Chapter 6 Spencer
SIX
SPENCER
It’s only when I’m on the flight to France—seat belt fastened, phone off, finally disconnected—that my mind starts to settle.
The past week was chaos.
The gala.
The family appreciation picnic.
The board meetings.
Wrapping up the Merritt deal while fielding calls to check boxes with Gina every hour on the hour.
By the time I made it to the airport, I was convinced I’d forgotten something—passport, bike, maybe even my own name.
But now, with the clouds drifting beneath me and the plane humming into stillness, she comes back.
Rhea.
I close my eyes, not to sleep, but to see her more clearly.
Her smile.
The shape of her laugh.
The way she looked at me and saw beyond my balance sheet. The way I felt connected, as though she were a missing piece in the puzzle of my life.
I promise myself—as soon as I’m back from France, I’m going to find her. Take her on a real date. Talk. Listen. Learn who she is when there isn’t champagne and candlelight clouding the moment.
I’ll have plenty to talk about—three weeks in France, racing across the Alps, living slow in a tiny town where no one cares who I am. Where they’ll just pour my wine and let me breathe for a bit.
The villa I’m staying in is tucked against a hill in a little town called Annecy-le-Vieux. The shutters are pale blue. There’s an old stone terrace with vines creeping up one side and lavender growing in crooked clay pots on the other.
Every morning, I wake to the smell of espresso from the café down the lane. The waitress at the boulangerie already knows how I take my coffee. She corrects my French, gently, like she’s training a slow but enthusiastic puppy.
It’s peaceful.
Simple.
And for the first time in years, I don’t miss work. I don’t even check my email.
I don’t miss home.
I miss her.
Two days in, I wake from a dream so vivid I have to work to remember that I am here, and she is not.
Though just moments ago, she was. She was right there on the terrace, barefoot, my Oxford shirt buttoned loosely over her body, hair wild from sleep, her face aglow with morning light.
She was laughing about something in French I couldn’t quite understand.
Then she kissed me hard and long, and I kissed her back with such urgency, we could hardly breathe.
She took my hand and led me to the bedroom where she gave herself to me completely, letting me own her-not as a possession separate from me but as a part of me that made me whole.
And as her hand was on my length, stroking me, bringing me closer and closer, I began calling her name, needing to be inside her. But she just put her finger on my lips, with a quiet, “Shh,” and smiled down at me, her eyes locked on mine as I came.
I lie here now, staring at the ceiling, my belly covered in the wetness of my longing for her. And I know—I have to see her again. I have to have her with me.
As soon as the race is over, I’ll reach out.
Hell, maybe I’ll even invite her here.
Who says I have to be back in three weeks? I built a life I can step away from. That was the whole point.
Maybe she can her. To me.
It’s day 6 of the Haute Route Alps.
It’s brutal.
Grueling.
Exactly what I’ve trained for.
Seven days. Twenty thousand meters of climbing. Legs on fire. Wind against your face like it’s trying to scrape your thoughts clean.
And for once, my head is clear.
No board meetings. No billion-dollar expectations.
Just me, the road, and the truth pulsing in my chest like a second heartbeat:
I have to see her again.
The descent comes fast, steep, sharp, the kind that demands absolute focus.
I’m holding steady, core tight, weight back, fingers feathering the brakes like I’ve practiced.
Then, suddenly—
A rider brushes up from behind me. Close. Too close.
We both wobble.
One wrong shift of weight.
The wheels slip.
My handlebars jerk sideways.
Then everything goes sideways.
My body lifts. Then flips.
Bike. Sky. Ground.
Metal. Gravel. Wind knocked clean out of me.
I feel the slam of bone against asphalt. The grinding skid of my helmet. The violent, disorienting tumble—over bike, over body, over bike again.
And then—
Black.
I have a vague recollection of sirens. Of voices speaking French too quickly.
A hand on my chest. Something sharp in my arm. A woman saying, restez avec moi. Stay with me.
But mostly, I remember the white.
White walls. White sheets. The too-clean brightness of a hospital room in Paris.
And pain.
A lot of pain.
But layered under it—like something half-submerged— her face.
Not real. Not here. But clear.
Rhea.