Chapter 20
GRAINING: UNEVEN RUBBER BUILDUP REDUCING GRIP
After a race, the echoes of every failure follow me for days. Hours after the race has ended, all I can usually think about are engine issues, missed opportunities, and mistakes I want to correct.
Tonight’s different.
I’m in the back of a car the team arranged, but for once my head isn’t tearing itself apart.
Second place. It wasn’t luck. Nor was it someone else’s failure. It was because of her. Us.
“This is the best both drivers have placed in a while,” Dario remarks. He nods in Hogan’s direction, who is wearing an enormous grin. “Hogan’s twentieth is the best he’s ever done. Leo placed higher than he did all last year.”
“The system isn’t fully fixed.” Christin’s no-nonsense tone silences half the garage during our debriefing.
“But it’s better,” Dario counters.
“Yes. Both drivers did well.” There’s no hesitation when she remarks, “The steering response is starting to interpret Leo’s needs.”
“Not fully,” I pipe in.
“No, but enough that you can push without guessing incorrectly.”
“Enough that I can trust it.”
I check the time on my phone—10:12 p.m. Wrapping up interviews took longer than I expected. I know the hotel has had what I planned ready for an hour. For just a moment, I wonder if it’s too late to knock on her door. Too late to pretend this is about anything other than wanting to be with her.
I should leave it alone.
I can’t.
“Thank you. Your services are no longer required this evening,” I tell the driver.
He nods before pulling around to the entrance the hotel designates for celebrities to avoid the press and fans.
Once I make it into the lobby, I’m indifferent to the polished marble and soft lighting designed to make everything feel effortless.
I head straight for the bank of lifts even while my pulse threatens to burst out from beneath my skin.
I can’t talk myself out of it. I need to see Christin.
Tonight.
By the time I’m outside her door, I know I’m taking a risk far greater than any I took on the track today. I don’t care.
I knock anyway.
She opens the door barefoot in a tank and sleep shorts. Her hair tumbles over her shoulders. I know I’m one of the few who have seen her when she’s stripped of her armor. It’s something I took for granted, even though I never intended to.
Her eyes roam over me as she drawls, “Did you get lost on your way to the party where people are waiting to congratulate you?”
Relief hits when sarcasm is her first volley. I can work with that. Leaning against the doorframe, I inform her, “No, I came to see the only person I want to celebrate with.”
She wraps her arms around herself. “In Bahrain? This late?”
“I had the hotel arrange something.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s time for me to tell you everything I’ve been holding back.”
She pauses before murmuring, “What you were alluding to in the car.”
I implore her, “Yes. Please, Chris.”
“And if I say no?”
“I’ll head back to my room and try again another day.”
My heart thuds in defeat. Then she mutters, “I need twenty minutes. I can’t go anywhere looking like this.”
Then she steps back to let me inside her room with an order. “Wait here.”
I begin the countdown, focusing all my energy on the responsibility I’m dreading.
Tell Christin the truth.
The restaurant is tucked into the far side of the hotel—quiet, private. It is the kind of establishment where conversations don’t leave, and nothing slips past the lips of the staff by accident.
Christin notices the ambiance immediately. “Beautiful,” she says as I hold her chair out for her to sit.
“I was aiming for contained.”
“Of course you were.”
The staff appears silently. We order, and then they disappear into the shadows.
“You drove well,” she says first.
“Better than I have.”
“Yes.”
I huff a breath. “You say that like it impresses you.”
“Would you prefer I bemoan the fact that you only came in second when last season your highest finish was fifth?”
There’s a teasing lilt to her voice that both surprises me and stirs my blood. I can’t help but adore her. “Not at all.”
“Good.”
I lift a flute of mango juice up and tilt it in her direction. “I meant to say this before, but thank you.”
“For what?”
“For correcting something I couldn’t explain felt wrong.”
She reminds me, “I didn’t do it for you, initially.”
Judging by the smile in her voice, I know that’s changed. “Now?”
“I realized this isn’t just a sport for you. It’s part of your identity.”
I exhale slowly before asking, “How much do you remember me talking about my family?”
“Just the barebones. Your parents are alive. You have an older brother. You don’t speak with any of them.” She smiles ruefully before admitting, “Neither of us really talked in depth about family, did we?”
