I watched as he fished his t-shirt from the floor and shoved his arms and head back into it. He didn’t speak. Neither did I. What was there to say? Except for everything still unsaid.
With a brief and awkward glance my way, Aleks slunk to the door, his head hung low. He paused with his hand on the handle. He turned his head slightly, looking back over his shoulder.
“It was a good article. But I hated it.”
And with that, he left.
I collapsed to the floor and pulled my knees against my chest. I was still shaking, still coming down. Anger pulsed beneath my skin, but it was mixed with something far more dangerous. Something I had a nagging feeling he felt too. More than attraction. Connection. Longing. And crippling fear about what that might mean.
Chapter Nineteen – Consequences
Aleksandr Volkov – Shanghai Hotel Conference Suite, Monday Morning
I’d faced post-race debriefs before. But never like this.
Obsidian had commandeered one of the hotel’s conference suites—navy carpet, beige walls, rows of uncomfortable chairs that looked like they’d witnessed their share of corporate bloodbaths—seeing as our garage and support suite had already been dismantled and was on its way to Seoul. The rest of the team were already seated, some still bleary-eyed from the aftermath of yesterday’s disaster. No one talked about it openly, but every glance, every stiff posture said the same thing:
They were waiting for me to break.
I’d rather have taken another punch than sit through this meeting.
Ross paced in front of the projector screen, arms folded so tight I half expected the seams of his shirt to rip. His usually impeccable appearance was a little askew, his hair not quite as neat, a faint sign of stubble on his jaw. Mac sat at one end of the table, jaw clenched, eyes shadowed with exhaustion. Terri typed notes into her tablet with the ferocity of a woman who’d been awake since dawn. Drake was leaning back in his chair, his feet up and crossed at the ankle on another chair beside him. Cocky bastard. He hadn’t crashed. He’d scraped seventh place, bagging his first points of the season.
I took my seat opposite him without a word.
Ross didn’t waste time.
“Well,” he said, pinning me with a stare that could’ve cut metal. “I think we all know why we’re here.”
Silence. Heavy enough to choke on.
“Aleks,” he continued, stepping closer. “Would you like to explain what the hell happened yesterday?”
Every eye turned to me. My pulse thudded in my throat.
I kept my voice even, steady. “The conditions were poor. I misjudged my braking point. I took too much speed into the corner.”
“A misjudgment,” Ross repeated, slow and biting. “Is that your final answer?”
“It’s the truth.”
Not the whole truth—because the whole truth was that I’d lost control long before the car did. The whole truth was standing on a balcony with Moretti’s mouth too close to her ear. The whole truth was eight seconds of blind rage carried straight into Turn Fourteen. And really, the whole truth was up against her hotel room wall.
But none of them needed to know that.
Ross exhaled sharply, pacing again. “Let me be crystal clear. I don’t care that you DNFed. I don’t care that we lost points. We can claw that back.”
He stopped. Turned. Smiled.
Smiled.
“What I do care about,” he said, “is that Moretti punched you on live television. That—” he jabbed a finger in the air, “—was the real gift of the weekend.”
A ripple of uncomfortable laughter passed through the room. My stomach twisted.
Ross continued, “Luca will be reprimanded. Fined. His PR is circling the drain. Sponsors are shaken. Hawthorn are scrambling. Do you know how rare it is, Aleks, for your mistake to be the second most embarrassing moment of the day?”
He wasn’t wrong. That was the worst part.
