Chapter 204 Aurélie #2
“—one super hot Italian prince with unresolved issues,” Marco went on, thumbing at his own chest despite the collective groan of annoyance, completely unfazed, “one walking French Revolution in human form,” he gestured at me, “and one soon-to-be unemployed Scottish legend,” he finished, tipping his bottle toward Callum.
“This is, objectively, the best cast of a reality TV show I’ve ever seen. ”
“We are not doing a reality show,” I said firmly.
“Not unemployed,” Callum grumbled. “If you’re too broke to buy into a Formula 1 team, just say that.”
Marco scoffed. “How dare you?”
“Not to brag or anything, but I can afford that,” Lucy threw out nonchalantly. “Can’t have sex though. You win some, you lose some.”
Ivy patted her arm, tone dry. “It’s okay, darling. I have sex, like, four times a year. You’re not completely alone.”
Marco’s head whipped toward her so fast I heard his neck protest. “I’m sorry—four? What do you mean four?”
“Five if I’m lucky.”
“So the blowjob I walked in on—”
“Yes, Marco,” Ivy cut in crisply. “That would’ve been time number two this year. Thank you so much for that core memory and the reminder that it didn’t even happen. My next hope is the holidays, if the universe decides to be kind.”
He stared at her like someone had just told him Santa wasn’t real. “You’re telling me you look like that and only—”
Ivy blew out a breath, eyes back on the water. “Sex is meaningful to some of us, Marco,” she said, voice softer but no less sharp. “My body’s fucked up enough as it is. I’m not handing it over to anyone who isn’t serious about taking care of it.”
God, I felt that too.
Marco’s mouth opened, then closed. For once, no slick comeback came out. “Yeah,” he said finally, scratching the back of his neck. “Okay. Fair point. I’ll, uh… shut up now.”
“Write this down,” Kimi murmured. “Historic moment. Marco Bianchi acknowledges being wrong.”
That broke the tension. Everyone chuckled, even Ivy.
“Don’t get used to it,” Marco grumbled. “I’m still right about everything else.”
Beside me, Callum’s chest shook with quiet laughter.
His arm tightened around my middle, and then, without warning, he tugged.
I let out a soft oof as he pulled me down with him, rolling us so we were on our sides facing the group, my back tucked against his front.
Our hands propped our heads up. His other hand settled low on my stomach, thumb brushing back and forth just under the hem of where my romper rode up. A slow, maddening stroke.
“Comfortable?” he murmured, mouth close enough that his lips brushed my ear.
“Dangerously,” I whispered back, heat pooling low in my belly. “Behave.”
“Absolutely not,” he said, smug.
Lucy gasped and clasped her hands together. “We’re our very own Breakfast Club,” she breathed. “Detention in paradise. This is my dream.”
Marco perked up immediately. “Dibs on the criminal,” he said.
“Obviously,” Ivy muttered. “I’m the brain. Kimi’s the basket case.”
Kimi lifted a shoulder. “I prefer ‘enigmatic,’ but okay.”
Lucy pointed at herself. “Tragically, I’m the virgin. Typecasting at its finest.” Her gaze slid to me and Callum, still wrapped around each other in the sand. “And you two are… whatever happens when the athlete and the princess make out in the supply closet and never stop.”
I huffed a laugh. “Joke’s on you, we’ve upgraded to kitchen counters.”
Callum’s thumb traced another lazy circle against my skin. “And beaches,” he murmured.
Kimi made a small noise of amusement. “You two are disgusting.”
“And you’re jealous,” I shot back.
He didn’t deny it. Just took a sip of his wine and watched the waves.
The conversation drifted for a while, carried on by the wine and the waves.
We discussed their flight (terrible), the connecting airport (also terrible), the merits of European airplane food versus American airplane food (horrible in different fonts).
Marco reenacted the moment Ivy allegedly threatened to tranquilize him in the middle of Heathrow.
Ivy reenacted the moment Marco nearly got them kicked out of the lounge for shouting about “double penetration” when he meant double points.
“It was an innocent mistake,” he insisted.
“You were talking about strategy,” Ivy said. “To a stranger. At the bar.”
“Semantics.”
All the while, Callum kept slowly, shamelessly winding me up.
Nothing obvious. Just idle fingertip grazes and slow shifts of his hand, like he couldn’t decide where he wanted to touch me most. One minute his thumb drew lazy arcs on my stomach; the next, his knuckles skimmed the outside of my thigh, just far enough from anything dangerous to be deniable.
He nosed at my hair now and then, dropping soft kisses into it, the scruff of his jaw brushing my temple.
