Chapter 23 #2
I blinked. That had never crossed my mind. The words had come so casually from his mouth, the moment just us, rocking in his lap. They were meaningful.
He’d said it as if I must have already known.
Deep down, I had. It wasn’t a lie.
“I believe him.”
“And did you say it back?”
“No. But that’s not because I don’t.”
Her brows skyrocketed. “Okay then. So what’s stopping you?”
“I’m scared,” I admitted and picked at my nails. “Ever, if I love him, it’s going to hurt when it ends.”
“Because of Imre?”
“Because—because I don’t want to ruin his relationship with his mum, and now we’re going to be a celebrity scandal.”
Ever rummaged through her bag on the side and pulled out a magazine, flicking through to a tabbed page.
“There,” she said and pointed to one of the small pictures on a page dedicated to StormSprint racers.
On the first page of the double-spread were pictures of Zolt, Henrik, and Matteo under the headline ‘The Hottest in Leather.’ On the page Everly pointed to, there were pictures of them and women, noting how the three men were single but had positive relationships with women, including some exes.
And there I was.
Nora had implied it was important, but we weren’t even a tenth of the page. The caption iced my blood. “Zoltán and his new step-sister, Sophia Bacque, clubbing to celebrate his recent win. In amongst his medical comeback, it’s so sweet he has family around him in his team.”
Sweet? Oh, Zolt was not going to be happy about that.
But he’d been too ill to race last week. A viral infection that had made his body boil and his head spin.
Another article had been printed to Livie’s eye roll.
That one had made me angry; this one made me sick.
I honed in on ‘step-sister’ until my eyes watered.
“Livie gave this to me yesterday,” she said, and rolled it up again. I stayed in my position as if still staring at it. ‘Step-sister’ was ingrained in my brain. I’d see that sans-serif typeface as a filter over every visual; I’d see it in the red of my eyelids when I tried to sleep.
I wasn’t going to be able to escape it.
“I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to worry you. Because the tabloids don’t matter.”
“They do,” I wheezed. “They do. Oh my god. We’re not going to be able to… we can’t—”
“Fia, there will be backlash,” she said because she was always honest with me. “But if you love him… If you see this as something long- term… then those few months of backlash will be worth it. I just fucking hate him for putting you in this position.”
That was fair.
“What a dickwad.”
Deserved.
But he was my dickwad.
“Anyway,” she sighed. “Why do you care about Imre’s opinion? It’s not like he’s been a father figure. And I’m sure Zoltán’s mum is nice and all, but that’s his problem, not yours.” She stopped. “Or is it him that doesn’t want everyone to know?”
“No, he wanted to go down to breakfast the morning after the wedding and tell them we were together.”
“The morning after…?” Her mouth dropped open. “Right. Right. So you slept with him that night.”
I winced a smile.
“Bloody hell, girl, you’ve got it bad.”
“But we can’t—”
“Bitch, you can. Do whatever you want. Fuck everyone else. In fact, maybe don’t. Zolt doesn’t strike me as one likely to share. He’ll go into big brother mode.”
I may have gagged.
She meant it as a joke, but suddenly there were tears again. As soon as I cried once, they would free-flow for the rest of the day.
“Come here, you silly goose,” she said and hugged me again. Six inches taller than her, I lowered my head onto her shoulder.
“Dad hated me when I got with Luca,” she laughed. “He tried to break us up at least once. Now, they’re best friends. They’re spending a lot of time together at the moment. And sometimes they dare not invite me.”
I laughed through my tears, holding her back. Dad had never hated her. He didn’t have it in him.
“But give it a while and people soon realise what is most important to them. And you, Fia, are most important. Zoltán is lucky you care about him.”
I squeezed her and sniffed again. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Do what?” she asked, holding me at arm’s length.
“Be out in public with him right now,” I admitted. “I don’t know if I can deal with the emotional backlash.”
She was silent for a second, looking me over. “You don’t have to make any decisions right now.”
