Chapter 25
COMPROMISED EXIT: RUINING ANOTHER DRIVER’S ACCELERATION OUT OF CORNER
Location: Monaco
Monaco feels like a test. Not the kind measured in lap times or sector splits—both of which I conquered on the course today.
I cross the line in second again, but this time it doesn’t feel like something I’m chasing. It feels like something we’ve been building toward as a team. The car responds. I adjust. But when I climb out, when the noise hits and the cameras start flashing, I don’t look at the podium.
I look for Christin.
After all, she’s the real thing I’ve been fighting for.
I spot her standing just beyond the engineers, composed as ever, but there’s something different in the way she holds herself—less distance, more presence. Her eyes meet mine, and she doesn’t look away.
That’s enough for now.
I move through the PR version of myself—media, sponsors, the expectations I’m still learning how to carry without letting them define me—but I don’t linger.
Not tonight.
Because I already know where I want to be and who I want to be with.
I catch up to Christin just as she’s stepping from the garage into the paddock. “You’re leaving?”
She glances over her shoulder before offering me a smile. “I’m selectively positioning for an efficient escape.”
“Convenient.”
“I thought so.”
I step closer. “Come out with me tonight.”
She studies me, head tilting coquettishly. “Presumptuous to assume I’m available.”
“I’m being optimistic.”
Her face softens. “That’s not the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” In fact, it’s better because the expression on her face tells me she’s more than considering it. I want to leap into the air and fist pump the night sky.
“This is Monaco. Define ‘out.’”
“I have somewhere in mind.”
“Of course you do.”
I hold her gaze. “Give me an hour.”
Her brow lifts. “An hour.”
“To clean up. For us both to get changed.”
“Into?”
“Something that would be appropriate if we went to dinner?” I answer vaguely, so I don’t have to disclose what I have planned.
A smile touches her lips before she acquiesces. “Fine. I’ll see you in an hour.”
There’s nothing worse than waiting on the woman whose heart you held in your hands before you dropped it.
Checking my watch for the fourth time in the last ten minutes, I think there must be something wrong with it because it feels like I’ve been waiting an eternity. Then, when I see her, every movement, every sound, fades into the distance.
She steps out of the lift in a sleek black dress that draws more attention than anything more elaborate ever could. Her hair falls over one shoulder in a sleek cascade. Her presence quiet but undeniable.
Something in my chest seizes as we move in each other’s direction. “You look…” I start, then stop, because the usual words don’t fit.
Her hand smooths over her hip hesitantly even as she waits for me to get my shit together and speak.
“You look exquisite. Perfect,” I manage.
Surprise flickers in her expression. “That’s a very generous compliment.”
“It’s an honest one.” I try to wait for my thundering heart to get under control before I realize that’s not going to happen in her presence. “Truly, Chris. You look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she says softly.
I hold out my arm and ask, “Are you ready?”
“To go where?”
I guide her back to the lift bank for the secured floors. “Somewhere we won’t be disturbed.”
The terrace is exactly what I wanted—private, removed, overlooking the harbor without being part of the spectacle below. Lights reflect off the water, the ripples breaking up the glow of the moon shining down. We’re high enough that the noise of Monaco is muted.
It’s a night made just for us.
Christin steps out beside me, taking it in. “You planned this,” she accuses with a smile in her voice.
I don’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
“Specifically for me?”
“For us,” I correct.
She spins around in a circle. “This is beautiful.”
“I hoped you’d like it.”
“I’m stunned.”
“Does this count as woo?”
The smile she aims at me was worth the hassle of making these arrangements on the sly. “Major woo points.”
Reaching for her elbow, I guide her to the table.
Standing back, I pull out her chair and have to hold back from running my fingers across her bare shoulders.
From leaning down and brushing my lips against them.
Instead, I back away even as my soul aches.
Taking my seat next to her, I hand her the customized menu.
Christin lets out a sound of satisfaction that causes my dick to stand at attention. “Yum. French food.”
I focus on carefully draping my napkin across my lap, then quickly whip it away when all it does is highlight the tenting in my pants. Fortunately, Christin is still reading the dinner menu. Then she lays it down on the charger plate before taking in the candles illuminating the table.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. Then her lips part. I’m terrified she’s going to make me explain my raging hard-on. Instead, her words surprise me. “Tell me something about you that I don’t already know.”
I lean back slightly and think about it. “I hate mornings.”
She gapes. “Really?”
“Really.” I look out over the water. “Because growing up, mornings felt like expectations. People waiting to see if you measure up.”
Her gaze sharpens. “And nights?”
“Less structured,” I say. “More honest.”
The words hang between us. Then I prompt her, “Your turn.”
“I don’t like not being able to fix something once it’s in my life,” she says.
“I can see that.”
“It’s like an obsession. If I understand it, I want to be able to correct it.”
“Control issues?”
She shakes her head slowly. “I learned the hard way that some things just can’t be fixed.”
“Like?”
“Illness. Pain. Loss.”
Something in my chest tightens. “Your mother?”
Her eyes flick to mine. For the first time since I started my campaign to win her back, they’re not guarded. “Yes.”
