Chapter 41
BLOCKING: LEGALLY PREVENTING A PASS
Two weeks later, I stand beside my father just offstage, the low hum of media chatter bleeding through the walls.
There are too many cameras. The room is wall-to-wall with reporters.
Unlike most post-race media obligations I’ve witnessed, there’s no team-brand banner stretched behind the long table. Just a long black drape.
I mutter to him, “Why does this feel worse than your press conferences ever were?”
I glance toward the monitors, watching the crowd gather.
It’s standing room only, and wedged in between is speculation of what Leo’s about to announce.
I whisper, “This might actually be better attended than when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced they were stepping away from active royal duties.”
He snorts. “I’m sure Leo would love to hear your game day analysis.”
I roll my eyes. “Supportive. As always.”
“I’ve always been supportive.”
Despite everything, a small smile tugs at my lips because this bantering with my father is the only normal thing that’s about to happen today.
“You doing all right, Pumpkin?” he asks softly.
“I’m worried for him, Dad,” I admit.
My father studies me for a moment, then nods. “Good. That’s what you should be feeling for the man you love.”
Leo isn’t far from us. He’s talking with Dario on one side and Alistair Heythrop on the other. His suit is black, perfectly tailored, every line of him exuding control. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was calm.
I do know better because I saw him forty minutes ago rereading his brother’s letter. Despite the magnitude of today’s announcement and his determination to make it happen, Leo’s grief fluctuates daily from something quiet to unbearable.
But right now, he looks like he does just before a race.
Determined.
As my father and I approach, we see Dario say something to him. Leo nods once.
Heythrop adjusts his glasses and murmurs, “Say only what you intend to say. Do not be drawn into speculation.”
“Is that your professional advice?”
“It is my personal plea.”
Dario snorts under his breath. “That means yes.”
Before I have a chance to say anything to him, Apex Orion’s PR lead, Bentley Lancaster, steps up to the podium. “If you will all please take your seats—provided one’s available.”
The room shuffles around, and I slip my hand into Leo’s and squeeze his fingers to let him know I support him.
Bentley addresses the crowd. “Thank you for joining us. Leo Hawthorne will make a brief statement, followed by questions.”
The room quiets. From my position, I can see recorders lifting. Cameras adjusting.
Leo gives my fingers a squeeze before releasing my hand and moving forward to take the center seat at the table. Dario and Heythrop follow him out and assume their positions on either side of him.
He waits for them to sit. Once they do, Heythrop gives him an almost imperceptible nod.
Leo laces his fingers together in front of him and looks directly at every person in the crowd before speaking.
“As many of you in the racing world know, my name is Leo Hawthorne.” His voice is low and steady.
“What many of you may have heard through other means is that I was recently given another name—that of Viscount Raleigh. That title was held by my older brother, Albert, until his distressing and untimely death.”
The room is holding its collective breath waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It doesn’t take long.
“Today, through my solicitor, I filed the required legal documentation to disclaim the title of Viscount Raleigh.”
The room explodes. Questions overlap immediately.
“Leo, why?”
“Are you rejecting your family?”
“Did this have anything to do with how your brother died?”
“Is this a publicity move?”
“Are you still entitled to—”
Bentley lifts both her hands before shouting, “One at a time. Please. We want Leo to be able to address some of your questions.”
But Leo doesn’t flinch. He waits with the same patience he’s learned on the grid.
A reporter in the front row is called on first. “Leo, you are confirming the title passed to you after the death of your brother, Albert Hawthorne?”
Leo’s jaw tightens at Albert’s name. “Yes.”
“And, to reiterate, you are choosing to disclaim it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
There it is. The question everyone wants answered.
Leo draws in a slow breath. “The title was never mine in any meaningful sense. It belonged to a life I did not choose, a family structure I stepped away from a decade ago, and obligations I am neither willing nor suited to fulfill.”
My heart hammers in my chest as I watch Leo. I murmur to my father, “He’s in control.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
We both turn our attention back to Leo.
