Chapter Ten
Henri
Instead, every “journalist” who approached me wanted to talk about Lily’s hotel room. The photos of me entering her room were plastered across every tabloid, and the speculation was running wild.
And the worst part? I was to blame.
I shouldn’t have followed her, but after our moment in the elevator, I’d let my heart override any common sense. All because some part of me couldn’t let go. Now Monaco was consumed by speculation about a relationship that didn’t exist—had never existed, because I hadn’t let it.
Imagine if we’d decided to date after Las Vegas, I thought. What a nightmare this all would be.
Although, if I were being truthful, it felt like a nightmare anyway.
I looked out of the Hermes office and onto the harbor, where yachts crowded the water for the race weekend.
Verhoeven cleared his throat as he tried to get my attention.
He sat centered at the conference table in the Hermes briefing room, arms crossed.
Ruth was to his right, a tablet likely full of news articles glowing in front of her.
Michael took the last chair a fraction back from the table.
His crossed arms did nothing to give me comfort.
Verhoeven’s voice cut through the silence as he held up his phone.
“Of all the drivers on the grid, Henri. Of all the teams.” He shook his head, disgust clear on his face.
“You were photographed leaving Lily’s room?
The driver currently beating you in the championship.
” His eyes flickered back down to his phone, clearly assessing the photo of me leaving her hotel room, before looking back up at me accusingly.
“Is this why you were so unfocused in Montreal?”
I froze, pulse thudding in my ears. His words weren’t so much a question as a statement he clearly believed.
I stared at the conference-room table, counting each dent in front of me.
When Ruth rotated the tablet toward me with manicured fingers, I had no choice but to look.
The headline shone bright on the screen.
Hermes F1’s Henri Dubois pictured entering hotel room with
Rennen’s Lily Blackwood after shocking Montreal loss.
I didn’t need to read the story to know exactly what was being said about me. F1’s “former” star had lost his edge because he was sneaking around with Lily Blackwood. Anger rose in my chest, but it became tangled with something worse: a humiliation that grew with every second I sat there silent.
“Nothing happened,” I managed.
“Then explain to me why you were in her hotel room.” Verhoeven’s voice was ice.
“We just talked.”
Verhoeven scoffed. “You just talked.”
To be fair, when he said it out loud, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. In what world would anyone believe Lily and I were “just” talking at 1 a.m. after a race, and in her suite, no less?
I didn’t know what was worse: Verhoeven believing I was losing control because of a woman, or because driving in the rain filled me with panic.
Fuck. It needed to be neither.
He leaned back in his chair, slowly tapping the pen between his fingers as he watched me. “Your focus must return before this weekend. This is not just any race. Our home hospitality is sold out. Your friends and family will be there. There will be eyes everywhere.”
He leaned forward, setting the pen down with careful precision. “Monaco is where we prove Hermes belongs at the top.”
Ruth shifted in her seat, her nail clicking against the tablet screen as she scrolled. “Starting tomorrow, we need you laser-focused on media appearances. We talk about the race only.”
“If they ask about the photos?” I heard myself say.
“You give them nothing,” Ruth said firmly. “Your sister asked you to return something to Lily, and since you were staying at the same hotel, you agreed. That’s all.”
I nodded, my throat tight. I didn’t trust my voice to say anything that wouldn’t make this worse, so I decided not to wait for dismissal. The chair scraped against the floor as I pushed back, my legs unsteady underneath me. I offered a curt nod to Verhoeven before leaving.
“Henri,” Verhoeven called out just as I reached the door.
I turned back.
“We will win Monaco,” he said, his voice flat with certainty. “Nothing else matters this weekend. Understood?”
“Understood.”
By the time I’d reached my room, Michael caught up to me. “They’re right about one thing.”
I opened the door, then turned just enough to be polite. “Which is?”
“You have been off.”
The words landed because they were the only ones spoken without performance. “You think I’m distracted because of her?”
Michael’s gaze held mine. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find out, Henri.”
He then disappeared down the hallway, his hands buried deep in his jacket pockets.
I entered my room and sank onto the plush couch in the corner, pulling out my phone.
The headlines were still there, waiting for me.
I should’ve put it down, but instead, my thumb fell into doom-filled scrolling. Post after post.
Rennen’s Sweetheart Corrupts Hermes’ Star
Dubois Distracted. Can He Recover Before Monaco?
But it was the comments that frustrated me.
She’s ruining him.
Women don’t belong in F1 if they can’t keep their legs shut.
She’ll crash into him again next week just to stay relevant.
My jaw felt tight as I went through each one.
I closed the app before pulling up my contacts.
Her smiling face stared back at me, her name in block letters above it with the jet emoji she’d demanded I add.
A symbol from our first vacation together, back when our friendship was new and uncomplicated.