“No, we didn’t. To be honest, I deliberately steered the conversation away from a lot of family talk.”
Christin surmises, “And there’s a reason for that?”
“There is, and it had absolutely nothing to do with my feelings for you.” I didn’t plan on telling her before we had a chance to eat, but I doubt I’ll get a better opening. I blurt out, “My father is the Earl of Hawthorne.”
“That’s nice?” She doesn’t know what to say.
I know the feeling all too well. For a moment, I’m back there, recalling the way my parents blatantly ignored me.
The endless cycle of nannies. How my older brother had the opportunity and means to defend me, but didn’t.
While it explains the root of my problems, it doesn’t take away her hurt.
I shove a hand through my hair, gaze dropping for a second before coming back to meet hers.
“I didn’t…” I pause again, searching. “I didn’t realize what I was saying. ”
“Well, just for future reference, a good start might be not telling someone else the woman you claim to love would disappear in your world. Even if you don’t know they’re within earshot.”
I wince. “That wasn’t about you as much as it was my fear.”
Her face turns thoughtful before she asks, “So you decided to make certain I walked first?”
“I don’t think it was as conscious as that.”
“Then what was it?”
“It was fear.”
“Fear? You drive a race car at over two hundred miles per hour. I wouldn’t expect the word fear to be in your vocabulary.”
“It is. It’s the fear of being rejected.” My voice is laden with weight.
“What were you afraid of, Leo?”
“Are, not were.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“You coming to the same conclusion I was brought up believing.”
“Which is?”
“That I’m not good enough to be in your presence.”
Shock flares in her eyes when I don’t duck the question. I continue, giving her additional background while she considers what she’s already heard. “The family estate—Hawthorne Manor—sits on just under twelve thousand acres,” I continue. “Ashbourne Vale. Old stone. Older expectations.”
“Such as?”
“Being constantly measured up against those who walked there before you.”
“In other words, people who romanticize the past for their own purpose.”
“That’s part of the problem. The Hawthorne earldom has always been something I was measured up against.”
“In what way?”
“The title dates back to the 1700s. Military lineage. Land. Generations of men who understood exactly who they were supposed to be before they were old enough to question it.”
“What did that mean for you?”
“I wasn’t the one it was built for.” The words sit heavier now. “My brother is the heir. Viscount Raleigh from birth. Raised to inherit everything—the estate, the responsibility, the identity.”
“And you…?” Her glass lifts to her lips while she lets the question hang in the air.
“I was the spare.” I pause before admitting, “I haven’t spoken to any of them in ten years.”
Christin’s gaze sharpens. “Why?”
“Because I stopped being useful to them. There was no longer a need to remain their verbal punching bag when they had my brother, Albert, and then his son.” I swallow past the lump in my throat at my next words. “I don’t think I ever told you how I ended up in racing.”
Christin doesn’t interrupt. She simply waits. Something inside me eases. It’s remarkable how safe you can feel with the right person. “My parents didn’t care about me.”
The words sound absurdly clinical for something that shaped my entire childhood.
Her brows knit together. “What does that mean?”
“It means I was delegated.”
She blinks as if the concept is foreign to her. “Delegated?”
“To nannies.” I let out a humorless laugh. “There was always someone responsible for me. If one left, another arrived before I’d had the chance to notice the first had departed.”
She says nothing, though I’m certain there’s a quiet fury building behind her eyes. “Leo...”
“They weren’t obviously cruel.”
“And emotionally?”
I pause for a moment before admitting, “Feelings were reserved for my brother and his family.”
Christin lets out a quiet expletive. I force my lips to curve. “There was no love, but I didn’t want for anything materially. Every nanny was given a black card with instructions to ‘Take him wherever he likes. Buy whatever he needs. Keep him entertained.’”
The dismissals still sting, no matter how many years have passed. Still, I’m astounded by the fury emanating from Christin. I hastily add, “I had every toy imaginable. Every holiday. Every opportunity.”
“You just didn’t have much in the way of parents.” She reaches for my face, her thumb brushing my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head. “I thought I was past it.”
“It would be hard to get past something like that.”
