Chapter 186 Aurélie #2
I dragged a large, heavy box into the primary bedroom, dodging the movers, and sliced it open. Inside was my new bed frame. The instructions seemed simple enough, though the sheer number of bolts made my head spin. I knelt on the hardwood, toolkit beside me, and started piecing it together.
Each turn of the wrench was a heartbeat.
Each click of metal into place, a thought I refused to have.
Outside, the light shifted toward late afternoon, the sky pale gold over the cypress trees.
The faint strains of classical music from my phone filled the air, something steady to hold onto while I tightened screws and forced focus through the pain in my abdomen.
I dropped a bolt and cursed under my breath.
It rolled between boxes the movers had stacked in here.
“Perfect,” I muttered, dragging myself to all fours to retrieve it.
My body protested every movement, and as I crawled across the floor, a wave of dizziness hit me.
I paused and pressed my forehead to my knees, inhaling and exhaling deeply, until it passed.
Then I kept going.
By the time the last panel clicked into place, the movers were long gone, and the room was bathed in honeyed evening light.
The bed stood mostly assembled, a mattress leaning against the wall waiting to be unwrapped from its restraining plastic.
I’d cracked the windows open when I started to sweat, the air smelling faintly of lavender from the planters outside.
I’d already changed myself three times, trying not to think about the thick clots or the slow, steady leak that made my body feel like it was unraveling one thread at a time.
I blew a breath through my lips, and meandered back out to the living room, rifling through the boxes to see what would be easiest to unpack.
I found some candles packed with the linens and set them on the mantel, then lit them.
Their flickering glow spilled across the room, shadows stretching long and soft along the walls.
It wasn’t peace, not really. Just stillness. A temporary truce between my body and my thoughts.
The sound of tires on gravel pulled me out of it. I shuffled to the kitchen and peered through the window, my sight snagging on a familiar car easing up the drive. A second car appeared behind the first.
My heart skipped a beat once before it steadied. étienne and Emilie.
My throat tightened. “Putain,” I whispered under my breath, wiping my palms against my leggings and forcing myself toward the door.
I smoothed my hair and told myself I was ready.
The simple fact of them being here hit me harder than I’d expected.
For months, they’d existed only in texts and memories, in the careful space I’d kept for myself.
After Monaco, I’d exchanged a few messages with my brother, and none with my parents.
I’d been so wrapped in this world and my career that I hadn’t stopped to process it all.
But now, seeing my brother step out of the driver’s seat of my Porsche 911, steady as ever, something inside me went soft and fragile.
He looked older. Tired in the eyes but stronger than I remembered.
On his own two feet. No casts, no braces, no slings.
No crutches in sight. He’d recovered from that dreadful accident and was okay.
The crash had folded the car in on itself like paper, the cockpit crushed around him, steel wrapped tight where his ribs should’ve broken through.
He’d nearly bled out on the asphalt. Multiple surgeries, collapsed lungs—more than once.
Complications and months of pain. I swear half his body had broken.
And now… he was here. Standing, breathing, and whole. One of Formula 1’s most revered and missed drivers. Truly their phoenix—brilliant, broken, and still burning.
He wore a faded navy T-shirt and olive green cargo pants, a backwards baseball cap resting snug over his dark brown curls, just long enough now to peek through the opening at the back.
He looked like himself, and yet not at all.
Hardened, maybe, but also… humbled. His ego had been a problem once he made it to big leagues.
Emilie climbed out of her car next, dressed in a fitted oatmeal tank and high-waisted utility pants cuffed at the ankle, paired with white Veja sneakers and a crossbody canvas satchel. Practical, chic, and effortless.
The sunlight caught the copper strands in her strawberry blonde hair, making them glow.
Her face was soft and flushed from the drive, but her eyes were sharp, taking everything in.
She looked like calm personified, her easy posture a perfect contradiction to the storm building quietly inside me.
Still so young—only twenty. Four years younger than me, but sometimes she carried herself with more wisdom than I did.
The sharp precision of our father, Augustin Dubois’s, legacy. The graceful restraint of our mother, Geneviève’s, strength.
étienne had gotten the charm. Emilie had gotten the blade. And I had gotten the hunger, the restlessness, the part that couldn’t stay put.
