39. Callum
Rain tapped soft against the glass, steady and relentless, like the world hadn’t slept while we had.
The curtains were still drawn, only the edges letting the morning gray light and shadows spill across the bed.
The room was cool enough to make us shiver when it hit our bare skin, but under the duvet everything felt softer, muted.
The sheets still smelled faintly of detergent, clean and crisp, but beneath them was just us .
Aurélie was draped over me, unbruised cheek resting against my shoulder, one leg tangled between mine.
Her palm splayed low on my ribs, thumb brushing over the healed laceration that would be a permanent scar.
Her hair tickled my collarbone every time she breathed.
My hand curved over the slope of her back, sliding idly up and down the dip of her spine, tracing the faint rise of each vertebra.
I couldn’t move if I wanted to. Not that I would ever dare break this moment.
The bed cradled us like a cloud. Soft, weightless, the kind of comforting that made the world outside fade away. Every shift sunk us deeper, swallowing us whole. It felt like a place designed to keep us hidden from prying eyes.
If the FIA wanted us, they could bloody well come and drag us out of this bed.
I pressed my lips into her hair, breathing her in. She still smelled faintly like the hotel shampoo, like rain, like herself. God, I could’ve stayed here forever.
“Don’t wanna get up,” I muttered, voice low, rough with sleep. My arm tightened around her waist. “Not yet. Not ever.”
She stirred against me, her breath warm against my chest. “We can’t hide forever,” she mumbled, but there wasn't any conviction behind it. By the sounds of it, she was also on the edge of consciousness.
“Don’t care,” I rasped. I tilted my chin until my lips brushed her forehead. “We can make them wait.”
For a while, we did. Just breathing together, listening to the rain, hearts knocking slow and steady as if the last twenty-four hours hadn’t whittled us down.
But the silence was heavy. Too heavy. I felt the weight of everything we hadn’t said pressing in, and before I could stop myself, the words slipped out.
“I keep thinking about the fight on the trails.”
Her body tensed faintly, and I knew she was also remembering the way we’d walked away from each other.
My thumb brushed her spine, coaxing her eyes open so I could see her. “I was cruel to you that day. I said things I didn’t mean. I implied that you weren’t strong enough. Tried to take your choice away from you by telling you not to drive the car. I fucking hate myself for it.”
Her lashes fluttered, hazel eyes finding mine. She shifted just enough so she was propped on my chest, hair falling across her face. “You were angry,” she murmured. “So was I. I said things too. Things I regret.” She dragged her teeth over her bottom lip, and my gaze followed.
“Nothing you said was wrong, Auri. You were right, and it’s been eating me alive, because of all this distance between us and everything that’s happened since.”
Her palm slid up to cup my jaw, fingers brushing the stubble there.
“You’re wrong, baby,” she said softly, and Jesus , I fucking died a little every time she called me that in her sweet little accent.
“Yesterday, you proved me wrong. You defended me when I couldn’t defend myself.
You didn’t let him win. You’ve never let me fight alone, even when I thought I wanted to. ”
My eyes burned. My throat ached. The storm outside rattled the glass, but here, in this bed, I felt the words sink into me like absolution. I tightened my hold on her, pressing my lips to the crown of her head, letting the storm outside swallow the silence between us.
For a long beat, we just breathed. Her cheek against my chest, my hand on her spine, the rhythm syncing like it always did, steady and unbreakable. But I felt it—the shift in her breathing, the way her body curled closer and then hesitated.
Aurélie lifted her head slowly, bracing herself on my chest so she could look right at me.
Hazel eyes, swollen from yesterday’s tears, locked on mine with a fierceness that made my heart palpitate.
She didn’t move away, just held me there, as if the next words would only come if I couldn’t look anywhere else.
“Callum,” she said just above a whisper.
“There’s something else. It’s… what I wanted to wait to tell you, but I need to get it out now.
” She licked her lips nervously, and for a second I thought she’d change her mind.
Then she blurted it out so fast, it was as if it had been clawing at her throat for years.
“I can’t have kids.”
The world stilled. My heart squeezed so tight I almost forgot to breathe.
She didn’t see me freeze, because she was already spiraling.
“Je ne peux pas—” Her voice splintered between a whisper and a cry, switching languages without thinking.
“My body is broken, Callum. It’s already broken.
I can’t give you that, the one thing—” her hands curled into fists on my chest, “—the one thing everyone says matters most.”
“Auri—”
“I was so fucking scared to tell you.” Her words tumbled over mine, faster, jagged, as if she had to spit them out before she drowned in them.
I felt her body stiffening, as if bracing for the worst. “Because I knew. I knew if you found out, if you knew the truth, you’d leave.
C’est non négociable, pour tellement de gens.
” It’s non-negotiable, for so many people.
“It’s easier to walk away before it gets too deep than to sign up for a life without children.
And if it wasn’t Morel, or the cars, or the goddamn press tearing us apart, it would be this.
It would be me .” A sob tore free, turning her face red as it wracked her small frame.
“Baby, look at me.” I squeezed her for emphasis.
Her tears burned hot against my chest as she shook her head frantically.
“I’ve carried it alone for years. I told myself I didn’t care, that I didn’t want that life anyway.