You okay?
I typed out the two words, staring at them until the letters blurred, then deleted them. Typed them again. Deleted them harder.
What could I possibly say to make this better?
A text popped up from my sister, but I turned off my phone altogether. There wasn’t anything Georgia could say to make today any better. There was only one thing that could shut out all the noise.
Winning the Monaco Grand Prix.
My car was lightning-fast this year, but that would fade over the next few seasons when other teams caught up.
And then, in three years, a new set of rules would change the makeup of the car again.
In F1, when your team gave you the fastest car on track, your only option was to take advantage of that immediately.
I drove home on autopilot and felt incredibly relieved to finally pull up to my apartment. I didn’t bother with lights as I walked straight to the room where my personal simulator lived.
I sat, tightened the pretend belt out of habit, and booted the system. Fans whirred awake as the screens turned on. Monaco loaded, and the first thing I saw was the white barriers that had ended my race last year. Now I hunched over the simulator, running the circuit until my fingers numbed.
“Come on,” I muttered. “You can be faster in that corner.”
I restarted the lap, running it over and over again, each time focusing on the turns.
And then a voice caught me by surprise.
“You didn’t answer your phone,” Georgia called out.
Somehow, the emergency spare key had turned into her barging in whenever she felt like it. Her shoes clicked once on the wood and then went quiet. Her reflection appeared on my screen.
“I can hear you yelling from the hallway. You know you’re not actually in the car, right?”
“Feels close enough.” And then I hit the wall. Virtually, but it still felt personal. The sound cut off in a hiss, and I shifted into neutral.
“Nice,” she said dryly. “You planning to do that on Sunday too?”
I didn’t turn around. “If you came here to lecture me, don’t. I’ve had enough for one day.”
“I came because you’re trending online,” she said, not unkindly, “and trending because of relationship drama is sort of my area of expertise.”
I rolled my eyes at the reference to her own very public relationship drama she and Luca had experienced a few years ago.
Although, in this scenario, our positions were reversed.
There would be no PR relationship for me and Lily.
As far as our teams were concerned, they’d rather the other person not exist.
“I’m fine.” The same words I couldn’t stop saying.
“So you’ve said.” Her eyes met mine for a brief moment before I looked back at the screen.
“They had the nerve to ask me if I’ve been unfocused because of her.”
“Well, are you? I mean, if I’m being honest, Henri, I always thought you and Lily might have ended up togeth—”
“No.” The word came too fast, and I exhaled, feeling exposed. “It’s this championship fight. We’re only a third of the way through, and it’s already brutal.”
Georgia didn’t look convinced. I reached for the track restart button—anything to end the conversation—but she caught my wrist midair. “Something’s off. You don’t have to tell the whole paddock, but you can tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
I looked away, watching the monitor go idle. “It doesn’t matter. It’s my race. I’ll fix it.”
Georgia had no intention of backing down. “You’ve been off all season. You snap at everyone. You barely sleep. You drive like you’re on a razor’s edge.”
“I’m preparing,” I said, too quickly.
“For what? A nervous breakdown?”
“For my home race!” Frustration leaked into my voice.
“I think you’re doing that thing you always do.” Her voice softened. “You get backed into a corner, and instead of asking for help you convince yourself everyone else is the problem.”
I bit down on a bitter laugh. “Did you rehearse that?”
“Only since birth.” She moved closer, deliberately blocking part of the computer monitor. “You think staying silent makes you strong.”
“And you think talking fixes everything.”
“Not everything,” she said quietly. “But it’s a start.”
I reached for the wheel again.
“You’re burning yourself out. You keep pretending the problem is outside the car when”—she pointed to me—“it’s sitting right here.”
“Enough, Georgia.” I jumped out of the seat, grabbing my water from the cup holder next to me.
“D‘accord, I’ll stop asking. For now. But if you crash again because of whatever this is, we’re having a serious conversation about this.” Then she stepped toward the kitchen, flicking on a light. “You’ve eaten, right?”
“I’m not hungry, and I’ve got laps to finish.”
She turned, grabbing her bag from the counter. “You know what I think?”
I sighed. “You’ll tell me anyway.”
“I think you’re too proud to admit when something’s wrong. And too scared to figure out what’ll happen if you stop pretending that you’re fine.” Her voice cracked a little at the end, which made me look away.
“Good night, Georgie.”
“Bonne nuit, idiot.”
She closed the door quietly. The apartment went quiet again except for the faint hum of traffic below. I could’ve told her everything. I almost did. But once you start naming the things that scare you, they start to become real.
So instead, I restarted the simulator. The computer hummed back to life, and the engine noise filled the apartment, loud enough to drown out everything else.
If I couldn’t fix myself, I could at least fix my driving.