Chapter Thirty-Two
Lily
I hated how everyone looked at me when I arrived at the garage this morning for free practice. Pity was written all over their faces. I didn’t want to be pitied.
I didn’t want anything but to crawl back up to my hotel room and cry. I climbed out of the car, pulling off my helmet. At least the Friday free practice sessions were done, and soon I’d be back at my hotel.
My phone buzzed in my pocket as I walked back toward the garage. Georgia’s name lit up the screen.
Georgia:
Have you seen this?
A link followed. I almost didn’t tap it—I’d had enough of articles about myself for one lifetime. But the preview thumbnail showed Henri’s face, not mine, and the headline beneath it stopped me mid-stride.
Formula 1 Champion Opens Up: “She’s the Reason I’m Still Racing”
I leaned against the concrete wall outside the garage and opened it. A major sports outlet. Not the small magazine Ollie had used—this was one of the biggest platforms in European sports media. Published forty minutes ago.
My eyes caught fragments before my brain could process them. Anxiety attacks. Hidden struggle. After Miami. Then my own name, threaded through his words like a pulse.
“She’s the bravest person I know.”
My thumb hovered over the screen. The concrete pressed cold through my race suit.
“She walked into a sport that was designed to exclude her, and she didn’t just survive the sport. She’s winning in it.”
I read that line three times. My vision blurred on the fourth.
Georgia:
Lily? Are you reading it?
“Lily!” Felix’s voice cut through the garage noise, and I turned to see him beckoning me toward his office, a smile on his face that seemed oddly genuine given the circumstances.
I followed him, grateful to have a proper reason to escape the chaos of the garage.
Felix closed the door behind us, and the sudden quiet was almost jarring.
“Well, here’s some good news.” He picked up his phone, scrolling through something. “Look what I just got sent!” Felix began reading, his face lightening up as he reached a particular passage he must have liked.
“‘Henri Dubois has long been considered the golden boy of Formula 1. Talented, the kind of good-looking face sponsors love, and with a successful career to back it up. But behind the carefully crafted image lies a struggle that Dubois himself has only recently begun to acknowledge: the debilitating anxiety following his near-fatal crash in Miami earlier this season.’”
My breath caught in my chest.
“‘In an exclusive interview, Dubois spoke candidly about his battle with anxiety, the intrusive thoughts that plagued him since the accident, and his determination to face these demons rather than run from them. “I could’ve hidden it,” Dubois told Alex Muncy. “I could’ve pretended everything was fine, like I’d been doing.
But I realized that hiding it was making me weaker, not stronger.
If I want to be the driver I know I can be, I have to be honest about what I’m fighting. ”’”
Felix paused, glancing up at me.
My hands were gripping the armrests of my chair as my brain tried to catch up. I couldn’t speak. The words had stolen my voice, replacing it with something hot in my throat that might have been tears if I had any more to cry.
Felix set his phone down, his expression softening. “I haven’t seen an article spread this fast in years. Who knew Henri was going through all of this?”
“He…” I swallowed hard, trying to organize the chaos of emotions swirling through me. Pride. So much pride it felt like it might burst out of my chest. “He did that for me, so the Ollie article on the threats would be buried.”
“I suspect he did it for both of you,” Felix said. “But yeah, the timing probably wasn’t coincidental. Obviously, we don’t want these threats circling around the media until we’ve been able to investigate ourselves, so this article couldn’t have been timed better.”
I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to process all the words I’d just heard.
Henri had exposed his deepest vulnerability and made himself the story to protect me.
The same Henri who guarded his privacy like Smaug the dragon hoarding gold.
The same Henri who’d been so terrified to even tell his engineer.
Or his sister.
“Felix, I—”
“I know,” Felix sighed. “I’m proud of him, too, Lily. And honestly? I’m proud he came forward about the threats too. That took guts.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak yet.
“Felix, I need to ask you something.”
“Go on.”
“The morality clause in my contract.” I steadied my voice, forcing it into something resembling calm. “I want it removed.”
“Lily—”
“Luca doesn’t have one. You never insisted on it.
My mother was the one who negotiated it in because she thought it would make me look professional, make the sponsors feel safe.
But it’s been hanging over my head all season, and it’s not fair.
” I was speaking faster now, the words spilling out with a conviction I hadn’t felt in weeks.
“Your two drivers are dating other drivers, and so far? We’re winning the Constructors’ Championship.
It’s not hurting the team. It’s not hurting the sponsors. The only thing it’s hurting is me.”
Another pause. Then Felix laughed—a warm, genuine sound that loosened something heavy in my chest.
“You know, I was going to bring this up with you after the race. Thomas and I discussed it yesterday.” I could hear him smiling through the phone. “Consider it done.”
“Really?”
“It’s unfair. It always was, and I should’ve have pushed back on it sooner.” His voice softened. “I think we can manage this with Hermes. I already do with Valkyrie.”
I leaned my head back against the garage wall, blinking up at the strip lighting. “Felix, thank you. I’ll have my… new manager… reach out.”
“New manager, huh?” Felix leaned back in his office chair. “Good for you. Feels like its time.”
I laughed, the sound cracking through the emotional dam I’d been holding back all day. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”
I walked straight to my hotel suite after leaving Felix’s office, my mind still buzzing with everything—Henri’s article, the morality clause, Ollie’s article.
But underneath the warmth of those revelations, there was something harder.
Something that had been festering since the beginning of the season.
I needed to talk to my mother.
I swiped my key card and pushed open the door, already rehearsing what I wanted to say. But the words died in my throat.
