Chapter 3 - Aurélie
The meeting dissolved in a scrape of chairs, but justice didn’t follow us out the door.
Dom and Henric stayed behind with Reinhardt and the stewards, already diving back into discussion.
Callum and I were dismissed like schoolchildren, though I’d wager half the men in that room were rattled enough to lose their breakfast.
We walked side by side down the corridor, only our hands connected. My lungs only remembered how to properly draw air once the doors sealed shut behind us. The sound left me in a rush—part exhaustion, part disbelief.
“That’s it,” I muttered, almost to myself. “A formal investigation after the race.”
Callum chuckled darkly as he looked straight ahead. He wore a calculating look that I’d once mistaken for broodiness, but really, it was his brain constantly turning things over, running through every scenario. “Which means Morel gets to line up on the grid like nothing happened.”
My stomach churned as I recalled his hands on me, the pain in my shoulders, the jarring sensation of my face hitting the wall. “He calls that compromise. It’s still negligence even with all that evidence staring them in the face! Fucking unbelievable.”
For a stretch, neither of us spoke, the echo of our footsteps louder than the words we’d just used in that boardroom. They would applaud my composure, no doubt, maybe even my tenacity. And yet, Adrian Morel would strap into his car today, and I’d be expected to do the same.
Callum tugged me to a stop, forcing me to turn to face him. His icy blue gaze searched my face for something I couldn’t name. “You shouldn’t have to share a track with him.”
“No,” I agreed. “And neither should you after what he did. But if either of us backs down now, he wins. They all win.”
He pressed his lips together, and I wondered what was going on in his head. “Reinhardt said I should be grateful he didn’t suspend me after yesterday’s incident.” He spat the statement with so much venom that I half-expected the tiles beneath our feet to corrode.
The tension in his shoulders tugged at my heart. I didn’t agree with him getting in the car at all today, but I knew his pride wouldn’t allow him to sit out another race. Besides, he’d been so busy defending me that I had completely lost sight of that fact.
I stepped into his space and wound my arms around his neck, and he blinked, eyes softening as his hands found my hips.
“Mon amour,” I murmured, standing on my toes to press a gentle kiss to his lips.
“Your battles are mine, and mine are yours. Always. That’s how this works, right?
You and me, team forever. Racing 101.” I brushed another kiss against his mouth, feather-soft.
He squeezed my hips, and I knew I was breaking through that tough exterior he put on when we were in public.
“I love you, Callum Fraser. More than the sport. More than the fight. You make me proud every time you choose me, every time you choose us.”
He let out a shaky breath, melting beneath the words, and I nipped playfully at his bottom lip, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Chivalrous gentleman, defending your woman,” I teased before slipping into French, a sultry purr I reserved just for him. “Et mon bon garcon récompensé ce soir…”
And my good boy will be rewarded tonight.
The way his body shivered under my touch told me he understood every syllable.
The tension in him snapped, replaced with a groan as he pulled me closer, mouth crushing to mine in a kiss that was no longer gentle, but desperate and hungry.
As if this connection between us was a living, breathing thing.
It had always felt that way, though. Even when we were fighting it, but especially now as we each went to the ends of the earth to protect one another.
“You were brilliant in there,” he moaned against my lips, the words vibrating with pride and anger and something deliciously vulnerable. “Fuck, I could listen to you talk like that all goddamn day.”
I huffed a laugh and pulled back a few inches. “I only told the truth.”
Callum’s eyes burned into mine. “Exactly. And that’s why they’re terrified of you.” His mouth was back on mine before I could respond, and a shiver rolled through my body at how consuming it felt. “My goddess. My fucking goddess. Do you know how proud I am of you?”
My whole body went molten, knees nearly buckling.
Pride wasn’t something I heard often in this world, not without a list of conditions.
But Callum always expressed it without a second thought, it was clean, and whole, and perfect, and all mine.
He tore his lips from mine, dragging them down to kiss my throat, rough stubble scraping against my skin.
I gasped, arching into him, not caring in the slightest that we were in the middle of a corridor in a public building.
How could I care when his hands mapped me like he could brand the proof of his love on me?
I wanted it, wanted him, needed him to ground me after sitting in that room full of men who thought they could decide my worth. I only needed this man to show me that I was worthy of his love.
But then his hands trailed over my breasts, and my body betrayed me when a white-hot pain streaked through me. I gasped and flinched before I could stop the reaction. It was reflexive, and I hated the way it tore me out of the moment.
Callum froze instantly, pulling back just enough to search my face. “What’s wrong?”
Nothing. Everything. My mind scrambled, desperate to cover the fracture of my composure. Not here, not now. I couldn’t.
