Chapter 32
GRIP: OVERALL TRACTION AVAILABLE
Locations: Silverstone
Silverstone has always been a track where I excel. Fast and technical, it’s unforgiving in ways that make irrational sense to me. For most drivers, it’s the kind of place where precision matters more than instinct.
I’d love this course if it weren’t so close to Ashbourne Vale.
By the time I get to the garage, the paddock is already alive. Christin is barking at people. Engineers scurry the minute she does. Media crews hover just outside the boundaries they’re allowed to cross.
Everything is building toward lights out. Normally, I get into the rhythm pretty fast. Today, I feel like I’m standing on the edge of it. I approach Dario and am about to greet him when he mutters, without looking up from his tablet, “About time.”
“I’m early.”
He freezes before glancing at the clock counting down the time to the start of the race. “Holy crap. You are.”
I snag a bottle of water, twisting the cap off. I try to ignore the way my shoulders feel tighter than they should. That’s when he really looks at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” is my automatic response.
“You’re quiet.”
“That’s because I’m thinking.”
Then he sets the tablet down. “Walk with me.”
We move out of the garage, away from the noise, into a stretch of the paddock just removed enough for us to talk without being overheard.
Dario leans back against the wall, arms crossing. “What’s really wrong?”
I exhale slowly, pushing a hand through my hair. “Being back here.”
“Silverstone?”
“Close enough.”
That’s all I need to say. He gets it. Of course he does. After all, this track is where I first met him. “Did you—” he starts to ask, then stops himself. “No. You wouldn’t have reached out to them.”
“No,” I say. “I haven’t and I won’t.”
He nods once in understanding.
I stare past him, jaw tightening slightly. “I could drive there—to Ashbourne Vale. Twenty minutes. Bet the roads haven’t changed unless they added a new roundabout.”
“But?”
“What’s the point? Nothing’s changed. What would I even expect if I saw them?”
I don’t need Dario to reply. I already know the answer from my memories.
At fourteen, I’m standing in a room that feels too large for how small I feel in it.
My father doesn’t raise his voice. He never does. That would assume he feels something other than disappointment. Instead, he looks at me like I’ve already failed.
“Second again? Your scores dropped,” he says, glancing down at the paper in his hand like it’s something mildly inconvenient.
“I—” I want to tell him it was by a fraction of a point, but I don’t get the chance.
He cuts in. “You were top of the Year Nines. Now you’re not. What is there to explain about that?”
I swallow, hands curling at my sides. “I thought—”
“There’s your problem.” The words are flat. “Thinking instead of performing.”
My mother doesn’t look at me. Instead, her voice adds to his, “You’ll never amount to anything if you can’t show superiority.”
“Second is forgettable,” my father remarks.
“Father—”
“We’re done here.”
I blink away the memory and return to the present. “I stayed away for a reason, and that reason still exists.”
Dario watches me with a somber expression. “I know.”
“Even though they tossed me out, I’m no longer the man who accepts that nothing I do is enough.”
“You’re right.” He pauses, then reminds me, “There are a lot of people who believe in you, Leo.”
Immediately, Christin’s face flashes into my mind. “And I’m grateful for that. Truly.”
“Then why are you letting them taint a world they don’t belong in?”
“I still feel like I have something to prove,” I admit.
Dario doesn’t hesitate. “You don’t.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Most of the time.”
He pushes off the wall slightly, shifting his weight. “That’s not something that disappears because you got out,” he says. “It follows you until you decide it doesn’t matter.”
I let out a quiet breath. “I’m working on that.”
“I know you are. Besides, you’ve got something now you didn’t have then,” Dario adds.
I glance at him. “What’s that?”
“Not what. Who. Christin.”
Dario’s right. I have Christin now and—hopefully—forever. Still, I need to acknowledge something I never had. I gesture between us, then toward the garage behind us. Everything he helped me build. “You and the team? I need you to know I think of you all as my true family.”
Dario’s stunned. But my words are the truth. It takes him a few moments before he grinds out, “I’ll never forget you saying this.”
Before I can dislodge the lump in my throat and add that I’m thrilled Christin’s now a part of that, I hear a voice boom, “For now.”
The sound cuts cleanly through the air. Slowly, I turn, and there’s a gentleman with a familiar stance standing at the edge of the garage entrance.
He carries the kind of presence that implies comfort with his surroundings.
When he moves closer, I realize there’s more than just his presence that’s familiar.
It’s his bright blue eyes.
“For now,” he repeats, stepping closer. He gives Dario a brief nod before fixing his attention on me. “Because if you aren’t serious about her, what the hell are you doing with my daughter?”
