Chapter 200 Callum #2
I paused and turned to face her, slipping my fingers beneath her jaw and tilting her chin up. “Auri, I’m gonna be your husband. Besides, we already established I’m not half-assing the spousal duties. We already agreed, we’re all in, yeah? That’s the whole bloody point of committing to forever.”
She snickered and bit her lip. “More like… committing to our line.” She surged up on her toes and kissed me. Soft. Certain. Sunlight-warm. Enough to make my stomach flip. When she pulled back, we both burst into laughter as I opened the door, her fingertips brushing mine like a promise.
“But seriously, we don’t have a choice, mon amour. I can’t let my family find out when the rest of the world does.”
We stepped into the sun, our trainers crunching the loose rocks on the pavement.
“I know, baby.”
She glanced up at me. “I also don’t want to miss the bloom.”
“To see the wild ones for yourself?”
“Something like that.”
The trailhead was just beyond the hill our villa sat atop, marked by a set of weather-worn stones and a narrow path that disappeared into sun-dappled olive trees. The sea sparkled just to the left, and the breeze carried hints of rosemary and salt.
The idea of telling her family didn’t scare me. We’d start with catching up on the small things to ease them into it. Just enough to test the waters before casually dropping by the way, we’re married now.
Because that was the thing about falling in love with someone who already knew the worst of you.
You didn’t have to justify the speed. You just had to show up. And I’d never been more sure I wanted to show up for her for the rest of my life.
I reached for her hand as we walked, our fingers tangling like it was instinct. Like we’d been doing it our whole lives.
“Once we’re back,” she said, brushing her fingers over my collar, “it’s going to hit the press immediately. You do realize that, right?”
I let out a dry laugh as I opened the door. “Oh, I can see the headlines already. Formula 1’s Most Eligible Bachelor… Taken. Forever.”
She rolled her eyes. “More like, Rookie Claims the Champion’s Title… Or His Last Name.”
“Mmm, no. Fraser Acquires Dubois. Market Closed. Asset Off-Limits.”
She snorted. “You’re not serious.”
“Deadly. Might add a line about daily dividends paid in orgasms.”
“You’re a menace.”
“I’m your menace.”
“Oui, and if you keep it up, the next headline will be, Sources Say: She Pegged Him into Early Retirement.”
That stopped me dead in my tracks. I turned to gape at her, jaw dropping. “That’s a hard no, Auri.”
Silence. She just smirked, breezing down the pebbled path toward the trailhead like she hadn’t just ended me in eight words. I wasn’t prepared for how hot it was that she said it like a challenge. But that was a hard limit for me.
“I’m serious. Never in this lifetime.”
“Alright, no bloodletting either,” she chirped. “Vampire kink is where I tap out.”
I choked. “What the fuck are you reading?”
“I don’t know! Tumblr was a lawless place! And also—stupid Red Flagged and Red Lace. Apparently fictional us are into everything.”
“Aurélie.”
“That is my name,” she shot back lightly. “Try not to ruin it before we reach the climax.”
I went completely blank for a beat, blood rerouting south like it had a mind of its own. Then I caught up to her and gripped the back of her neck, possessive and grounding all at once.
“Sex Tape in Milos? Sources Say: She Screamed So Loud, the Goats Fainted.”
That earned me a shove to the ribs and a strangled laugh she tried to cover with a cough. A group of sweaty-faced tourists exited the trailhead just as we reached it.
“Stop it. Someone will run with that.”
“Good,” I said, utterly shameless. “Let them know I go down like a gentleman.”
“Oh, please. There was nothing gentlemanly about what you said when your tongue was deep in my p—” Two hikers rounded the corner of the trail. Aurélie cleared her throat and smiled demurely. “—mon… panini?”
I stumbled like she’d just hit me with a brick, the couple awkwardly averting their gazes as they passed us. “Your panini?”
She huffed and kept walking. “No. Nope. We’re not talking about it.”
I caught up, absolutely feral. “You called it your panini, Aurélie. That’s a sandwich.”
“I am the sub for a reason, right?”
“Christ, baby,” I groaned. “Hottest culinary slip-up of my life.”
“Shut up.”
“I will toast that sandwich, mo chridhe. I’ll press it slow, melt it until it’s dripping, spread it wide, tie it down, and tell it exactly when it’s allowed to come off the plate.”
“Callum!”
“I’m not joking. Mon panini is going in my vows. And tattooed on my goddamn thigh, right under elle saura.”