My mother was sitting on the sofa in my suite, with her legs crossed and a glass of sparkling water in her hand, like she owned the place. And sitting across from her, leaning back in the armchair like he belonged there, was Ollie.
They both looked up when I walked in. My mother smiled. Ollie at least had the decency to look uncomfortable.
“Lily, darling,” my mother said, rising to her feet. “I was just telling Oliver how well things are going. Have you seen the engagement numbers since—”
“Get out.”
The words came out quieter than I intended, but they landed like a grenade. My mother blinked back surprise. Ollie shifted in his seat.
“Lillian—” my mother started.
“No. I want to know why he’s in my room.” I pointed at Ollie without looking at him. “Why is he here, Mum?”
“He came to see me, and I thought we could all have a civilized conversation about—”
“About what? About how he published my private life for clicks?” My voice cracked, and I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t even be angry without sounding like I was about to cry. “About how he took things I told him in confidence and turned them into a headline?”
My mother set down her glass with a delicate clink. “Lily, I think you’re overreacting. The article wasn’t ideal, I’ll grant you that, but all PR is good PR. Your name is everywhere right now. This is exactly the kind of visibility we’ve been—”
“We?” I stared at her. “There is no we. And my name is everywhere because of Henri. Not him.”
Something flickered across my mother’s face—hurt, maybe, or the performance of it. It was always hard to tell with her.
“I’m trying to help you, Lily. That’s all I’ve ever done.”
“Then stop.” The word came out raw. “Just stop.”
Ollie cleared his throat, and I finally forced myself to look at him. He looked smaller than I remembered. Less polished. The confident media personality who’d sat across from me in restaurants and smiled like we shared secrets—he looked like a man who’d been caught.
“Lily, I know you’re upset—”
“Upset doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“I understand that. And I want to explain—”
A knock at the door cut him off. I almost ignored it, but something—instinct, maybe—made me cross the room and open it.
Henri stood in the hallway, still in his team gear. He looked like he’d come straight from the circuit. His expression was tense, guarded, but when his eyes found mine, something in them softened.
“Lily, I—” He stopped. Looked past me into the room. Saw Ollie. Saw my mother. He reflexively stepped back.
“Oh,” he said, his voice cooling by several degrees.
“They were just leaving,” I said, stepping aside to let him in.
Henri walked into the suite with the kind of quiet authority that I’d recognized from last season.
He didn’t acknowledge Ollie, and he barely glanced at my mother.
Instead, Henri just stood near the window with his arms crossed, radiating a calm that I knew—from years of knowing him—was barely held together.
“Lily,” Ollie said again, standing now, his hands raised slightly like he was approaching a spooked animal. “Just let me explain. Please. Five minutes.”
“You don’t deserve five minutes,” I said.
“You’re right. I don’t.” He avoided my gaze. “But I want you to hear it from me before you hear it from someone else.”
I folded my arms. Said nothing. Let the silence do the work.
Ollie scratched the back of his neck. “The podcast was killing me. You have no idea what it’s like.
The producers wanted gossip, they wanted drama, they wanted me to turn every conversation into content.
I hated it. I hated what I was becoming.
” He paused, and for a half-second, something genuine passed over his face.
“I want to be a real journalist. An actual writer, not just some guy with a microphone making hot takes for downloads. And when your mum started pushing us together—”
“Excuse me?” My mother’s voice was sharp.
“—I saw an opportunity,” Ollie finished, ignoring her. “You were the story of the season, Lily. A female driver in Formula 1, fighting for points, dealing with threats. It was everything I needed to prove I could write something that mattered.”
The room was very still.
“So, I was your audition piece,” I said flatly.
Ollie’s mouth opened and then closed. He looked at the floor. “That’s not—I didn’t plan it like that. Not at first.” His voice dripped with apology, but I didn’t believe him. Not this time.
“In the article, you mentioned things I knew I hadn’t told you, Ollie.”
He didn’t respond to my unspoken accusation.
The thoughts that I’d spent the last several hours piecing together.
The article contained details that went beyond what he could have gleaned from my desk.
References to notes I hadn’t laid out that morning.
Descriptions of deliveries he shouldn’t have known about, unless—
Unless he’d known about them before he ever walked into my room.
“You used me for a story! And even worse, a story that you created!”
“Lily—” The panic on his face was confirmation enough.
And perhaps I should have been relieved.
Of all the options about who it could have been, this was a better one.
I stared at him for a long moment. The anger was still there, burning steady in my chest, but underneath it was something worse.
Disappointment. Not because I’d trusted Ollie, but because I’d wanted to.
Because for a brief, stupid moment, I’d thought maybe he was actually someone safe.
A mistake I wouldn’t make so easily next time.
“Get out.”
Ollie looked at Henri, maybe hoping for some kind of intervention, but there would be no sympathy to be found.
“You might want to hurry, Ollie,” Henri said, his voice low and even. “I spoke with Alex Muncy this afternoon. I don’t think you’d like to be the focus of his next article.” He paused, letting that sink in.
Ollie stood frozen for a moment, looking between us like he was searching for a crack in the wall.
He didn’t find one. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and walked to the door.
He paused with his hand on the handle, like he was going to say something else—some final appeal, some last attempt to rewrite the narrative.
But wisely, he thought better of it, not caring to look back as he left the room. The silence that followed was enormous.
My mother smoothed down her skirt, her composure slowly rebuilding. “Well. That was rather dramatic.”
“Mum.” I turned to face her. “You’re fired.”