A different reporter follows up quickly. “Are you saying you don’t believe in inherited titles?”
“I’m saying I don’t believe in accepting one for the sake of appearances when doing so would be dishonest.”
Another shouts, “Does this mean you are severing ties with the Hawthorne estate?”
Heythrop gives Leo a sideways glance. Leo’s answer is careful, as Heythrop prepped him for a version of this very question. “The estate and its associated trusts are matters for the family and its legal representatives. My personal finances, career, and future do not depend on them.”
A woman from a British outlet leans forward. “Your father, the Earl of Hawthorne, said you would be assuming the title.”
“I suspect he will be deeply opposed to this decision.”
“Are you saying you haven’t spoken to him?”
“Not since my brother’s funeral.”
She presses on. “Did he pressure you to accept the title?”
Leo goes still. Something in me locks right alongside him.
I’ve seen his hands control a steering wheel at two hundred miles per hour.
I’ve watched him thread a car through concrete walls with less tension in his shoulders than he has now.
He takes a deep breath before saying, “I believe you’re all aware he made his expectations known. ”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the answer I am giving.”
Dario’s mouth curls slightly. Mine almost does too.
Another reporter calls out before being acknowledged. “Leo, were you estranged from your brother?”
The room seems to hold its breath.
Leo looks down for the first time. Only for a second. When he looks up again, his face holds his grief and honesty. “Albert and I were separated by circumstances neither of us created as children and neither of us addressed as adults.”
“Did you reconcile before his death? And if not, do you regret that?”
Heythrop leans forward. “I would like to advise my client that he is not obligated to answer that question.”
“I’ll answer part of it.” Leo’s eyes shift, almost imperceptibly, to the side of the room toward me. I know he’s gathering strength before he replies, “I will regret our very unnecessary separation for the rest of my life.”
For one brief second, it appears the reporters seem to forget they’re vultures. Then one asks, “If you regret that, why not honor him by taking the title?”
Leo bites out, “Because honoring my brother does not require becoming what harmed both of us.”
A reporter in the second row asks, more gently, “Can you explain what you mean by that?”
Leo’s eyes lower to his clasped hands. Heythrop coughs lightly. He’s encouraging Leo to dodge that question.
He doesn’t.
“My brother was raised to inherit. I was the contingency. That arrangement did not make either of us free. It made him responsible for preserving something he did not fully control. It made me useful only in the event something happened to him. I refuse to allow Albert’s death to become the mechanism that puts me back into that role. ”
My breath catches. Holy crap, he said it.
Cameras click furiously. Bentley looks like she wants to both hug him and tackle him away from any live microphones.
Dario looks proud.
Heythrop looks like he’s planning on drinking copiously once the day’s over.
Another question comes from an American sports journalist. “Leo, how does this affect your racing career?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Not even mentally?”
A dry, faint smile appears. “Everything affects me mentally. I’m a race car driver, not a machine.”
A few people laugh. Then his expression steadies. “But professionally, nothing changes. I drive for Apex Orion. My focus is on the car, the team, and the races.”
“Some critics might say this announcement is a distraction.”
“Then they’re welcome to criticize my lap times if they suffer. And if they don’t, then I suppose they’ll find something else to be cross about.”
Despite the weight in the room, I smile. It’s such a Leo answer.
Another reporter leans forward. “Was there someone who influenced this decision?”
“No one made this decision for me.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No,” Leo says evenly. “It was the answer.”
The reporter persists. “There have been rumors about you being romantically involved with someone close to the Apex Orion team. Is this decision related to a relationship?”
Every muscle in my body freezes.
Dario’s head turns sharply. Heythrop’s face darkens in the way I’ve seen before lawyers start handing out lawsuits.
Leo’s expression doesn’t change, but his voice does. It drops to sub-Arctic levels. “My private relationships are not material to the legal status of my title.”
“Is that a denial?”
