“Alexander will be there!”
“Yes, Alexander, the five-time world champion who will be busy racing just like you, Matteo!” I laughed out loud at my brother’s idiocy. He was the embodiment of a golden retriever. Sweet, goofy, and much too good for this world. I loved Alexander, he’s practically family to us, but he would be zero help when it came to any type of childcare, he was even busier than Matteo was.
“I’ll hire someone! A nanny! Gianna will come with us, obviously, but then you have someone to take her and we can go out and party!” Matteo typed vigorously on his phone.
“Matteo,” I shouted at him. “Matteo!” He stopped typing. “I’m not just leaving Gia with someone I don’t know!” I rolled my eyes, bending to put Gianna down. She happily ignored us and walked over to her kitchen set. “Also, it’s not exactly easy to travel with a kid, she needs all her stuff!” I said, brushing off my jeans.
“We can use Alexander’s private jet! Bring it all!” Matteo called back, now in the other room.
“Stop using Alexander as the solution for everything, Matteo!”
“Why is everyone yelling, and what are you using me for?” Alexander appeared, wearing an oversized hoodie and his braided hair pulled back into a knot at his neck. The tattoos on his hands peeked out from the sweatshirt. The wings marking his neck were relatively new, and very, very distracting. Alexander had countless tattoos, each a piece of art, a piece of him, etched onto his skin. If his British accent wasn’t enough of a swoon, the man was just straight-up stunning. He was tall for a Formula One driver; I only came to just below his shoulders.
I rolled my eyes and threw my hands over my face at his remark. Alexander had been Matteo’s friend for a while now. They karted together when they were little, and Alexander signed with Belen years before Matteo. But when Matteo finally got a spot on Moretti Racing’s team, they were thick as thieves all over again. About three years ago, he started making his yearly summer break trips out to the vineyard with Matteo, spending them with us. The summers were filled with sunshine and swimming in the small lake on my parents’ land. The pair of them kept me sane through being pregnant and having a baby while they were here, but once the season began again, the days were long and lonely.
Alexander had this uncanny ability to make me relax, like his presence alone was a calming draft through the air. That or the cologne he wore, which was intoxicating. It became a sense-memory for me. After being my anchors all summer, they would finish out their break with me, assuring me I could do it and I wouldn’t be alone. Matteo and Alex had shown up, and I never had to worry about Gianna having a role model to look up to because these two would rope the moon for her if she asked.
I looked at Alexander, his dark skin was so glowy and perfect, it was such a waste on a man who had never touched skin care once in his life. Long lashes and the most perfect lips.
Good god, I need to snap out of it.
“It’s too much, Matteo, I can’t do it all. I am so tired, I could literally sleep for, like, four days straight and still not be rested.” Warm arms wrapped around me and the scent of leather and pine cologne that was so familiar now, so very Alexander, flooded me. I indulged my tired limbs and melted right into him.
God, I am so starved for affection, this is pathetic.
“You can sleep for four days! We’ll watch Gia while you sleep!” Matteo yelled from the other room.
I let out a sigh into Alexander’s chest, who squeezed his arms around me. I tried not to let out an actual groan.I really need to calm down.“I love him, but I hate him,” I grumbled.
“I know the feeling,” Alexander replied. I could hear the smile in his voice. “You should come, though, it would be good for youandGia.” His voice was so soft and gentle, reminding me of when he and Matteo got on the first flight to come meet Gianna when she was first born. The “You got this” whispered in the middle of the night when Gianna was only four months old and the sleep regression hit like a freight train. Alexander woke up to a crying baby and a crying me. He stayed up with me, in the moonlit nursery, as I rocked her back to sleep, and when she finally went back down, I closed the door and slid down the hallway.
Am I fucking this up?I had asked, tears leaking from my tired eyes.
No, he’d said simply, as if it was this known fact. No, I was not fucking this up. Simple and to the point. Then his shoulder knocked mine and he whispered with full confidence,You got this.
It became a mantra after that, over and over again.I got this.
Even on days where it was the furthest from the truth.
Alexander had been around constantly after that first summer, following my brother home. My parents adored him, he sent photos in a group chat that included all of us on race days, he was just a part of our lives. As if he just slotted himself into it so seamlessly.
“The only people who will be there will be models or celebrities or wags who look like models or actually are celebrities.” I pulled myself out of Alexander’s arms reluctantly and saw Gianna looking at me. Her room was pink but race car themed, thanks to Uncle Matteo, who surprised us with a little nursery makeover right before she was born. She even had a custom plushie that was the pink version of Matteo’s own Formula One race car. Alexander had then of course found someone to make a Belen version for his own team, it was black with bright blue and pink racing stripes, and much to Matteo’s annoyance, it was Gia’s favorite.
“Up, up!” Gia’s small voice drifted over to us as she walked to Alex, her favorite human. Alexander ruffed up my hair before leaning down and picking her up. The absence of his warmth and arms was sorely missed. But it only took a moment for my heart to swell again when I watched them.
“Yes, love?” he asked, peering down at my daughter with the biggest smile on his face, giving all of his attention to my girl.
“I just, I don’t trust people enough to watch her. It should be me. And you know how it is on the circuit. There are so many people and the cameras.” I sighed. “I don’t know if I want to expose her to that.”
Alex turned to me, Gia resting in his arms and staring up at him like he had hung the moon just for her. He probably would if she asked.
“What if I ask Anna?” he asked. Anna was one of his personal managers, she handled PR and media and all around scheduling. She was incredible and could figure out anything you asked. Unlike Dante, who scared the shit out of me. “No one will bother you, we will make sure of it. Plus, some of those hot wives are rather nice.” He smirked, and I immediately rolled my eyes and mouthed,Yuck, because yes, they were nice, but Alex was the definition of a playboy and was constantly being berated by the media about it.
“And if you don’t want cameras on her, I’ll make every photographer allowed in the paddock sign an NDA.” His eyes were gleaming with sincerity, like he was planning it all out in his head. I couldn’t help but smile at him and the thought of being in the paddock with Gia. Letting her see that world was such an exciting thought. She would be obsessed with the real-life version of Alexander’s car, I knew it.
“Dante is never allowed to watch her,” I said quickly as the thought entered my mind. If Anna was Alexander’s right-hand woman, Dante was the left. He was a sort of fix-it man—could do basically everything and anything at the drop of a hat—however, I did not trust that man to watch my daughter; he would probably hire someone else to do it or something.
Alexander chuckled. “Christ, no. I rarely see him, myself. He keeps to himself.”