Warmth settles deep inside me. “I had a favorite nanny—Felicity. She was the best of them.”
Christin leans forward. “Why?”
“She’d been with me for nearly three years, which was a lifetime at the age of ten.
She never treated me as though I were an obligation.
She talked to me. Kicked around a football in the garden.
Helped me with schoolwork.” I chuckle. “She also never avoided telling me when I was behaving like an entitled little git.”
“I imagine you deserved it.”
“I didn’t know eyes could roll that much and not fall out of someone’s head.”
Christin laughs softly.
“Felicity was engaged to a Formula One mechanic named Ian. One Saturday, he had an extra ticket to a karting team event. It was Felicity’s day off, but she brought me along.”
“And your parents said yes?”
“They barely looked up from breakfast. They simply told her to use the card if I wanted anything.”
I close my eyes. “I’ll never forget what it felt like; smelled like.”
“Tell me.”
“The petrol. The burning rubber of the tyres. The warm engines. I’d never experienced anything like it.” I let out a huff. “Everyone thinks it’s the speed that lures you. For me, it wasn’t that.”
“What was it?”
“I finally felt alive.” The words pass my lips unbidden.
“Every child deserves that,” Christin murmurs
“I was obsessed before lunchtime. I begged Felicity to let me come back.”
“And she did?”
“Every chance she could.”
I can still picture standing against the fence, not caring about food because I wanted to be with the kids in the karts. Learning from older drivers. “Her fiancé, Ian, started explaining things to me. He never spoke to me like I was a burden.”
“Because you weren’t,” she murmurs.
“And before long, I was in a kart.”
Christin smiles knowingly. “You found out you were good, I presume?”
I huff a laugh. “Not hardly. I crashed into a tyre barrier on my second lap. Then I whined because they wouldn’t let me back on the track immediately.”
She laughs, and the sound causes goose bumps to rise up along my skin. It’s been too long since I heard the beauty of her laugh. “That sounds more like the Leo I know.”
Because I don’t want the moment to pass, I wait until her laughter subsides before adding quietly, “For the first time in my life, I’d found something that wasn’t reliant upon my family. And every moment after that, I earned.”
I recall the karting championships, junior series, podiums—all of which Felicity and Ian were there for. None of which my family attended. Then…” My voice trails off.
“What is it?”
“By the time I’d achieved significance in Formula Two, the local papers had begun taking an interest. I’d had a decent season, and one of them ran a feature about me.”
“What happened?”
“My father read it. I clearly remember how my life imploded. I came home for Sunday lunch. I can still see it. The polished oak table in the dining room. My brother, Albert, seated at Father’s right side.
His wife beside him. Their little boy laughing over something.
I thought...I honestly thought he might finally be proud of me. ”
Christin’s hand slips over mine and squeezes.
I meet her eyes. “He waited until dessert. Congratulated me on the article. And then he said, ‘If you insist on wasting your life chasing motorsports, you’ll do so without another penny from this family.’ Told me I’d embarrassed the Hawthorne name long enough. ”
“What did you do?”
“I stood up, wished everyone a pleasant afternoon. Then I walked out.”
“You never went back?”
I shake my head. “And they’ve never initiated contact.”
“How old were you?”
“Eighteen with just enough prize money to rent a tiny flat and enough savings to continue training. Then, fate brought me to Dario.”
I pause to let my words settle before I go on. “Maybe if I’d told you about this sooner, maybe I wouldn’t have carried those scars forward into our relationship.”
She carefully pulls her hand back. Hesitantly, she asks, “You really didn’t mean what you said to Dario?”
“No.”
“It was awful to hear.”
“I know.”
I shift my weight, edging a fraction closer. “You’re right. The way I spoke about you is something I’m going to regret for the rest of my life.”
“How can I believe that?” Christin whispers achingly.
“You can’t. Not right now. It’s my duty to show you.” I stare straight into her eyes and declare, “Going forward, expect me to spend every day making amends.”
“Even knowing I won’t commit to anything between us?” Her voice reflects the pain I’ve now both felt and dispersed. “I can’t make any promises, Leo.”
“Even then. Especially then.”
I’m uncertain about her response until she murmurs, “I wasn’t exactly forthcoming myself.”