5. Callum
I turned up the volume just as the stream began to buffer. A few seconds of glitchy gray, and then my girl walked out with a bright smile and an adorable wave at the crowd who cheered for her.
She walked onto the set as if she hadn’t just blown up the sport from the inside out, sobbed outside my door, and then kissed me goodbye with trembling hands. She was radiant, collected, and dangerous through her exhaustion.
Her hair was slicked back in a sharp ponytail that said she didn’t come to play. Her shirt was crisp, tucked into tailored black jeans that showed off the curve of her hips—hips I’d gripped while she fell apart for me time and time again.
But it was the red lip that knocked the wind out of me. Not the smeared kind from crying or the messy kind from kissing me into oblivion. War paint, because her usual color was pink.
She looked like vengeance in stilettos. A woman with facts and fury and nothing left to lose.
The camera panned as she sat down, and that’s when I saw them.
The earrings—small, gold, glittering diamond hoops.
They were the ones she wore in Monaco, the ones I unclasped with my teeth when I made love to her in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom.
I nearly choked.
My head still throbbed, and my ribs ached every time I breathed, but none of it mattered, because I was transfixed. I’d seen her unravel. Now I got to watch her rise.
Ava Richards, now a firebrand journalist, gave Aurélie a long, slow once-over. Not in judgment, but in awe.
Yeah. Me too.
Ava waited until the crew quieted, adjusting her earpiece. “Okay,” she said, crossing her legs with a grin, “before we dive in… I just want to say thank you for being here.”
Aurélie smiled, graceful and unbothered.
“Thank you for having me so last minute. I’m just hoping my PR team doesn’t burst through the wall like a SWAT unit halfway through this.
” The sound of her voice sent my heart soaring.
I fucking missed her. Phone calls wouldn't cut it anymore.
I'd blaze a trail to her straight through this season until my team physically pried me away from her.
The audience laughed. Ava did too. “If they do, we’re live, so they’ll look unhinged and you’ll look iconic.”
“Perfect,” Aurélie deadpanned. “That’s the goal.”
“She’s so casual about inciting a coup,” I muttered to myself, swallowing a smile. My body protested as I laughed softly to myself. She hadn’t even started and I already wanted to stand up and slow-clap.
Ava leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “You know, I was reviewing the list of everything you’ve done in the last… thirty-six hours?”
Aurélie raised one brow, her smile widening just slightly. “I don’t recommend that.”
“Oh, but I think the people need to see this,” Ava said, turning to the screen behind them. “Let’s go to the timeline.”
The room darkened just a little as the screen came to life with videos and pictures.
The pre-race kiss on the grid. Me in Vanguard black and red, her in Luminis navy and gold as I pressed my mouth to hers as if I couldn’t breathe without her.
The crash. Her screaming into her radio before running across the track and scaling the barrier as though nothing could keep her from me. Thrashing and fighting the marshals as they pulled her away from the wreckage. Her sprinting back to me after I woke up.
My chest tightened, a phantom echo of the nightmare I couldn’t shake–the one where Morel came screaming around the corner.
Where she and the baby were gone, and I was left clawing at a bed that smelled like her but held no warmth.
Watching her sprint toward my crumpled car now blurred the line between dream and memory.
Footage I hadn't seen yet before she continued the race. Her yelling at the cameras about a quote, how she warned the FIA. And then she went on to win the fucking race like she told me she would.
The victory hug on the podium with her, Marco, and Kimi grinning like maniacs. Drenched in champagne.
A post-race celebration of her and Kimi in the hotel bar in Montreal. Pink dress, exhaustion on her face. Just last night.
Airport photos of her in a messy bun, my hoodie engulfing her small frame, eyes rimmed red as she focused on her phone, the sky dark outside.
Paparazzi outside my flat. Hair more wild, makeup smudged but eyes cutting as she climbed the steps to my building.
Outside my flat hours later in the same outfit she wore now, poised and confident when she climbed into a black car.
Her in the Monaco airport a couple hours ago.
And now, there she was, legs crossed in front of her, fingers laced in her lap. She looked so goddamn polite like I didn't know just how bad she could be in bed.
Ava blinked at the screen, shook her head, and looked back at Aurélie. “Are you part Formula 1 driver, part international spy?”
Aurélie’s smile was all teeth. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
The audience laughed again.
