“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll get Jack to make an appointment. I’ve really got to go, but we’d love for you to stay. At the very least, so I won’t have to see a Dubois in fuckingnavy.”
Julien releases a shaky breath as Lorenzo walks away.
Pete and his ten percent commission are going to be so disappointed in him.
After another Ferraro 1-2, the red team finally leads the championship again.
Julien couldn’t have planned it better—Lorenzo is champagne tipsy and absolutely gleeful as he drags the reserve driver and his manager into his office.
“Sit, sit!” Lorenzo plops a stack of paperwork in front of Julien as he takes his seat at the head of the table. “You’ll recognize it—it’s the same basic contract we do every year. Not liable for death, yadda yadda.”
The pages aren’t fastened together, so Julien scans one and slides the page to Pete for his scrutiny as Lorenzo continues.
“The board and I recognize that you have done a lot for us this year, so I have negotiated a doubled salary on your behalf.”
That’s six figures. “Th-thank you.” It’s not some batshitmillions of eurosrate, but it’ll definitely help with some of the more expensive repairs and purchases Julien’s been putting off.
“But in exchange—” Of course. “We’ve had to revisit your race bonuses.”
Race bonuses? “Did I have a win bonus for this year?” Julien shifts through the pages, but nothing stands out.
“No,” Pete answers. He doesn’t haphazardly scan the pages like Julien—he has his pen out, and he follows each line with precision. “Since reserve drivers have never won a race before, we thought it would be a silly metric to seriously negotiate.”
“Ah.” That sucks.
“That’s why we stuck with the point bonus option.”
Julien blinks twice. “The what?”
“For every point you made this year, you earned extra money.” Pete shuffles through the stack of loose papers and taps on a line with his pen cap. “It’s significantly lower here. Not nearly enough to counterbalance the doubled salary.”
“Well, our young Mr. Dubois here earned far more points than we expected of any reserve driver.”
“His job is to perform well, and that performance should be compensated appropriately.”
While they negotiate, Julien leans over and balks. “A hundred thousand euros per point?! That’s theloweredrate?”
Lorenzo leans forward and points to another figure on the same page. “You’ll notice that the change is offset by added podium and win bonuses.”
That’s fine, whatever. “But how much wasthisyear’s point bonus?!”
Pete shugs. “‘Bout half a mil.”
Half a—? But Julien earned ninety-four points this year.
“Five hundredthousandeuros,” Lorenzo corrects. It sounds even larger when he emphasizes each syllable. “We thought if you subbed in for a race and earned six points, you would receive the average wage of a rookie driver. You understand why we’ve had to change it?”
Julien doesn’t answer. His jaw hangs open as he tries to process that he somehow made forty-sevenmillioneuros this season. Over the course of just seven races.
Is Julien a multi-millionaire now?! Wasn’t anyone going to tell him?!
Holy shit, he can buy two new cars.
The other men argue over base salary and bonuses, but Julien interrupts them to say, “I’m fine with it. With the—with the money.”
After forty-seven million euros, he won’t need anything else.
