Chapter 11
ALARIC
Iignore the riotous anxiety swirling inside me as I pull open the doors of Granata’s headquarters on the paddock on our third day in Australia. With a fortifying breath, I step inside and visualize leaving all the stress and pressure I’ve been carrying outside.
I owe it to my team to show up steady, confident, and sure.
My job is to restore and revitalize Granata.
I’m here to win and to remind this organization of what professionalism and respect feel like from the top down.
My plan is to focus on the people in my charge, to build them up and bolster each one, then engage them to do the same. Results will follow. They have to.
I’m trying to temper my expectations, but so far the mood in the paddock has been positive.
Following the strategy our public relations lead, Amira, has crafted, my initial task is to lie low until the first race is under our belts.
We’re leaning into the excitement of the opening of the season and allowing our drivers to take center stage this week.
It’s brilliant, truly, because by the time there’s a microphone in front of my face, I should have results in hand.
From there I can explain my vision for the future, and with any luck, I won’t have to indulge too many questions about the past.
I just have to make sure we get the results we’re after on Sunday.
Eager to start the day, I take the stairs that lead to my office two at a time.
Most team members aren’t set to arrive for another hour or two, so the place is quiet. The peace calms me further. I like to be one of the first through the door, ready and available for what the day brings.
Leslie has beaten me here, but when I swing by her office, she’s on the phone, so I offer a simple wave. We’ll catch up later.
As the executive director of logistics and operations, Leslie has the skills and experience to run this entire team. We’ve worked together for over a decade. She’s also a close friend. So close, in fact, that I’m the godfather of her youngest son.
I continue my trek through headquarters, noting a few upgrades to our setup since last season.
I pass my race director’s office, but Monique’s office door is closed.
On the other side of the glass partition, she is sitting at a small conference table with Sandro and Heath, most likely talking strategy for this weekend.
In my office, I settle in and confirm that there are no new pressing matters in my inbox since I cleared it this morning. Satisfied that I’m all caught up, I pull up the schedule Quinn prepared for me and review it.
The first appointment of the day stops me in my tracks and my breath stalls out.
8:00 a.m. – Coffee with Luca Steele, paddock club suite 2
Phone out, I send a text to my assistant, confirming this is accurate.
I asked Quinn to try to schedule a time for me to connect with Luca this week. I didn’t expect it to happen today, or at all, quite frankly.
He messages back, confirming Luca’s personal assistant penciled me in.
I rise from my chair, the anxiety and stress I’ve worked hard to manage crushing me with tsunami strength, and zero in on the framed photo on the shelf.
It’s an image of Luca and me after he won his final cadet race in the Texas Star Karting Series.
He was eleven, his cheeks ruddy with color and the biggest smile on his round, boyish face.
While he’s looking at the camera, I’m not. Instead, I’m smiling down at him.
In that moment, love and pride swamped me. Though much has changed, the one thing that hasn’t is how much I care for him. I’m determined to get through to him today, whatever it takes.
He put space between the two of us once he arrived on the Formula 1 scene. And I let him. Feeling overshadowed by my presence is a major insecurity for him and has been for years, so my hope was that taking a step back until he was settled would give him what he needed to succeed.
I never expected that space between us to become such a permanent chasm. The distance, I see now, allowed hard feelings to fester. We spent too much time apart, resulting in the atrophy of our relationship.
It’s my fault for not stepping in sooner. I should have never allowed him to ice me out so often and so thoroughly.
If I have anything to say about it, that all changes today.
I head toward the paddock club suites, neutral territory that teams and media use for conducting business during the week leading up to the official race events.
A few minutes early, I get settled and go through the mental checklist of things I’d like to discuss.
A disrespectful twenty-five minutes later, Luca charges into the suite, eyes blazing with a pent-up, anxious energy. He doesn’t want to be here. Hell, he probably wasn’t the one who accepted the invite to this meeting.
“Well?” he says, coming to stand at the two-seater table I’ve been holding for nearly half an hour. “Let’s hear it.”
Agitation builds inside me. His brazen rudeness puts me in the awkward position of having to decide whether to call him on it.
He wouldn’t talk to any other colleague or adversary like this, and certainly not a team principal. He pretends we’re not family when we’re on the paddock, yet here he is, disrespecting me and knowing damn well he can get away with because of our familial relation.
“It’s good to see you, Luca. How was your flight?”
The trip from Austin to Australia is a long one, assuming he was in Texas prior to arriving in Melbourne. Though he could have come from Bahrain.
Leaning forward, he grips the edge of the table, his jaw clenched tight. He has the wherewithal to do a quick scan of the suite to confirm we’re alone.
Then he speaks. “Cut the shit, Ric. What do you want?”
Ric.
That single syllable stabs me in the solar plexus. He stopped calling me “Dad” the day he was called up to Formula 1. Even on the rare occasion we’re together without others associated with the sport, he sticks to Ric.
An impenetrable sheath of armor locks in place around me.
For as much as my son likes to pretend we’re barely acquainted, I know him well. If he’s so worked up he can’t even engage in civil conversation, any hope I had of bolstering our connection today is a foolish dream.
Rather than waste his time or any more of mine, I cross my arms over my chest, lean back in my chair, and get to the point. “Tell me about Evangeline Bennett.”
His nostrils flare. “How do you know Evan?”
I arch a brow. “I met her last week. In my driveway. When you sent her over without warning so she could store her couch in my garage.”
Luca’s shoulders sag a fraction, the vitriol rolling off him lessening. He stands upright, then rubs a hand down his face. “I should have run that past you.”