Every absentminded stroke, every warm exhale against my ear, made my body hum on a frequency no one else seemed tuned into.
Lucy eventually relaxed enough to lean back on her hands, tilting her face up to the stars.
Under the moonlight, she looked younger than she did on magazine covers, more girl than polished persona.
She dug her toes into the sand like she was trying to ground herself physically. Maybe metaphorically, too.
“Okay,” she said at one point, breaking into a lull. “I have to ask.”
“No, you can’t lose your virginity here,” Marco said immediately.
Lucy choked. “Marco.”
“Jesus Christ, Bianchi,” Ivy groaned, throwing a handful of sand at him.
“I meant—” Lucy flailed her hands for a second, then dropped them. “Not—oh my God. That is not what I was going to ask.”
“Go on then,” Callum said, voice amused. I felt his fingers trace idle circles on my forearm.
She exhaled through her nose. “I was going to ask if you’re scared,” she said.
“About… all of this.” Her gaze flicked to my hand, where the ring gleamed faintly even in low light.
“The engagement. The elopement. The fallout. You keep saying it’s your bubble, your rules.
” She chewed her bottom lip. “But bubbles pop.”
The wine sat low and warm in my stomach. The sand was cool through the fabric of the towel. Callum’s heartbeat thudded against my spine.
I thought about lying. About making a quip. About saying, “Non, I’m très chillée,” and waving it off.
“I’m terrified,” I said instead.
Her eyes widened a little.
“Not of marrying him,” I added quickly. “That part feels like the easiest decision I’ve ever made. Even when he’s being insufferable.” I tipped my head back so I could look up at him. “Which is always.”
He smiled down at me, eyes soft. “Thanks, love.”
“De rien,” I said sweetly. Then I turned my attention back to Lucy.
“I’m scared of… how much the world thinks it owns us,” I said.
“Of what they think they’re entitled to.
Of what they’ll do to get it. The cameras, the leaks, the comments, the fucking…
opinions.” My fingers found his where they rested over my stomach and threaded through them, curling tight in the spaces between his. “I’m scared of losing anything else.”
The word else hung between us like a second moon.
Kimi looked away. Ivy stared at the sand. Marco’s hand found the back of his neck, rubbing hard.
Lucy swallowed. “So why do it now?” she asked quietly. “Why not wait until it’s over? Until things calm down?”
Because they might not. Because the sport was a monster with a bottomless stomach. Because the world had already taken too much.
“There’s never going to be a clean later,” I said. “There’s always another race, another crisis, another fire to put out. Another excuse to say, ‘Not yet. Maybe when it slows down.’” I shook my head. “It doesn’t slow down. It just… changes shape.”
Callum’s hand slid from my arm to my stomach, splaying wide and firm, like he could hold me together from the outside.
“We decided we’d rather build something in the middle of the chaos than keep waiting for permission from people who don’t have to live with the fallout,” he said.
“It’s how we started, and it’s how we’ll continue. ”
I nodded, throat thick with emotion. “If I learned anything this season, it’s that waiting for the perfect time would’ve just delayed everything I’ve ever wanted,” I said. “I don’t want to put my life on layaway anymore.”
“Also,” he added, “she looks very good with my ring on her finger, and I’m extremely impatient.”
That startled a laugh out of me. “C’est vrai,” I conceded. “He is very needy.”
“You love it,” he said.
“Unfortunately,” I said again.
Lucy listened like it was a sermon. “I’ve never been allowed to make a big choice without a boardroom approving it first,” she admitted.
“My childhood stardom. My transition to music. My singles. My tours. My… everything.” She dug her heels deeper into the sand.
“The idea that you two just decided, ‘This is our life, we’re doing it now, everyone else can keep up or get out of the way’, that’s… terrifying. And kind of incredible.”
“You’re allowed to do that too, you know,” Ivy said. Her voice was soft but firm. “Your life doesn’t belong to a label.”
Lucy huffed out a breath that sounded dangerously close to a sob. “Tell that to my contract.”
“We will,” Marco said. “Give us a copy.”
“Do not give them a copy,” Kimi said, then he cocked his head to the side. “On second thought, don’t give Marco a copy.”
“I’m just saying, I can read,” Marco protested. “And I love a good loophole.”
Ivy elbowed him. “You love pushing the envelope.”
“Same thing,” he said.
“Dubois here knows contract language better than anyone I know,” Kimi mentioned.
“Yeah, and her attorney is a fucking shark. They threatened a lawsuit against the goddamn FIA,” Ivy told Lucy.