Chapter Twenty-Six
Lily
The headlights of Henri’s Audi cut through the darkness as we turned off the highway and onto the service road that led to the back of Silverstone. I sat in the passenger seat, my feet tucked under me.
“I don’t think we should be here this late,” I said. “We’ll get caught.”
Henri glanced at me, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Ye of little faith.”
“I’m serious. There’ll still be mechanics working on the cars. And engineers. Night security. Someone will see us.”
“No one is going to see us.”
“You don’t know that.”
Henri slowed the car as we approached a gate I didn’t recognize—some kind of service entrance on the far side of the circuit, well away from the main paddock.
He pulled up and lowered his window. A moment later, a stocky man in a high-vis jacket appeared from a small booth, torch in hand.
He leaned down to the window and broke into a grin.
“Mr. Dubois, good to see you!”
“Dave.” Henri reached across and shook the man’s hand. “Good to see you, mate.”
I stared at him. “You’re joking.”
Henri ignored me. Dave was already waving us through, the gate sliding open with a mechanical groan. Henri eased the car forward, and I turned in my seat to watch the gate close behind us.
“Who was that?”
“Dave. Head of track security.”
“And he’s just… letting us in?”
“I signed some stuff for his kid. Caps, a race suit, a couple of model cars. His daughter’s a massive fan, apparently.”
“Of yours?”
Henri shot me a look. “And yours, actually. I nicked a signed hat you left at Georgia’s when you stayed with her in Monaco.”
I shook my head, a disbelieving laugh escaping me. “And there’s no one else here? No mechanics? No engineers doing late checks?”
“Not on the track. Plus, there’s no changes to the track anyway. Nothing we won’t see in tomorrow’s official track walk with the teams.” He pulled the car into a dark corner behind one of the hospitality buildings and killed the engine. “Come on—we don’t have to do it all, but let’s take a walk!”
I looked out at the circuit. The floodlights were off, but the moon was bright enough to paint the grandstands in silver. The place felt enormous in the silence. Enormous and somehow intimate at the same time.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
We climbed out of the car. The night air was warm, carrying the faint smell of cut grass and rubber that I’d associated with this place since I was a child. Henri came around to my side and stood beside me, hands in his pockets, looking out across the circuit.
“Ready?”
“Born ready.”
We slipped through a gap in the barriers and stepped onto the track. The tarmac was still warm under my trainers, holding the heat of the day. I looked down at the surface—the faded tire marks, the rubber buildup on the racing line—and felt something loosen in my chest.
This was Silverstone. My track. The place where my dream had started.
We walked in comfortable silence for a while, following the racing line through the first few corners. Our footsteps were the only sound, soft and rhythmic against the asphalt.
“It’s strange being here when it’s this quiet,” I said. “I’ve only ever known it loud.”
“I prefer it like this.”
“You would. You’re French. You probably think Silverstone’s too noisy and the food’s terrible.”
“The food is terrible. Last year, they served me a jacket potato with beans in the media center and acted like it was fine dining.”
“It is fine dining. That’s a national treasure you’re disrespecting.”
Henri’s shoulders shook, his head tipping back. The sound bounced off the empty grandstands.
We walked on. I pointed out the spot along the old fence line where my dad used to bring me as a girl.
Where I’d press my face against the chain link, imagining the day it would my turn to race here.
Henri listened the way he always did—quietly, completely, like he was filing every word away somewhere safe.
The silence settled back over us after that, but it was different now. Heavier. Like we’d both arrived at the edge of something and were waiting to see who would step forward first.
It was Henri.
“We should talk about this,” he said. His voice was quieter than before. Careful. “About us.”
I kept walking for a few steps then slowed. “I know.”
Henri stopped. I stopped too, turning to face him. We were standing in the middle of the track with nothing but moonlight and empty asphalt in every direction.
“I’ve had since Las Vegas to think about this,” he said.
“About what this could be.” He paused, and I could see the war brewing inside of him as he fought to choose his words carefully.
“I worry that I can’t give you what you want.
The way things are—the teams, the contracts, the press.
We’d have to hide. For a long time. Maybe longer than either of us wants. ”
The moonlight caught the uneasy mask of his face, the furrow between his brows. Henri was worried. Genuinely worried. Not about being caught or about what the press would say, but about me. About whether this could be enough.