The word is softer than anything I’ve heard from her. I don’t speak, letting her find comfort in the quiet.
“After she got sick, I think both my dad and I held out hope it could be solved. Like if we found the right doctor, the right treatment, the right…something,” she exhales, looking out toward the water. “But there wasn’t any way to fix it.”
Silence settles between us as she gathers her thoughts. She opens her mouth to start, but hesitates a moment before she manages, “My dad was still racing then. At the top of his career. Everyone thought he’d skip the rest of the season and then try for another championship.”
I know the story about Lewis Porter—everyone in F1 does. The kind of legend he is, he could probably come back to the circuit tomorrow and whoop all our asses. But I don’t say it. I let her words fill the night air.
“Dad? He didn’t even hesitate. To him, there was no question. He walked away because Mom needed him. Because I needed him.” Her voice breaks slightly on the last word, and she looks down, like she didn’t expect that to happen.
“After she died, he refused to go back. He stayed. He raised me. Tried to be…everything.” Her voice is raw when she continues. “Her death wrecked him. We’re close but he lost something he never got back.”
I don’t interrupt. Because her trust in sharing all the details with me matters more than anything I could say.
“I understood it. I saw it. And I couldn’t do anything about it.” Her eyes lift back to mine. “That’s where it comes from.”
“I can’t even imagine how much something like that impacted you, Chris.”
She reaches up and swipes beneath her eyes. “I don’t—” She exhales, shaking her head once. “I don’t usually talk about this.”
“You’ve never gone into that level of detail with me before,” I say quietly.
“No, I never did.” She collects herself. “But I need you to understand why I am now.”
I straighten slightly, every instinct in me goes still. I don’t try to fill the silence while she gathers her words. “When my mom got sick, everything changed. But my dad chose us completely, Leo. Without question.”
“And my actions showed you something different.”
“You defaulted to protecting yourself instead of choosing me. Us.”
I nod once, slow. “You’re right.”
No defense. No explanation. Just the truth.
Her shoulders drop a fraction, like she expected resistance and didn’t get it. “I don’t need perfection from the person I’m with, Leo. Nor am I expecting you to emulate my father’s decisions. But all day I was thinking about what I need.”
“And that is?”
“Respect.”
“You have it,” I counter immediately.
“I know you think that.” She studies me for a second longer. “But I need more than woo tossed my way. I need to know that when things get difficult, you won’t disappear into the version of yourself you used to keep safe. Not at the expense of my heart.”
I swallow, my throat tight. “That is exactly what I did, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I understand,” I say, because she’s not asking for something impossible. She’s asking for something I’ve never given a relationship before: choosing someone when it might cost me something.
“I won’t make that mistake again.” The words come out steady, even if everything inside me feels anything but.
She searches my face for a long moment, like she’s running her own kind of assessment for the truth. “Good, because I won’t stay if it does.”
There’s no threat in her words; just certainty. I nod. “Understood.”
Silence settles between us again, but it’s different now. It’s filled with truths and honesty—a conversation we should have had long ago if I wasn’t so fearful of letting her in.
This is what she needs, and if I want any chance of being in her life, this is where I start. I reach for her. Slowly. Carefully. My hand brushes hers first, giving her time to pull away.
She doesn’t.
Her fingers curl slightly, not quite holding on, but not letting go either.
I open my mouth to speak when the first course I ordered in advance is delivered—Barbagiuan, the national dish of Monaco, a fried pastry filled with Swiss chard and ricotta.
After our waiter disappears, our conversation doesn’t go to that depth again.
Instead, it softens. We talk about smaller things, quieter things.
Not avoiding what we talked about, but not dissecting it either.
By the time we stand, the space that once felt so vast between us has shrunk. It also charges the air in a way I haven’t felt since the last morning in Saratoga Springs when I woke Christin by kissing her.
At first, she only sighed in her sleep, pressing closer like her body recognized mine before she fully woke. It nearly ruined me. I remember brushing another kiss against the corner of her mouth, slow enough that her lashes finally fluttered open.
“Leo,” she murmured, voice rough with sleep and affection.
I’d smiled against her skin, helpless to stop it. “Morning, Chris.”
Instead of answering, she’d tilted her face and kissed me properly—the last time she did. God, standing beside her now, I realize that memory hurts because for the first time in my life, I understand exactly what it was worth.
Yet, I let fear take it from me.
I want to create new memories with her. I step closer. Slow enough that she can stop me.
She doesn’t.
My hand lifts, brushing lightly against her arm, grounding, asking.
She leans in and angles her head up.
I close the final distance and kiss her. It’s not a sweet reunion of lips brushing together. No, it’s everything I’ve been holding in—regret, restraint, and the need to prove I can do us differently.
When her soft lips respond, that’s the moment everything changes.
My head spins faster than any corner or straightaway because this matters more.
We stay locked in an embrace, time slipping away around us. When I soften the kiss to bring us back to our surroundings, my pulse is thumping.
She studies me, something softer lingering that wasn’t there before. “Walk me back to my elevator bank?”
I reach for her hand and lift it to my mouth. “Absolutely.”
It’s the first of many promises I intend to keep.