Chapter 27 Tactical Error
When I meet Bernard for breakfast at a restaurant across from the pit building, he looks so intensely sweaty and nervous and disheveled that I almost feel bad for him.
There isn’t any separation between the Monaco Grand Prix and Monte Carlo—and everyone waiting to speak with the front hostess is staring.
He pulls at his shirt collar when it’s our turn to speak. “A private room, please.”
“I’m so sorry, Bernard.” She frowns. “All of our private dining rooms are taken.”
I shift. My fault for canceling last night. This is going to be a very public breakup, then. “Are you sure?” Bernard leans to look over the seating chart, and the hostess pulls the laminated paper away from his view with a polite grimace.
“Positive. How about a balcony with only two other tables?”
“Well…” His eyes flash to me hesitantly. “Okay.”
I follow behind them, looking at my fingernails. By the time I’d woken up this morning, Faust had been gone, with only a note on the bedside table.
Need to prep for race. Call me after.
No kiss goodbye, then.
The tiny balcony overlooks the track and the water, and the waiter promises fast service so Mr. Baudelaire and “the Miss” can get back to his busy day. “Everyone knows you,” I say, crossing my legs. I’m in a white beaded dress that’s mostly thighs and arms. With love, to Imogen.
“Yeah, they don’t pretend not to here.”
“That’s fun.”
“Sometimes. Hey—thanks for meeting me. I really am sorry about, uh, the post.”
I shrug. “Thank you for the patience while I considered how I felt.”
It’s an ideal setup. He must know it’s coming. Bernard goes for his ice water, scowling. He’s in the standard pre-race getup, a Leone Racing polo shirt and slacks, and the gold looks dreadful next to the beige of his pants. But other than that, he’s cleanly shaven. This probably won’t destroy him.
God, I need to exit this situation. I’m starting to consider shitty men’s feelings.
Behind him, another couple is seated on our balcony. The older man smiles knowingly at Bernard, while the young woman peers curiously, then whispers to her date. Bingo. More public.
Rip the Band-Aid off. Get paid. Leave.
I can do this.
My fingers tingle as I slide the tube of Revlon’s Fire and Ice out of my pocket and swipe the bright red on.
“Hey, Bernard. There is something that I wanted to talk to you about—”
“Me, too,” he cuts me off. “The, uh, the—it’s so nice out. Can’t remember a better day for driving.”
“Oh, right.” I take a perfunctory look around me. “It’s really pretty.”
“And you are, too. You’re so…” His lashes flutter as he thinks. “How’s Faust?”
“Oh! Fine.”
“Yeah?” He leans toward me, thrilled to be on a topic that makes me sound surprised. Surprised equals excitement, excitement equals happy, or something. “He’s a shoo-in to win today.”
“Seems to be the case.” Does he think he can just wordsmith me away from dumping him? “And about—”
“I was really happy to hear from him when he called. Not that I was happy about why he called, but to hear from him. We’ll always be brothers, whether he likes it or not.
” Bernard’s fully rambling now. He barely stops when the waiter brings us a complimentary appetizer; twin quiches with red sauce piped on to look like tire treads.
“He’s talked about this to you, too, hasn’t he? That he’s happy to reconnect with me?”
“Not really.”
“That’s fine. Not like my family basically had to raise him or anything.
” He looks up, waiting for me to laugh at Faust’s expense, like I used to.
But I don’t, and Bernard grabs a quiche, popping it into his mouth and swallowing hard.
“I might need to, uh, get back to the garage soon. Would you want to walk with me after we eat?”
Weird. Though my warning bell dings, he’s delaying the inevitable. He knows it. I know it. “Sure.”
And I could dump him here. Would’ve, if he hadn’t made those comments about Faust. We’ll always be brothers? Had to raise him? Suddenly, a walk back to the garage sounds wonderful, with all our Formula 1 friends milling about. Best weekend of the year.
Bernard tries to be a gentleman throughout the remainder of brunch.
He orders me orange juice, asks about how my job is going, only mentions brand sponsorships once.
When we get up to leave, he waits for me by the door and smiles at the other couple.
Little do they know, but it’s fine. He can pretend this is okay until I break the illusion.
“I was surprised by your text the other day, too,” he says as we walk back toward the paddock. We’re only one street and some green space away, though it’s crowded, fans of all types stopping to point at us.
“Which one?”
“The picture of you and, and Imogen?”
“Oh yeah. We go way back, like I said.”
“Small world.”
He doesn’t sound suspicious, just pallid. His worst fear has been made real: women knowing each other and potentially discussing him.
“She didn’t mention you, either, if that’s what you’re asking,” I say with a smile.
He frowns. Second worse fear: his ex has moved on. “Great.”
We’ve reached the back walkway to the “staff-only” area of the paddock. From here, Bernard can meander his way by the brand activations and staffers and guided tours, to the Leone Racing garages. This is the last stop on our ride.
“Bernard.”
Exhaling, he stops in place, looking my way. “Cat.”
“I really did want to talk about something with you—before the race.”
He nods. Once, then twice. “I did, too,” he says with utter determination.