“I want to try,” I said.
Henri blinked. “Lily—”
“I know it’s complicated. I know we’d have to be careful. But I think we owe it to each other to at least try to work it out. Don’t you?”
He didn’t answer right away. He looked at me for a long moment, searchingly, like he was waiting for the qualifier. The “but.” The escape clause.
It didn’t come.
“At the end of the year,” I continued, “I’m going to ask Rennen to renegotiate my contract. With a new manager.”
That landed differently than the rest, surprise breaking through the careful composure.
“A new manager?”
“It’s time.”
“Your mother—”
“Has been my manager since I was fourteen. And she’s good at it. She got me to where I am. But I need someone who sees me as a human first, driver second.”
His eyes softened at the corners, crinkling in that way they did when he really meant something.
He reached for my hand, his thumb brushing over my knuckles.
“I’m proud of you,” he said simply. His fingers tightened around mine, warm and steady.
“Mon c?ur,” he whispered, bringing my hand to his chest, where I could feel his heartbeat through his thin shirt.
He held it there for a moment, his gaze never leaving mine.
“You’ve outgrown her, and it’s okay to accept that you need something different.
It’s a big change in your life. It’s okay to be scared, but I know you’re doing the right thing here. ”
I stepped closer, closing the gap between us until my forehead rested against his collarbone.
His free arm came around me, pulling me in.
I stood there, breathing him in, letting myself be held.
Henri cupped my face, his thumb catching the single tear that had escaped despite my best efforts.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
He just held my face and looked at me like I was the only thing in this enormous, empty circuit that mattered.
I kissed him first. Rose up on my toes and pressed my mouth to his, and for a second he went completely still—surprised, maybe, or savoring it—before his hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck and he pulled me in.
The kiss was slow and unhurried. Nothing like the desperate, stolen moments we’d had before. This was two people standing in the open, choosing each other.
When we finally broke apart, his forehead rested against mine. His breath came uneven against my lips. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering against my cheek.
“We should head back,” he murmured. “Early start tomorrow. Just need to grab something from my room.”
“Yeah, alright.”
He sighed and stepped away, and the night air rushed into the space between us like it had been waiting. We turned and started walking back toward the paddock, shoulders almost touching, not quite holding hands.
As we neared the pit lane, Henri slowed.
We ducked through a side entrance near the Hermes hospitality unit. Henri punched a code into the keypad, and the door opened. The corridor inside was dark, lit only by the green glow of emergency-exit signs. Our footsteps echoed against the polished concrete.
Henri found his driver’s room by memory, guiding me with a hand on the small of my back. The room was small and sparse. A massage table, a mini fridge, a screen mounted to the wall. He closed the door behind us and turned the lock.
“Welcome to my office.”
I leaned against the doorframe and watched him. “What are you looking for?”
“Need to grab that hat for Dave’s daughter. I promised her a visor.”
“You’re like Father Christmas.”
“I’d like to think of myself as more handsome than that.”
He found what he was looking for—a tinted race visor, still in its packaging—and tucked it under his arm. Then he turned and looked at me leaning against his doorframe in his driver’s room.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing. Just… this. You, here.”
“Don’t get used to it. If anyone from Rennen catches me in the Hermes garage, I’ll be explaining it to Felix until I’m forty.”
Henri crossed the room toward me. “Then we should probably stop standing here.”
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved toward the hallway.
Henri set the visor down on the massage table without looking at it. His eyes stayed on me—dark, intent, the careful composure from the track walk dissolving.
“We should go,” I whispered.
“Say it like you mean it.”
I couldn’t. Not with him standing this close—not with the lock turned and the corridor silent and his hand finding my hip like it belonged there. I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him against me, my back pressing flat against the doorframe.
His mouth found mine—harder this time, nothing slow about it. His fingers dug into my waist, and I gasped, arching into him. I bit his lower lip and felt the groan travel through his chest into mine.
He picked me up like I weighed nothing, my legs wrapping around him as he carried me to the massage table. My back hit the padded surface, and he leaned over me, one hand braced beside my head, the other sliding under the hem of my shirt, his palm hot against bare skin.
“Door’s locked?” I breathed.
“Door’s locked.”