But then you—” her voice broke, French bleeding in again, “—puis toi. And I love you so much, tellement putain, it terrifies me. You’re the first person I’ve ever wanted everything with, and if the one thing I can never give you—the chance to hold a baby, your baby, so innocent and perfect, have a family—if I take that from you, alors ca prouve qu’ils avaient raison. ”
That proves everyone right.
Aurélie wiped at her eyes aggressively. “My family, the way they looked at me like I was just the extra twin, the unwanted one. The burden. The one who was never good enough . Something disposable and useless. And now it’s written in me, dans mon sang, in my bones, in my womb—that I was never made for that kind of love.
Not the kind that builds a future. Not the kind you deserve, mon amour. ”
She pushed up to a sitting position, but my hand stayed on her thigh, refusing to let her pull away from me now.
“I fear,” she mumbled, “what if that’s all I am? Broken. Empty. Cursed . What if the one thing you deserve, the one thing I can’t give you, takes you from me? What if?—”
Her words fractured, slipping between French and English, a frantic tangle. “Tu ne comprends pas, je l’ai porté toute seule pendant des années—I’ve carried it alone, always alone—and I never let myself fall, jamais, not until you. And now it’s here, c’est là, it’s between us and I can’t?—”
She pressed her face into her hands, sobbing hard, shaking her head back and forth.
I was frozen, heart hammering, throat burning with words I couldn’t shape yet. My instinct was to grab her, hold her so tight she’d feel the truth in my heartbeat. But for a moment, I could only stare, stricken, as the woman I loved unraveled piece by piece in front of me.
With a shuddering breath, she scrambled upright.
My heart lurched as she yanked the duvet off her legs, pacing the length of the hotel room like a caged animal.
Her hands clutched at her hair. I didn’t know what to do, how to respond, how to make her listen to me.
So I let her have her moment, because I had a gut feeling this was more for her than it was for me.
Then, suddenly, she stopped and squared her shoulders, pinning me with a hollow stare.
“If this is a dealbreaker for you, say it now.” Her voice rose with every word, almost as though the storm outside had sunk into her.
“Say it, and I’ll make this easy for you.
I’ll pack my bags and get my own room. You won’t have to deal with me, with this?—”
My pulse fucking roared, anger and heartache and sorrow and a million other fucking emotions warring inside. She was pushing me away. Setting me up to leave.
Absolutely the fuck not.
I was about to rip that idea to fucking shreds. I would, under no circumstances, let her self-sabotage again because she thought she wasn’t worthy of love.
“Aurélie.”
“Say it!” she shouted, her fists clenching at her sides. "Say it, Callum! Put me out of my fucking misery before I fall more in love with you. Just say it!”
“No,” I snapped, climbing to my feet and moving to stand in front of her.
But she just glowered at me, chin trembling as she fought another wave of tears, eyes blazing with desperation and despair.
“Say it,” she whispered this time, the anger gone, leaving only grief. “Say you don’t want me. Say I’ll never be enough. Please, Callum, I’m begging you to say it so I can stop hoping.”
The plea reached into my chest and tore my fucking heart out. I felt like I was splitting in two, torn between the devastation in her eyes and the truth settling deep in me.
“Shut the fuck up,” I rasped.
She froze. Her lips parted, eyes wide with shock. We stood toe to toe, fully naked in a low-lit hotel room in Great Britain, arguing over something that shouldn’t even be an argument because this didn’t change how I felt about her.
I closed the distance between us, my hands cupping her face, tilting it up, forcing her to look at me. Her breath was shaking. Her pulse was a wild, frantic beat against my fingers.
I stared at her, every fucking inch of me yearning for her to listen to me. When I spoke, my voice wasn’t loud. It wasn’t angry; it was fucking devastated.
"You think that’s why I love you?"
Her lower lip quivered.
“You think I fucking love you because of that?”
She blinked, swallowing hard. "I?—"
“I love you because you are the strongest, most infuriating, most brilliant person I’ve ever known.
” My fingers flexed, thumbs skimming across her cheekbones, hovering over the bruise where another man had put his hands on her.
“Because you fight like hell for every goddamn thing you want in life. Because you make me laugh when I forget how. Because you challenge me, and you tell me when I’m wrong, and you never let me hide from myself.
Because you make me want to be a better fucking man than I ever thought I could be. ”
My throat closed, but I forced the words out.
“When I look at you, Aurélie, I don’t see what you can or can’t give me.
I see my safety. My peace. I see the only place I’ve ever felt at home.
You’re the air in my lungs, the ground under my feet, the fire in my veins.
You’re my beginning and my end. Not racing. Not trophies. You.”
Her breath hitched on an inhale. Her hands lifted, trembling and tentative, her fingers curling around my wrists.
She shook her head once, eyes filling with despair and disbelief. "You don’t?—"
"I do." I exhaled, pressing my forehead against hers, voice dropping to a whisper. "I do, love. And I always will. Racing 101, right?"
Her entire body caved, fucking collapsing. A sob tore from her throat, and then she was throwing her arms around my neck. She was falling, but I caught her.
I always fucking would.
“Commit to your line,” she muttered, but now there was a playfulness to it, that shot an arrow straight through my heart to hear again.
“And mine’s you.”