‘You, himself, me. But here’s the thing about Lukas, he can be quite fair even when he’s upset. I mean, he didn’t kick me out when I visited him on Christmas Day. Though he did put me to work.’
‘What do you mean?’
Dominic chuckled sadly. ‘He made me pack away Christmas decorations in the lounge. He didn’t help at all. Didn’t even look at them. He only joined me after I’d put everything into storage.’
He wouldn’t even look at them. That’s how much he hated Katherine now.
Lounge.
‘Only the lounge? What about the tree in his bedroom?’ Katherine’s heart beat frantically waiting for the answer as if her life depended on it. Well, maybe not her life, but certainly her happiness.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t go up there and he said nothing.’
Could he have kept that one reminder of her? The same man who walked away from her twice that day. Unlikely. It probably went into the trash. Her vision became blurry but she couldn’t cry. Not at the track. Not in front of Dominic.
She swallowed hard, but her throat was closing. ‘I need to…’ She looked around. Eyes darting from one point to the next. Searching for an answer. ‘I need to make this right.’
But how? Lukas didn’t want to be with her. He didn’t want to see her. By the sounds of it he was pushing Dominic away in his anger. Who was Lukas confiding in? She had gone straight to her father for comfort, but Lukas couldn’t do the same.
Whether a future with him was lost or not, Katherine needed Lukas to be okay. She needed him to have someone he could lean on, so he wasn’t so alone.
She was hit with a wave of inspiration and knew exactly what she had to do.
‘I have to go!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was themorning of race day.
Lukas lay on his hotel room bed fully dressed. The image of a pleading Katherine in his head as it had been for two days.
Every atom in his body had begged him to take her in his arms. He’d wanted so badly to cave to her because he missed her. Every day without her was an ache in his chest that never faded. But the fact was that they couldn’t be together. Offering her comfort wouldn’t help them move on. And they both needed to.
The snowflake was still in his bedroom. He wanted to get rid of it but couldn’t. So, it sat there taunting him every morning. He’d still looked for her at the track every day, albeit from a distance. When he’d failed to find her at all these past two days, he still couldn’t help but worry about her absence.
‘Why can’t I stop loving you!’ he said angrily to himself.
He had to concede that he was never going to stop thinking about her, but it was time to head to the track. He had work to do. But a knock on the door stopped him.
He opened it without checking to see who it was. They were a new team and he had made sure that their accommodation was kept a secret. If anyone needed him, it was likely someone from the hotel or team.
He was entirely unprepared for the person staring back at him.
‘Mutter,’ he said in shock.
‘Hello, Lukas.’
He stood there, staring at the woman with sharply cut blond hair. She was a whole head shorter than him, with the same storm-grey eyes. Eyes that held apprehension.
His mother.
Curiosity warred with suspicion, but the former won out. He opened the door wider to allow her in. Door handle still in hand, as he watched his mother sit at the small, round, dark wood table.
Mechanically, as if his joints were in the process of seizing, he closed the door and approached Berta Jäger. Lukas was always certain about what he wanted to do. When racing was the wrong choice, he was still certain he wanted to do it. When he’d eventually let go of that obsession and considered the team principal move, he was certain of that choice. Even when he made Katherine leave his home, he was certain that was the end. But now, with his mother in his room and with no idea why she’d come, Lukas wasn’t certain anymore. He didn’t know if he should join her or keep standing or hover at the door. Should he demand to know why she was there or just be grateful that she was?
He didn’t like being indecisive. He was used to making quick decisions, to reacting in two-tenths of a second. So he shrugged on the persona that made him so successful in his sport and approached the table.
‘What are you doing here?’ He kept his voice polite, but there was no missing the demand in his tone.