His mouth traced down my jaw, my neck, my collarbone.
I pulled at his shirt, and he helped me get it over his head, tossing it somewhere behind him.
My fingers mapped the landscape of him—the hard ridges of muscle, the scar on his shoulder from a childhood karting crash, the rapid drumbeat of his heart under my palm.
He tugged at the hem of my top, and I sat up enough to let him pull it free. The air was cool against my skin for half a second before his body covered mine again, warm and solid and everywhere.
His hand slid up my ribs, thumb brushing the underside of my bra, and I sucked in a breath that sounded embarrassingly desperate. He paused. Looked up at me.
“Lily.”
“Don’t you dare ask me if I’m sure again—”
He kissed me before I could finish. His fingers found the clasp at my back and made quick work of it, and then there was nothing between us but skin and the faint green glow of the exit sign bleeding under the door.
I pulled at his belt. He helped, kicking his jeans off the edge of the table. My shorts followed, his hands hooking under the waistband and dragging them down my legs with a slow deliberateness that made me want him even more.
When he came back up, he pressed his forehead to mine. Both of us breathing hard. Both of us still.
“Hi,” he whispered.
I laughed, shaky and breathless. “Hi.”
His hand cupped my face, thumb stroking my cheekbone. When I got up, I motioned for Henri to sit on his driver’s-room sofa, which he did eagerly. I pressed a finger to his lips. Then I replaced it with my mouth with a single kiss before turning my attention elsewhere.
“Oh, mon c?ur—” he started as I began kissing down his body.
I took my time, savoring every hitch in his breathing, every muttered curse in French.
His hand knotted in my hair, gripping tight and trembling, caught between wanting me to stop and never wanting me to stop.
After everything in the world that had tried to control me, there was a fierce, electric joy in knowing I could take him apart with just my hands and my mouth, knowing exactly what he needed.
I hollowed my cheeks and took him deep. Henri’s gasp rolled through me like thunder. He was clinging to control, to some last scrap of composure, but I wanted him to lose it so I picked up my taunting. Getting him close, then backing off right before he came.
“Keep fucking teasing me, mon amour—”
But he couldn’t finish that sentiment. His breathing grew more ragged with each pass of my tongue, his grip on my hair tightening almost painfully. I could feel him unraveling beneath me, all that careful control Henri maintained in every other aspect of his life now dissolving under my touch.
“Lily,” he gasped, the word half-strangled. “Please…”
God, I loved it when he begged in that thick, French accent.
“Please what?” I asked, my voice husky even to my own ears.
Instead of answering, Henri pulled me up his body and onto his lap with surprising strength. His arms locked around me, hands pressing hard into my back.
“No more teasing,” he growled against my neck.
Henri reached into his wallet, rolled on a condom, and pulled me back on top of him, watching my face, as gentle as always, but I didn’t want gentle.
I planted my knees on either side of his hips, the sofa cushions dipping beneath us, and sank down slowly.
The stretch stole my breath, but I wanted it—the ache, the fullness, the way he filled every empty space in me.
I braced one hand on the armrest behind his head and found my rhythm, rolling my hips until his head fell back against the cushion and his mouth dropped open.
His hands gripped my thighs and slid up to my waist, pulling me down harder.
I dug my nails into his shoulders, and he groaned, louder this time, sitting up just enough to press his mouth to my neck, teeth grazing.
Heat coiled low in my belly, building and building, until I was grinding against him, desperate, whimpering, right on the edge.
“Fuck, Lily, fuck,” he moaned over and over.
I picked up the pace, chasing my high. His hips bucked up to meet mine, and I let go.
I shattered fast and blinding, biting down on his shoulder to keep from screaming, too aware of the thin walls and the paddock just outside.
He followed seconds later, hands bruising my hips, shuddering beneath me, cursing, whispering my name like it was the only word he had left.
We stayed like that for a long time. Tangled together on the narrow sofa, skin cooling, hearts settling back into their normal rhythms. His fingers traced lazy circles on my hip. My cheek pressed against his collarbone, right over that old scar.
“We need to go,” I murmured into his skin.
“Five more minutes.”
I closed my eyes. Five more minutes in this locked room where nothing existed but us. No teams, no contracts, no cameras.
I enjoyed every second of it.