étienne opened the back of Emilie’s car and grabbed a cardboard box from the trunk, his muscles flexing just slightly beneath the short sleeves of his shirt.
Meanwhile, Emilie leaned into the passenger seat and emerged with a woven basket looped over one arm and a dark glass bottle of wine tucked in the crook of the other.
A soft rust-colored dish towel was wrapped around the neck of it like a bow.
I opened the door before they could reach the porch. “If you’re here to judge my assembly skills, turn around now.”
“Ray.” étienne’s voice was quiet but full, colored with something like relief. The nickname landed deep in my chest—like home, like childhood, like everything I’d run from and missed at the same time.
“Bonjour,” he said softly, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Bonjour,” I echoed, managing one of my own. It wobbled.
Emilie didn’t say anything at first, didn’t smile. Just looked at me like she already knew everything I hadn’t said. And I swore her keen green eyes knew all my secrets.
She and I were never close, not really. Both too independent and protective in our own ways.
The lavender product line had been the only thing we’d truly built together.
Outside of that, we didn’t talk. Not about the things that mattered, yet somehow she always knew when I was bleeding. Even if I hadn’t said a word.
For a heartbeat, none of us moved. We all stood there awkwardly on the porch. Then Emilie stepped forward, slipping an arm briefly around my shoulders and pressing a kiss to my cheek.
“Bienvenue à ta maison,” she murmured, holding up the basket. “Housewarming gifts.”
Up close, I could see it was full of my favorite things from home. A bottle of Soleil d’Or—our vineyard’s golden chardonnay—and a bottle of our lavender pét-nat, the one we only sold at the estate. Candles and lotion. My favorite perfume. The shampoo and conditioner Callum was addicted to.
Even our family salve, the one we didn’t sell to the public. Strictly bloodline only. And I guess Callum, too. He swore by it now, and attributed it to his quick recovery.
I spotted my favorite French roast coffee, loose-leaf teas, two wheels of cheese, a tiny jar of fig preserves, and half a dozen household staples I’d forgotten to pick up.
It was over the top. It was everything.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “You didn’t have to—”
“We wanted to,” étienne interrupted quietly. “It’s about time you had a place that feels like yours. And hopefully this makes it feel a little more like home.”
I ushered them inside, and they both paused just past the entryway, taking in the house. The scent of lavender drifted through the cracked windows, mixing with the smell of my candles. Emilie exhaled softly, eyes sweeping the space. “It’s beautiful. I can see why you picked it.”
“Thank you,” I said, voice barely there. “It’s… everything.”
She smiled faintly, and I could tell she wanted to ask if I was okay, but didn’t. It was in the way her brows pinched for half a second. How she lingered a moment too long on my face, like she was searching for cracks in the veneer.
I knew she’d seen the headlines; everyone had. The “crash couple” narrative unraveling in real-time. Feral speculation online. France’s Thirty Under Thirty article going live with pictures of Callum’s handprints on my skin. My ongoing fight with the FIA.
Even Emilie wasn’t immune to gossip, but she didn’t ask, and I didn’t offer.
I cleared my throat. “Set those down on the kitchen island? I’ll follow you out. I want to help bring everything in.”
They nodded, and I trailed after them down the porch steps, the scent of lavender stronger now as the breeze picked up from the east.
étienne glanced toward the long gravel path outside, where my navy Alpine sat. “You want me to take that off your hands?”
I let out a soft laugh. “Keep dreaming, trouduc.” Asshole. Then I nodded toward my other car. “She drive okay?”
His lips twitched into a faint smirk, the one that had gotten him through every podium interview since we were kids. “I gave her a quick check. Oil’s fresh and tires are good. She drives like a dream and has been waiting for you.”
We crossed the driveway together, and there she was—my car, my first real love. The vintage Porsche 911.
She sat gleaming in the soft coastal light, Dolphin Gray paint catching faint streaks of gold through the parting clouds. Chrome accents glinted like jewelry. I ran a hand along the hood, the metal warm beneath my fingertips.
This wasn’t just a car. It was a piece of history. My history. Every bolt, every seam had passed through my hands. I’d rebuilt her from scrap and rust, just like I’d rebuilt myself.