It’s hard for me to reconcile that Lewis Porter is here in my space. Every time Christin’s mentioned him, I’ve only been able to picture his face as it was in his younger racing days when he commanded the F1 stage. Not as her father.
But knowing who someone is and having them standing in front of you ready to reach for your throat are two very different things. And right now, he’s not the former F1 champion. He’s my woman’s only living parent, assessing me with his no-nonsense glare.
I snap to attention, instinct kicking in before thought can catch up. I reach out a hand. “Mr. Porter. It’s a pleasure to meet Christin’s father.”
“Nice ass kissing, Hawthorne.”
Dario holds out his hand and introduces himself. Lewis shakes it. “I remember you when you ran around after your old man, Morretti.”
Dario backs me up by saying, “Your daughter is one of the most valuable members of our team.”
“I imagine she is.”
Dario chuckles even as Lewis rakes his eyes over me. “But is her brain all that’s important to you, Hawthorne?”
I fumble for an answer because what the hell am I supposed to do? Blurt out that I’m completely in love with his baby girl? Beads of sweat prick along the back of my neck.
His face softens briefly before he continues, “Before you decide how to answer that, you should probably remember I talk with my daughter quite often and I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Oh, shit. I should have realized Christin would naturally talk to her father about me. I make a high keening sound in the back of my throat that has Dario snorting and Lewis grinning like a lunatic.
I drag a hand down the front of my jumpsuit, buying myself a second I don’t really have. Then I meet his gaze properly. “Christin’s not—” I pause to take in a huge gulp of air.
His brows lift in the same way hers do. “Not what?”
“She’s not just a valuable asset to the team.” I shove down my panic and rush out with, “Ilovehersomuch.”
“Is that so?”
“She’s everything to me.”
The words leave me exposed the second they leave my mouth. Maybe I was too honest? But I don’t recant them because they’re the truth.
Lewis studies me for a long moment. His eyes—Christin’s eyes—haven’t given me his approval for loving his daughter. Not yet. But they’re not dismissing me either. “Everything,” he repeats, like he’s testing the weight of it.
“Yes, sir.”
There’s a pause. Then, quieter, more deliberate, “That’s a dangerous position to put my daughter in if you don’t know how to treat her.”
I nod because there’s no point pretending otherwise. “I didn’t take care of her heart before.”
That sharpens his attention. “And now?”
I exhale slowly. “I’m learning, but I’d still do anything to make her happy.”
Lewis’s body language shifts—less confrontational. Like he’s decided I’m at least worth the time it takes to assess properly. “What will that mean for her every day?”
“It means I don’t get to react based on my fears. It means I stay, even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when I don’t know what the bloody hell I’m doing.”
He takes in my words. I watch as he weighs the honesty in my response against the man who hurt his daughter. Because this—this moment—isn’t about winning him over. It’s about finding a middle ground where we can coexist because we both love Christin.
Lewis finally exhales through his nose, something almost like recognition passing across his face. “It’s difficult enough to love a woman where the future is uncertain,” he reminisces, almost to himself. “I imagine it’s harder to stay when past demons are urging you to run.”
“I’ll always regret what I did to her.”
Then, unexpectedly, the edge in his expression eases. “Good,” he says. “Then you understand what’s at stake.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How are you going to make certain it won’t happen again?” he challenges me.
In an instant, I realize I’ve come full circle, since the only thing I’ve ever wanted to win was love. Not on the track. Not from my biological family.
From her.
“I make certain I don’t run when it gets hard.”
His eyes narrow slightly, weighing that.
“I stay,” I add, quieter. “No matter what it costs me.”
Lewis holds my stare for a long moment before giving a single, decisive nod. “Good. Then she didn’t exaggerate. You did learn from your mistakes.”
Dario, the traitor, snorts under his breath. I ignore him. This moment is about focusing on Lewis. “I know I got it wrong before, but I’m not uncertain about how much I love her. I’m not walking away from her again.”
His expression doesn’t soften, but the edge bleeds away into something different—acceptance.
Reluctantly, Dario reminds me of what time it is. I excuse myself. “I should get to the garage.”
He holds out a hand. “Make it count.”
Without question, I know he’s not talking about the race. I grip his hand firmly. “I will.”
As I make my way back to the garage, weaving through the noise and movement, everything feels different because for the first time, I’m not driving to prove I can win.
I’m driving with the certainty that someone already believes I have.
And she’s waiting for me at the end of it—not just to measure the results, but to celebrate me anyway.