“I love you too,” she says, hanging up a second later.
My cheeks ache by the time I pull into my garage. I drag a feeble hand down my face, in an attempt to wipe my smile away.I’m not sure how I’m going to sleep tonight, especially with my sheets still smelling like her.
I round the front of my car and stop dead in my tracks. A leather shoe is in my peripheral, snapping my spine into place.
“What are you doing here?” There isn’t a breeze in the air, yet I’m ice cold.
I knew he’d be arriving in Vegas soon, for the race, but I didn’t expect him to show up at my house.
My father’s steps are steady, each foot dragging over my driveway until he’s right at the edge of my garage. I look him directly in the eye without even a fraction of the fear I once held when it came to him.
“Surely you expected this.” He slips his hands into his pockets casually. “Just like I expected you to end up in between Vince’s daughter’s legs.”
He’s baiting me.
I shake with anger but bite down on my tongue to keep myself from giving him the reaction he wants.
When he realizes I’m not playing his games, he tilts his head and laughs. “I don’t think he’s going to be so open to having you on his team when he realizes what you’ve been doing behind his back.” He pulls his hand out of his pocket with something held in between his fingers. “And then there’s the FIA. I don’t think they’re going to be too pleased to know you’re fucking your engineer either.”
“There aren’t any rules prohibiting fraternization in the sense of personal relationships.”
I’ve looked it up, so he can take his fear tactics and get the fuck off my property.
He clicks his tongue, and something snaps inside of me.
“And it’s really rich of you to stand on my property and preach what the FIA will or won’t be pleased about.” I cross over the threshold of my garage and press a finger into his chest.“Because if they knew what you did to my car for a chance to win, you’d be banned for life.”
He looks at my finger, and I snatch it away before he can grab onto it.
“Yeah, well, they don’t know, and what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
I scoff. “But fuck me, right?”
He rolls his eyes. “I didn’t realize I raised you to be so dramatic. You didn’t die, Rome. You hardly even sustained an injury.”
I laugh sarcastically. “You didn’t raise me to be anything but your fucking puppet behind the wheel.”
He looks at my house, and it’s obvious he’s judging the size of it. Then he scans the cars in my garage before swinging back to me. “Sure looks like you were a puppet…”
“Leave,” I say as level-headed as I can.
“Sure.” He rocks back on his heels. “But what was it you said about the FIA not having any rules prohibiting fraternization in the sense of personal relationships? Do you think this would go against any ethical codes?”
Whatever was in his hand slips from his fingers, floating to the ground in between us. I follow the flimsy paper until it lands at my feet, and I’m suddenly rocked to the core.
“You can keep it. I have copies.”
Fuck.
By the time my ears stop ringing, he’s already taking off down the street with nothing but his taillights in sight.
I bend at the knees, and vomit hits the back of my throat.
A grainy picture of us in Spain, me in my race suit and Tessa on her knees with my dick in her mouth, moments before the race, stares back at me.
Chapter Forty-Three
TESSA