I pause, surprised by the fire in his tone.
“Okay,” I say slowly. Too late for it now.
Always, but particularly now. With a deep breath, I reach back to my rehearsed spiel, words I’ve said a thousand times before.
I’m sorry. It’s over. Goodbye. You do kind of suck.
I’m so good at this, and I guess Faust was right.
I like to design memories, though as a heartbreaker, they’re bad ones.
“Bernard,” I repeat, glancing cautiously at the camera crew behind him. It isn’t Lilah and the documentary, thank God, but some country’s paddock broadcast. I lower my voice. “We’ve had such a special time these last two months…”
A strange smile crosses his lips, surprised but relieved. “I know.”
“Because what are the odds we’d meet, right?”
He laughs, more relieved. “I know.”
“That’s why—”
“No, let me,” he murmurs.
Then, Bernard does something I’ve never seen before.
He takes my hand and drops down on one knee.
Time slows down and with it, so do sounds.
I watch Bernard’s lips move before his words can register—“Cat, we’re clearly meant to be together.
I’ve known it since I first saw you, standing by that track in England, smiling at me.
All my values, what I want in life, you want those things, too.
It’s like we’re the same person. And thinking about how I hurt you these past few weeks—Cat Cromwell, the most perfect woman—it just destroyed me.
That’s how I know you’re the one for me.
That everything and everyone has been leading me to you.
” I see him pulling out a large, Grace Kelly–style engagement ring from a velvet box before I hear the sounds of the camera crew swinging my way, the paddock stopping in its tracks around me like it’s a goddamn river and I’m a truck of cement.
“Ms. Cat Cromwell,” Bernard says, loud enough for the cameras to hear him. “Will you marry me?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Whirling, though nothing comes out.
I have no idea what to say, and yet time isn’t going slow anymore.
Suddenly, it’s fast. And it’s hot, and there are people watching around the world, and my beaded dress is weighing too heavy on my chest, the hemline pressing into my thighs, and Imogen was right—completely predictable.
And every second that I don’t answer is another second where this is happening. Bernard is proposing to me.
Holy shit.
I take a wobbly step back on very wobbly feet. “Um. That’s—thank you, Bernard, but—we’ve only known each other for… for a few months, really.”
This isn’t what I should be saying. This is when I should be flexing my true bite.
Going for the kill. People are literally watching, there is a cameraman broadcasting this.
I can tell Bernard off. I should be telling Bernard off.
You partner with companies that break people’s lives.
You lost your best friend and outed his private medical information because you’d rather burn a bridge than face the truth.
You’re proposing to a woman who ran away the one time you tried to kiss her.
You’re a billionaire, and the real world hates you, just outside those Paddock Club gates.
But I’m still working on swallowing. Breathing, too. And when Bernard’s eyebrows start to pinch in anxious confusion, my eyes swing up to the far-off exit to make a break for it.
Only the exit isn’t empty.
There’s a man standing there.
Two, actually. And a girl.
Water starts rushing against my eardrums as I register the shape of the shoulders in the backlit doorway—broad, tall, wavy hair—and then the roar is deafening, threatening to drag me under. Because that’s Faust. Faust is here. Watching.
And so is my dad. And so is my sister Maisie.
My lower back hits a low walkway railing behind me with a painful throb.
No.
No. He wouldn’t, he didn’t—he wouldn’t have brought my dad and sister here. Faust knew that would be crossing my boundaries because—yes, I have them, oh, fuck, I have boundaries—and suddenly I’m whispering, “Dad?” as I push past Bernard, still on the ground on one knee. “Maisie?”
“Kiddo!” Dad’s rushing to me, a huge grin on his face.
There are wrinkles there that I don’t remember.
“Oh, Cady-Cat. I knew it was real,” he says, and then he’s hugging me.
My garage mechanic dad is hugging me in the middle of Monte Carlo, and with a sickening jolt I realize it’s because he just saw me get proposed to.
Then my shoulder’s being squeezed, Maisie joining in, Dad’s big arms around my shoulders and Maisie’s little fingers winding in the back of my dress, and I’m constricted, trapped.
Caught. They saw it. They clearly think I said yes.
This is awful.
“Sorry, can you just…” I slither from their arms, glancing panicked between their beaming faces.
Maisie’s got a dove-gray Stark-Benzin hat on, her frizzy orange curls poking out beneath it, and for a long, painful moment I consider ignoring all of this—the proposal, my dad—everything that isn’t taking her to the bathroom and running water and cheap soap in my hands until I can reset her ringlets for her. But I can’t. Because they know.
They’re going to know how much I’ve lied to them for years.
So I start walking. Pacing.
Right toward Faust.
He’s a tall shadow by the exit and I grab his wrist, temporarily forgetting that Bernard must be watching this, and maybe I don’t care about any of that anymore because I’m pulling him into the stairwell with me.
And he’s quiet. Silent as we stand on the blank white landing, the harsh lights flickering overhead.
Silent as I make a choked noise in the back of my throat—I’m so angry I can’t speak—and dart upstairs, to the only other doorway, onto a balcony.