20. Chapter 20
20
Chapter 20
FINN
E ven though it’s winter break we’re expected to keep up with our training regimen. I drop my gym bag on the floor and make my way to the terrace, where the wall of glass has been thrown open. She’s sitting on the terrace, her bare feet up on the table next to an empty cup of coffee. I can’t help but think back to that day at the hotel. I hadn’t slept the night before. I had willed her to come to me, like she always did, and somewhere in the small hours of the morning I realised she wouldn’t. That she never would again. She had broken free of that spell, the one that drew her to me despite her best intentions.
I was proud of her.
I had to go to her.
Pacing furiously up and down the room, I had rehearsed what I’d say to her.
And when I finally made my way down to her room, after having to phone Dixon, no thanks to the hotel staff, everything I had so carefully rehearsed flew right out the fucking window.
She was in yesterday’s clothes and her hair, it was an absolute bramble of curls, wild and lush.
I gave her the hair tie back. It had been hers all along, I guess.
I had told her it was her choice to make. Like it had been my mothers. My mother had chosen to leave.
Camille had chosen to stay.
She had chosen to stay while I took on another two years of racing, a dangerous sport, one that ruined lives forever, and she chose to do it unafraid.
She shields her eyes from the sun when I step outside, looks up at me.
Every time we sit here, we remember our first night here, and I have to fight a raging erection. She flew over last week. The racing season is over and she’s joining me on winter break.
Which means I get to make love to her on every surface in this goddamn house.
I adjust my jeans and she laughs, swings her legs down, and waves me towards the empty seat. She snatches her phone off the table.
“Listen to this.” She scrolls to the correct article and starts reading out loud.
“Rheese Knox, driver for Ainsworth-Sinclair based in the UK, has expressed his enthusiasm at the prospect of Finnegan Brennan signing on for two more years of driving with Delta Victor.” She grins up at me. “When asked about it he said, and I quote directly, ‘Finn gave me a challenge this year, but had to fall out because of an injury. I’m tired of the speculation. I look forward to beating him next year, so that everyone can see once and for all that I am the better driver, whether or not he has his mojo back.’”
“Now that sounds like a fun challenge for next year.” I smile at her.
She laughs, a merry sound that spills over the garden.
It takes the very air from my lungs. This thing we have, it feels so fragile. And yet, it’s the foundation that I am building my life on.
An actual life.
“Dinner tonight in town?” I ask as I take the seat opposite her.
She shakes her head. “I have a meeting with Rupert. We’re trying to schedule as much of the filming for next year as we can. Velocity is giving us a behind the scenes look at what happens at their headquarters over the winter break, and Bianchi might actually follow suit.”
I grin at her.
“You going to do some espionage while you’re at it?”
I’m joking, because actually when my agent announced our relationship there was a severe backlash from the other teams. She gets an inside look that was unparalleled in the industry, and everyone was freaking out that she’d be leaking secrets to Delta Victor. We had to sign NDAs as thick as telephone books before they even remotely started calming down.
WebFlix Max also hadn’t been impressed.
It helped that we started sleeping together mid-way through last season, a published fact that she balked at when it was released. She still wasn’t used to being on the news.
But since she hadn’t spilled their secrets throughout the year, at least she had built a foundation of trust amongst the other teams.
“Hey.” I smile at her. “Ollie’s wife is in labour.”
“No way!”
“Yeah.” I grin. “Thought you’d like to know that. ”
She grins back at me.
“So, how about dinner tomorrow night?”
She laughs, shakes her head. “Amy lands tomorrow. She’s over for a week. I’m thinking I should invite Jay, too. See if there’s anything there.”
I groan. I like Amy. And I like Jay. I just also like it when Camille walks naked through the house and lets me tip her back on the carpet in front of the fireplace…
“Finn!”
I startle. “Yeah?”
“I’m saying Jack’s coming over for lunch tomorrow. Apparently, you guys need to test the new car design over the next few weeks. Erik is beyond excited.”
“Right.”
“Aren’t you excited?”
I mull it over. “Yes.”
She laughs. She’s been teasing me since she’s been back. She says I talk slower, take longer pauses. She says I’m talking with intent.
Oddly, it’s the best compliment I have ever received in my life.
I snatch the edge of the table and give it a shake.
The empty cup rattles in the saucer and she jumps forwards to grab it, protecting it from falling with her hands.
“Finn!”
“What?”
“What are you doing?”
“I wanted to clear the table. Put you up there instead.”
I shake the table again.
“Finn!”
* * *
FINN
She’s a fucking vision. She wears an emerald-green dress I bought her, a silk thing that pools at her feet, backless with two thin straps that cross each other just beneath her shoulder blades. I’m already dressed. I just came to see how far she was, to hurry her along.
She’s trying to step into dainty strappy stilettos, tugging the silk up over her creamy legs, picking up her feet to buckle the straps.
Fuck that.
When she stands upright, I grab her by the back of her head, my fingers sinking into the golden curls she had carefully piled up, loose strands tumbling down to frame her face.
Her lips are red, like the soles of her shoes.
She opens her mouth, but it isn’t to scold me. Her eyes are already a stormy ocean, and when I lower my mouth onto hers, she relents with a sigh.
She lets me trail kisses down her bare neck before she talks.
“We’re going to be late.” She slips a hand into my pants and slides her fingertips over my erection, swirling a circular pattern on the tip.
“Let’s stay.”
I tug a thin strap off her shoulder, running a thin wet line over her skin with my tongue.
“You mean to tell me I wasted all that time getting ready?”
“You didn’t waste it at all. It’s now just being appreciated by an audience of one.”
“Finn, we RSVP’d. We can’t miss another event. Delta Victor is going to stop inviting us to these things. ”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“It’s unprofessional.”
“So is this dress.”
“That’s what you said last time!”
“And I meant it.” It had been a sapphire blue dress, twin to this one. I had the overwhelming urge to see her pair it with the Celestia collar.
Then I had an overwhelming urge to remove the dress in a hurry, while she kept the diamonds on around her neck.
I shivered at the thought. It had been a fantasy become reality.
I tug her to me again, snatching her hand.
“Come here.” I make my way to the walk-in closet.
“Oh, Finn, not again.” She sighs when I open the drawer.
But I don’t reach for the wooden box where the necklace lays nestled. I reach this time for the ring.
My mother’s claddach ring.
“I never told you how I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“The rhyme.”
“What rhyme?”
“What did you say last time?”
“I said ‘love, loyalty and friendship.’ What rhyme?”
“I always thought it was a rhyme.” I frown. “But I think I had it all wrong. It was never a rhyme.”
“What was it?”
“It was a vow.” I tug up her hand, slip the ring on her finger.
“With my hands,” I say softly. “I give my heart, and with my love I crown it.”
* * *