreakable.
But maybe that was the real lie. Because right now… I don’t think I’ve ever truly been safe.