“But we keep missing opportunities to be honest,” I told her, rubbing at my eyes. “We should have come out the day after the wedding. We should have done it before this article.”
Ever shrugged, letting go of me. “You don’t have to do anything. Know for sure if the two of you are in it for the long haul.”
I was. How could I not be?
“Look, sit down. No, don’t pack away anything. I’m doing that. You sit there and gather yourself. If Zolt gets to the podium, I’ll come and get you. If not, I’ll send him here.”
“I don’t—I don’t want to see anyone but him.”
“Here,” she said and gestured behind me. “Go to my hidey hole. When the girls stress me out, I pretend I have really important admin and stay back here.”
She walked me through some of the screens to a small office set-up where she sat me down. “No one will come back here. The race started five minutes ago. Give it twenty minutes, and I’ll ask him to come here.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to give her a smile. “Could I—could I have the magazine?”
She hesitated. “Promise not to get in your head about it?”
I shrugged.
“Best we were going to get,” she said and handed it to me. “Beat Zoltán with it for me.”
I nodded, and when she left, I practised the breathing techniques Livie had taught me. I probably had twenty minutes of silence before the press came back, ready to interview the winning teams after the race.
Maybe we could run away. But we’d worked so hard to get where we were and… I couldn’t lose my placement. He couldn’t lose this championship. This was his fresh start.
We should talk to his publicist.
I started drafting an email to him that I wouldn’t send without Zolt’s approval, but every word made us either sound like we were nearly married or just a lust-filled phase.
My eyes ping-ponged from the email to the magazine. Livie had always told me there were three ways to handle the media — deny, deflect, or own it.
But there wasn’t anything to deny, deflect, or own just yet. I might want to beat them to it.
I flipped through the magazine, but the tab in Livie’s handwriting that said ‘Fia!!!’ for Everly made my skin crawl.
And I kept flicking through to stare at his hand on my hip.
Really, it was surprising it hadn’t received more attention. It did look innocent enough.
It was only when I threw it onto Everly’s desk that I looked at my notifications.
NADIA: Hope you’re okay! Told Nora she’s a bitch. She wasn’t surprised. Here, if you ever need to talk xx
Thank god.
I was typing my reply when I heard fast footsteps.
“Fia?”
Zolt.
“I’m in here.”
He was breathless when he rounded the corner in his leathers. He blinked as he saw me and dropped to his knees, wiping at where my tears had been.
“What’s happened? Why have you been crying?”
Great. So my mascara had run.
“Look at the tabbed page.”
He frowned and looked around, but I didn’t have the energy to explain it any more than that.
When he found the magazine, he turned to the image that would haunt my nightmares. “You look cute.”
I shook my head with a breath of laughter through my nose. “The caption calls me your step-sister.”
He sat back on his heels. “Ah.”
“Yes.”
His finger brushed the word before he chucked the magazine aside. “You don’t like that.”
“Puts a dampener on how happy I’ve been,” I sighed. “If we were to come out as… well, everyone would know. Doesn’t help that Nora came shouting her mouth off, telling everyone I’m Imre’s daughter.”
He nodded. “I’ll talk to her.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
He rubbed circles over my thighs, warming me up. “What can I do?”
“Nothing,” I sighed. “I just need to get out of my head. Or in it. I think this has put me back a bit. I keep seeing the word and—and…”
He leaned forward to kiss my cheek. “And?” he asked softly.
“And I feel sick.”
“You know what you are to me, don’t you?” he asked and stood, pulling my chair a few inches forward. The drag of the metal against concrete didn’t sound loud as the press started to come into the tent outside of Ever’s little office.
Their voices were crystal clear.
“Right now, no,” I sighed.
His finger angled me to look up at him. “Do you need reminding?”
Before I could think, he spun my chair to face away from him and leaned down to kiss me, his hands travelling over my top down to the buttons of my trousers.
My breath caught in his, and he kissed me harder, unzipping me, then his fingers slipped under the lace. He halted just before my clit, and I wriggled, trying to kiss his motionless lips. “Tell me what we are, Fia.”