“It’s a boundary, one I don’t recommend you push against,” he warns.
The reporter backs off.
Another takes the opening. “Do you worry the public will see this as disrespectful to tradition?”
Leo leans slightly toward the microphone. “I imagine some will.”
“And does that concern you?”
“No, because tradition should not be mandated simply because it exists. It should be honored by people who won’t do it harm.”
A British tabloid reporter jumps in. “Are you calling your family harmful?”
I’m certain Bentley is now the one who wants to knock the mic away from Leo. But she doesn’t.
“I’m saying my life is no longer governed by Hawthorne influence.” His words cut through the room with terrifying precision.
I remember everything he told me after Bahrain. Being the family spare, the decade of silence. Then, every moment of regret since he read Albert’s letter. I press my hand against my stomach instead of screaming to the world that his father doesn’t deserve the title.
My father places his hand on my shoulder and squeezes.
The reporter pushes. “That sounds like a challenge.”
“It’s a statement of fact.”
“Against your father?”
Leo’s mouth flattens. “My father is free to make his own statements.”
“And if he disputes yours?”
“Then he’ll have said more about me—as a person—than he has for the last ten years.”
“I think Heythrop is going to stroke out,” my father leans over to whisper.
I counter, “Over the same remarks Dario’s enjoying far too much.”
He squeezes my shoulder again as the room recalibrates when they realize this isn’t intended to be a spectacle. It’s Leo declaring, in front of every camera pointed at him, that the old version of himself did more than survive at his father’s expense.
Another journalist, older, quieter, asks, “What do you want to be called now?”
Amusement flickers across Leo’s face. “The same name I’ve been known as for years: Leo Hawthorne.”
A small laugh moves through the room. At that, Bentley wraps it up. “We have time for two more questions.”
A woman near the aisle raises her hand. “Leo, what would you say to your brother if he could witness this?”
The question hits me like a blow since Leo asked me to read his brother’s letter.
At the table, Leo stills. For several seconds, he doesn’t answer.
When he does, his voice is quieter. “I’d tell him I’m sorry.
Not because of the title, but because I wish we’d had the chance to know each other without all of this between us. ”
He swallows. “Then, I’d tell him I understand now.”
The woman’s voice softens. “Understand what?”
Leo’s eyes shine under the lights. He blinks it back. “That’s between me and my brother.”
My vision blurs even as pride surges through me.
The final question comes from a motorsport journalist. “Leo, after everything that happened today, how do you get in the car again?”
It’s a softball question. It’s also a perfect one to end on.
Leo sits back slightly. “I get in because that’s where my heart is.
Every time I place my hands on the steering wheel, I know I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
I’ll get in because I trust the people who built what’s beneath me.
” His gaze flicks to Dario, then—briefly, so briefly no one else would catch it—to me.
“And if you’re lucky, you trust yourself. ”
Then he adds, “Just because I walked away from a title today doesn’t mean I’m walking away from the life I built.”
As Bentley steps in to conclude the press conference, I let the tears I’ve been holding back fall. Leo stands, followed by Heythrop and Dario. For a second, he looks impossibly tired.
Then Dario is beside him, one hand at his shoulder, guiding him away from the table. As they make their way across the stage, reporters rise—shouting follow-up questions.
“Leo, how do you think your father will respond?”
“Are you worried about legal challenges?”
“Is the title passing to another heir?”
“Leo!”
Heythrop is already speaking rudely to the group with an expression that suggests the next person to ask Leo a question may be buried beneath legal briefs for the next year.
Once he’s back behind the curtain, Leo’s gaze finds mine. I read the grief still so fresh. But there’s also determination with a hint of anger. After all, some scars don’t fade cleanly.
But beneath them, I see something stronger. Peace.
Leo didn’t just free himself from the weight of inheritance. He freed himself from the fear that he had to earn love, suffer for it, or lose it.
When he reaches for my hand, I realize something that steals the breath from my lungs.
This is where we really begin.