“Be honest with me. You always are.”
Her face stiffened, she pursed her lips and then said, voice low, half-pained, “Do you believe him?”
I blinked. That had never crossed my mind. The words had come so casually from his mouth, the moment just us, rocking in his lap. They were meaningful.
He’d said it as if I must have already known.
Deep down, I had. It wasn’t a lie.
“I believe him.”
“And did you say it back?”
“No. But that’s not because I don’t.”
Her brows skyrocketed. “Okay then. So what’s stopping you?”
“I’m scared,” I admitted and picked at my nails. “Ever, if I love him, it’s going to hurt when it ends.”
“Because of Imre?”
“Because—because I don’t want to ruin his relationship with his mum, and now we’re going to be a celebrity scandal.”
Ever rummaged through her bag on the side and pulled out a magazine, flicking through to a tabbed page. “There,” she said and pointed to one of the small pictures on a page dedicated to StormSprint racers. On the first page of the double-spread were pictures of Zolt, Henrik, and Matteounder the headline‘The Hottest in Leather.’On the page Everly pointed to, there were pictures of them and women, noting how the three men were single but had positive relationships with women, including some exes.
And there I was.
Nora had implied it was important, but we weren’t even a tenth of the page. The caption iced my blood. “Zoltán and his new step-sister, Sophia Bacque, clubbing to celebrate his recent win. In amongst his medical comeback, it’s so sweet he has family around him in his team.”
Sweet? Oh, Zolt was not going to be happy about that.
But he’d been too ill to race last week. A viral infection that had made his body boil and his head spin.
Another article had been printed to Livie’s eye roll.
That one had made me angry; this one made me sick.
I honed in on‘step-sister’until my eyes watered.
“Livie gave this to me yesterday,” she said, and rolled it up again. I stayed in my position as if still staring at it.‘Step-sister’was ingrained in my brain. I’d see that sans-serif typeface as a filter over every visual; I’d see it in the red of my eyelids when I tried to sleep.
I wasn’t going to be able to escape it.
“I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to worry you. Because the tabloids don’t matter.”
“They do,” I wheezed. “They do. Oh my god. We’re not going to be able to… we can’t—”
“Fia, there will be backlash,” she said because she was always honest with me. “But if you love him… If you see this as something long- term… then those few months of backlash will be worth it. I just fucking hate him for putting you in this position.”
That was fair.
“What a dickwad.”
Deserved.
But he was my dickwad.
“Anyway,” she sighed. “Why do you care about Imre’s opinion? It’s not like he’s been a father figure. And I’m sure Zoltán’s mum is nice and all, but that’s his problem, not yours.” She stopped. “Or is it him that doesn’t want everyone to know?”