As if that’s his only misstep here.
“You should have had the decency to handle that situation yourself.”
Eyes widening, he guffaws. “It was the start of the season. Margot made the arrangements.”
The aggravation inside me grows. “You had your assistant arrange for movers to take your girlfriend’s belongings to your dad’s house, and you didn’t think to tell either of them about the plans? Or at least have Margot reach out?”
“Ex-girlfriend.” He plants his feet and crosses his arms over his broad chest, mirroring my pose.
“Was she your ex-girlfriend when you started moving her things into my garage?”
His eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “You seem to know an awful lot about my love life, Ric.”
I shake my head, my sadness growing as consuming as my anger. “No, son. As it turns out, I don’t. She said you’d been together for over two years. Is that true? She lives less than an hour from the house, Luca.”
His gaze hardens. “What’s with the sudden interest in my personal life? You’ve never cared about anyone I’ve dated before.”
I smack the table, the sound echoing through the quiet space. “I’ve never met anyone you’ve dated before.”
Awareness sparks to life inside him. Like he sees through the cool, calm exterior I project to the world. I’m tired of being the bigger man, attempting to coax my son into doing the right thing. Evangeline deserves so much more than how he’s treated her.
“She said you owe her money.”
“Jesus Christ,” he grouses, running a hand through his hair. “Not you, too. That girl has been a gold digger since day one.”
I grimace. Doubtful. I may not know much about the woman, but it was clear immediately that she’s proud of her business and seems to genuinely enjoy her work. She refused to take money from me for repayment. Hell, she was reluctant to even accept the job with Granata.
I’m not interested in arguing any further. This encounter has gone even more disastrously than I could have predicted. I want to get on with my day.
“Take care of it, Luca.”
With a smirk, he lifts both hands and shakes his head.
“There’s nothing to take care of,” he says.
“She won’t chirp. I made sure I was never photographed with her in public.
So the media won’t know or care about our split.
None of it will affect your precious reputation or the comeback tour of the Golden Boy of Granata. ”
My gut churns. That’s not what I meant. I meant he needs to take care of her—to apologize, and to pay her back.
Maybe it shouldn’t surprise me that making amends with her isn’t even on his to-do list, but it does. His apathy toward the whole situation makes me ashamed to be his father.
Sophie, his mother, reminds me often that he’s still young. That he’s learning. He’s led a charmed life.
While I believe it isn’t possible to truly spoil a child, I do feel as if Luca is stuck in some late-stage rebellion, and the tension between us is exaggerated by the demands of the sport we both love.
Nothing I do lands well. I never make any headway with him. At this point my hope is that he’ll eventually drop the narrative that competing on track means we need to be at odds with each other in our personal lives.
For most of his life, we were close. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, racing was our thing, but our connection ran deeper than that.
I loved my son. I still love my son. When he joined the grid, though, everything shifted.
He’s had a chip on his shoulder for years.
His perpetual grudge runs deep. I’ve long accepted that despite introducing him to the sport we both love so much, he’d prefer if I wasn’t around in a professional capacity.
We’ve both worked too hard to give up on our dreams. So for now, our relationship bears the brunt of the tension.
I shake my head, exhausted by the constant cycle of misunderstanding between us. But there’s one thing he needs to know before we part ways today. “She works for me now,” I tell him. “At Granata. You’ll be seeing her around the paddock, I’m sure.”
That menacing smirk is back, along with sharp judgment behind his eyes.
“I saw her at dinner last night, so I figured she’d weaseled her way back into Formula 1. Just didn’t think you’d be her next free ride.”
“Show some respect,” I growl, my temperature rising.
He licks his lips, clocking my defensiveness. “You sure you know what you’re doing with her, Ric?”
I don’t give him the satisfaction of responding. Luca is a master at getting into the heads of his competition. I can practically feel his need to get under my skin bubbling up now.
Dropping my arms, I school my expression, essentially surrendering. Like so many times before, I failed at what I hoped to accomplish with him today.
“I’m sorry this wasn’t a more productive conversation.” I offer him a feeble smile.
He zeroes in on me, no doubt trying to puzzle out why I’m changing tack.
The answer is simple: I’m done. I can’t go down this path with him right now. If he’s dead set on being a little shit and trying to get under my skin, I’m going to opt out completely.
“Listen,” he says with faux sincerity. “We may be in competition mode, but it’s only fair to warn you.
That girl’s a mess. Don’t underestimate how much baggage and drama she brings to any situation.
Evan’s hot, but she’s sloppy as hell. And I’m not talking about the fun kind of sloppy, ya know?
” He breaks into the smarmiest of smiles.
No, I don’t know. How could he even have those kinds of thoughts about another person?
“We’re done here.” Blood pressure skyrocketing, I stand, preparing to leave before I do or say something I’ll regret.
He scoffs. “It’s like that, then.”
I shift to extend my hand, then think better of it and slip both into my pockets. “Good luck this season. My sincerest hope is that you achieve everything you’re aiming to do and that you’re proud of yourself at the end of the day.”
Glaring, he shakes his head. He hates me in dad mode. He hates me in my professional capacity, too. I can’t win.
Though after his flippant, disparaging remarks about Evangeline, I don’t know if I want to.
Softer, I add, “I love you. I’m always cheering for you and am here when you need me.”
Rather than reply or even acknowledge my words, he takes a step back, like he’s ready to exit.
Figuring I can’t make things any worse than they already are, I add, “Please do the right thing by her, son.”
With a grimace, he turns and stalks out of the suite.