Ava leaned in, half-whispering like it was a secret between friends. “Be honest. Are you running on caffeine, rage, or blackmail?”
Aurélie didn’t miss a beat. “Spite and a protein bar.”
That made Ava throw her head back and cackle. “God, I love you.”
I DO TOO.
“Don’t say that too loudly,” Aurélie said, mock serious. “I've got four drivers who want me out of the sport and another three already texting me their support. One of them is the man who tried to kiss me senseless on the grid.”
I choked on my smoothie just as the group chat lit up with a text.
Marco
@Callum, she means you.
No shit.
Marco
HE LIVES. DUBOIS, COME GET YOUR MAN.
Kimi
Do I need to remind you that she's not only in a live interview but also NOT seeing Callum after what he did…
Don't need the reminder when I miss the fuck out of her all the time.
My heart raced, and still, somehow, we hadn’t gotten to the hard questions yet.
Ava's tone shifted into something more serious. “Okay. Jokes aside, we’ve seen the timeline. We know what happened on-track. But off-track, you’ve made headlines for more than just your driving.”
Aurélie’s smile turned cold. Beautiful as ever, but ice cold. “You mean the part where I was told to smile and stay quiet? Where I was nearly disqualified from racing for trying to help a man who was almost killed?”
My breath stuttered. She said it as if it was nothing, as if it wasn’t the moment she broke every rule to get to me.
Ava nodded slowly. “Let’s start there.”
Aurélie's hands tightened in her lap, her knuckles turning white, but her voice was even and calm—way too fucking calm.
“I brought to them, in person , documented, corroborated evidence of sabotage on the grid. They told me it was locker room talk, not solid enough. At least, not until it impacted someone they deemed important: their golden four-time world champion. Not exactly a driver they can ignore.”
God. She was talking about me. On a live interview, with malice and fury.
“The system is broken,” she continued. “And I’m not the first woman in this sport to say it, but I might be the loudest one they didn’t expect because I've spent years being a perfectly PR-trained good girl in the public eye.”
The crowd didn’t breathe.
Neither did I.
Ava whispered, “They fined you fifty-thousand euros.”
Aurélie gave a sweet little shrug that made me ache to hold her. “Luckily, my Ferrari contract will pay me well next year. Luminis could've fought harder for me, so I consider it a down payment on change.”
Jesus Christ. She was taking no prisoners. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Marco texted something incoherent in the group chat, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen long enough to respond. She was lighting them up.
And then I realized she'd just announced to the whole fucking world about signing with Ferrari. She'd kept it under wraps until the perfect moment.
“And it’s not just the FIA,” she said, tone tightening. “It’s the culture. The comments. The way we’re measured by our appearance before we’re allowed to speak.”
Ava’s voice dropped. “You’ve said in the past that this started long before Formula 1.”
“Yeah. Since I was a teenager, maybe younger. I was groomed by my coach when I was fifteen. Flirted with. Controlled. Told what to wear, how to smile, how to make sponsors comfortable. Constantly told I was mature for my age and to ignore lingering stares and passive touching.”
I gripped my comforter so hard my knuckles popped. I wanted to throw something, drive something, fucking protect her from everything she’d already lived through. I saw red, and it had abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with the concussion.
“Santino?” Ava asked gently.
Aurélie paused. “He wasn’t the only one.”
My whole body locked. Jesus, she was going to come clean about him and paint him to be the predator he was.
“But, yes,” she said, too softly. “Santino was the one who made the biggest impact. He told me I owed him my career, that no one else would protect me like he would, that I’d be nothing without his connections.
" For the first time since the interview started, her eyes dropped to her hands.
"I let him make decisions for me, talk into my ear in and out of the car, control what I posted online, whether or not I went to university.
He made me feel special because he was twice my age, and for the first time in my life, I thought someone saw me as more than my brother's shadow.” She took a deep breath and glanced up to face Ava again.
"And then I saw him in Monaco for the first time since I left F2.
He assaulted me after the race, and if it wasn't for Callum stepping in, who knows what would've happened. "
That nightmare earlier in the evening felt like a trauma response, nothing more. Now it felt like a warning, a premonition I’d been too afraid to name. I never imagined wanting a family. A wife, kids, a life. But now, the thought of losing them—losing her—gutted me more than any crash ever could.