But I didn’t know.
We hadn’t spoken about it. There was no actual label upon us other than family.
“Tell me,” he begged, his voice raw, lips brushing mine.
“You’re my—my boyfriend.”
He nodded, his nose brushing mine, and he put the slightest pressure against where I wanted, rolling the lightest of circles. “Tell me more.”
“I’m your girlfriend,” I admitted, and it felt like an expulsion of relief from my chest as he picked up the pace.
“More.”
“If you give me more.”
He chuckled against my throat. “Always, Zsófia.”
With expert speed, his thumb replaced his fingers, and they edged my entrance.
I closed my eyes, trying to grind down on him.
“Nuh-uh,” he whispered and tsked. “Speak.”
“I’m yours,” I told him, as he started to pulse his fingers inside of me, planting kisses down my neck. “You’re mine.”
“True.”
“You love me.”
“Exactly.”
His thrusts picked up, and thank god the wet noises were swallowed up by the press chatting away in the tent. They felt a million miles away, even if they were mere metres.
He kissed my temple like he was soothing me, like he wasn’t inside of me, but his hand remained relentless. He knew exactly how to circle, how to tease.
“Zolt—” My voice came out like a plea.
“Quiet,” he demanded, lips grazing my ear. “Don’t give them a show. Just me. Only me. You’re mine.”
I’d said it, but hearing his rough voice claim me made my breath stutter.
“That’s what you are,” he said, somehow picking up more speed as he squeezed my breast. “They can call you anything they want. You know what we are. We know. And that’s all that matters.”
They could very quickly know if they walked past the tent walls. If they stopped their chatter and listened.
The danger made it worse— better. I swallowed down every gasp, I bit down on my lip until I could taste blood, knowing every grind of my hips into his palm, every thrust of his fingers could lead to us getting caught.
“They’d never believe how you fall apart,” he whispered, breath ragged. “But I know. I’m the only one who ever will.”
I looped my arms around his neck behind me, holding him, panicked that he might leave me high and dry. If someone else walked in, he might stop.
It made no sense. The last thing I wanted was for people to know.
But I couldn’t stop.
Not until my thighs trembled against the chair and my orgasm hit me — violently, silently. He pressed his hand firmly against my mouth as the hot waves of his touch obliterated my senses, leaving me with the edge of my vision darkening. “Sh,” he soothed into my ear. “Stay quiet for me.”
I nodded against his palm, tears in my eyes.
He pulled out of me slowly before pressing his fingers to my lips. “Taste what a mess your step-brother makes of you.”
It was wrong, but his eyes on mine, the cocky smile, the way he absolutely had me, made me suck on his fingers harder.
His lips parted, and his breath caught before I let him go.
“Boyfriend.”
He nodded. “Both can be true.”
He licked his thumbs and brushed at my mascara stains under my eye with a smile.
“Wait,” I said, my mind only fully conscious now. “You got here before the press.”
He nodded, still wiping at a particularly stubborn stain.
“But they get here just after the race ends, so you… Did you crash again?”
He nodded in that infuriatingly calm and nonchalant way.
“What?” I cried and stood, pushing him off me. “You—”
“You need to be quiet,” he said again, holding me close. “Or we’ll have more than just a photo in that magazine.”
“You crashed!” I hissed.
“Yes, but it was only because Davidson knocked Luca and me off on a corner. We’re all fine. I got checked out before your sister sent me here.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank fuck.”
He kissed my forehead and buttoned my trousers back up. “You were going to be my first stop anyway, but when Everly said you needed me, I got here faster.”
“You’re cute,” I told him before standing and kissing him.
“Cute, huh?” He rolled his eyes. “Give me twenty minutes in my trailer, and I’ll prove how not cute I am.”
I laughed, kissed his cheek, and rolled up the magazine.
“From now on, we have to be even more careful. So go to your trailer, and I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”
He saluted me and, with yet another kiss, he did as he was told.