“Did I hurt you?” he pressed. “Is this because of—” He cut himself off and swallowed, clearly not wanting to drop Morel’s name between us in a moment like this.
I shook my head rigorously, not wanting him to think for a single moment that it was because of another man. But the truth pressed against my chest, making it hard to breathe. I was less than two days from knowing the truth, because even though my cycle was like clockwork, it didn’t mean jack shit.
Callum cupped my face, steadying me in ways nothing else could, but inside, my body wasn’t steady at all.
The ache in my breasts wasn’t from Morel’s grip.
It was deeper, more painful, and hauntingly familiar in a way that made emotion clog in my throat.
It was the kind of tenderness that used to mean something I swore I’d never let myself hope for again… until him.
We agreed, someday it would be a family of our choosing, but that didn’t erase the sadness of my reality.
My body had let me down before. The IUD should have protected me.
That had always been its purpose: a safeguard, a barrier, something to hold the line against mistakes or miracles I physically wasn’t equipped for.
But it wouldn’t be the first time it failed me.
In the past, it had dislodged itself—a freak accident, the kind of thing doctors waved away with clinical shrugs and the reassurance it shouldn’t happen again.
It was easy for them to brush off, but it cost me more than I ever admitted, even to myself.
Santino never knew. I hadn’t told anyone.
Not about how I bled and bled and thought it was just the endometriosis again.
Until it wasn’t. Until I understood what I’d lost without even knowing I was carrying it.
The diagnosis that followed was its own brand of cruelty. Endometriosis that tore at me from the inside. Ovaries that doctors swore were older than I was, slamming doors before I’d even had the chance to knock. My cycles came and went with deceptive regularity, but ovulation rarely showed up.
Basically infertile, one specialist told me casually, as if it wasn’t my entire future they were dissecting.
A whopping “less than five percent chance”, even if by some miracle everything aligned.
Which meant the IUD wasn’t just protection.
It was permission to stop worrying, to stop trying, to stop wanting.
Except now, in the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop running the numbers. My cursed luck could easily have dislodged it again, leaving me unguarded and… what? Capable? No. That wasn’t me when it came to fertility.
And yet… my breasts ached, I was unusually fatigued, and nausea curled in my stomach. I hated myself for even wondering, for even hoping right now.
I couldn’t think about it. Not today, not with a race just hours away, not so soon after having this conversation with Callum. I couldn’t in good conscience climb into a car and go ungodly speeds if I knew there was a chance I was pregnant.
So I lied, even though I desperately wanted to know, wanted to find out the truth with him by my side, wanted him to hold me when it all fell apart.
“I’m fine, mon amour,” I said, cracking a feeble smile. “Just sore. Sabotaged car and all that.”
The disbelief in his eyes gutted me. He didn’t buy it, not for a second, but thankfully he didn’t push, either. He leaned his forehead against mine, and for a moment, I thought he’d let this entire morning go and he’d go into race mode.
But then something shifted in him.
He gave me a wicked smirk and brushed his thumb over my cheekbone. “I’ve got an idea,” he said conspiratorially, and the excitement on his face had my heart skipping a beat. “It’s fucking crazy, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And it’ll give us both what we want.”
I frowned, trying to gauge what he was going on about. But before I could ask—
“Frenchie!” Ivy’s voice sliced through the corridor, way too fucking chipper given the circumstances.
The moment shattered. Callum’s hands dropped from my face, and we both turned to see a flurry of dark hair and pale skin rushing toward us. Ivy waved mic packs around like a madwoman, Marco and Kimi flanking each side like they were some kind of military operation.
“Off The Grid needs you both wired up, like, yesterday,” she told us, coming to a stop.
She panted like she was winded, and I took in her flushed cheeks and tousled hair.
She wasn’t her usual put together self. Her bright green eyes were swollen, and instead of her typical power suit, she was in a plain black long sleeve, leggings, and trainers.
I glanced at the boys behind her. Marco looked his usual smug self, but there was something off about him… he was in his usual team jacket and jeans, but—wait. I zeroed in on faint scratch marks on his neck.
Oh. Mon. Dieu.
Then there was Kimi, looking annoyed for some godforsaken reason.
What the fuck was going on with these three?
“Great, everyone’s here,” Callum said, clearly not clocking everything I just had, because he sounded strangely excited despite what just happened in that boardroom. “We can move and mic up. We have a plan.”
A plan. Did this include his?
It didn’t matter if it did. It was going to be crazy either way, but it would be ours. Like racing in the rain—either we’d find grip where no one else dared, or we’d skid straight into ruin.