She recoiled like I’d slapped her with a baguette. “So it reads, ‘she’ll know… my panini’?”
“Exactly.” I winked. “Spiritual text.”
She scrunched her nose, then peeked up at me with a wicked grin. “Champion’s Wife Bends for the Breadwinner.”
I smirked, voice dark with promise. “Damn right. And right under that? Sources Confirm: He Eats It Like a Gentleman.”
She gave me a long, withering look. “If you make even one more sandwich joke, I’m calling off the elopement and joining the convent at the top of this hill.”
Aurélie hiked like she did everything—determined, slightly chaotic, and stubborn enough to keep pace even when the incline turned steep. Her ponytail bounced with every step, and I caught myself staring at the nape of her neck longer than I should have. It was the first place she started to sweat.
She paused halfway up a rocky incline, hands on her hips. “How much further?”
I grabbed the trail map I’d stuffed into one of my pack’s pockets, unfolding it and scanning with my eyes. “Another kilometer.”
“Race you.”
“Absolutely not. The last time we did this, I had you pinned against a tree in thirty seconds—”
She bolted before I could finish my sentence. I cursed under my breath and took off after her.
The incline was surprisingly steep, zigzagging across uneven rock and packed dirt, narrow enough that I couldn’t pass her without risk of knocking us both off balance. But she kept glancing over her shoulder, laughing like a damn siren, daring me to chase her.
We moved fast. Less of a hike, more of an uphill sprint.
Heart pounding, lungs and legs burning, sweat dripping along my spine as we pushed through switchbacks and stone steps carved into the side of the mountain.
Ten minutes, maybe eleven at most, was all it took for us to reach the top.
Two very fit, competitive athletes operating on pure adrenaline and horny spite.
We reached the top both out of breath and laughing. The view stretched out below us like something out of a film. Whitewashed buildings tucked between olive trees, the Aegean Sea shimmering in the distance. She turned to me, cheeks flushed and temples glistening with sweat, and grinned.
“Okay,” she said, breathless. “This was worth skipping breakfast."
I pulled her in by the waist, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “Told you."
She wore a bright pink sports bra and the tiniest pair of workout shorts I’d ever seen.
Her hair was up in a ponytail, strands stuck to the back of her neck.
I clocked it before she did. She hated when her hair clung to her skin, which was why she always braided her hair when she knew she’d be driving.
I reached for the clip she kept hooked to her pack, took the tie out, and raked my fingers through her scalp before twisting it all up for her. I secured the clip in place and stepped back, admiring my work.
“You’re getting good at that,” she teased.
“Practice makes perfect.”
And I had practiced quite a bit back home in the countryside.
I’d play with her hair while we watched movies or when she pored over telemetry and data late into the night.
Studied how she pulled it up. Learned how to braid—messily, but still.
She had a lot of hair, thick and long, and if the one thing I could do on days she felt sick and vomited was help her with this mass of hair… I would.
We turned back to admire the stunning view. Whitewashed buildings spilled down the hillside. The cerulean sea stretched all the way to the horizon. But nothing came close to how she looked at me.
I knew I wouldn’t remember every detail of the view, but I would remember her.
We didn’t talk for a while. Just stood there together, shoulder to shoulder, breathing in the fresh air. I dropped my arm and slipped my hand into hers. We stayed like this, not speaking. There was something sacred about the quiet.
Eventually, she sat on a sun-warmed rock and unlatched the water bottle from her pack, offering it to me before taking a sip herself.
I sat beside her, body still humming from the uphill climb, and finally let myself think about the call with my parents. They’d been surprised, sure, but not disappointed like I’d feared. Or hurt that they didn’t know about the engagement or retirement before any of it was decided.
It was all just love and pride and understanding.
Mum cried from joy, relief, and the deep, shuddering kind of feeling only a mother has when she knows her child is safe. Her words, not mine, after all the turmoil she’d felt during my childhood.
Dad had looked stunned for all of two seconds, then nodded like he’d known all along. Told me I was doing the right thing and that he could breathe easier knowing I wasn’t alone in the world anymore. I’d already accomplished what he’d set out for me to do.
And, of course, the flagrant relief that their only child wouldn’t be strapped into a machine designed to go ungodly, dangerous speeds for a living.
"She loves you for you, not for who the world thinks you are," he’d said. "That matters more than anything."
It stuck with me. The way they didn’t see my retirement as a loss. They saw it as a new beginning and more of a life than what the restrictions of a driver offered me. Us.