“You’ll be pleasantly surprised,” I guarantee. I feel like a used car salesman, and I also feel like the used car being sold. It’s exhausting.
“Time for fireworks!” Adelaide’s excited voice fills the room.
Suddenly everyone is moving to the balconies and a second later the skies are illuminated by a colorful display. I have to admit it’s a nice touch that has dad beaming. If Adelaide is faking this relationship, she deserves an Oscar. I watch for a minute but decide this is the perfect time to make my exit, so I glance around to make sure no one is watching me. But someone is. Billy.
He’s on the opposite end of the balcony, leaning against the wall, and while everyone’s face is upturned, pointed at the sky, his handsome mug is pointed at me. He smiles. I turn to my father and kiss his cheek. “I’m tired. I’m going to head home.”
“Okayma louloutte. Je t’aime.”
“Je t’aime,” I reply and nod curtly at Adelaide before stepping off the balcony, Nick right behind me.
Lucia is the only one in the event room now. She’s at the bar. “Want me to leave with you?” she asks as she walks over to join me.
“No. You put on heels and a dress like once a year. Enjoy it,” I reply and pull her into a hug. “My back is killing me, and I just want some alone time. Find me in the morning. If you get rid of whatever hook-up you find tonight in time for breakfast.”
Nick turns away at that comment. Lucia, bold and candid as always, laughs.
“I’ll try my best.”
I pat her shoulder and blow her a kiss as I walk away. Nick tosses my sister one last look before following me toward the exit. These two dummies think I don’t know what they’ve been doing on and off for six months.
At the car, he hops into the driver’s seat after holding one of the back doors open for me. The drive from one hotel to the other isn’t long in miles, but the traffic and non-linear route we have to take due to the winding street grid makes it ten minutes longer than it would be on foot. I would have walked, but Nick can’t leave the car, and I can’t walk alone in case media, or worse, follows me.
“You handled all of that brilliantly, Frankie,” Nick says, and I catch his eye in the mirror.
“Thanks. It was exhausting,” I mutter and glance out the window. It’s late, but the streets of San Sebastian are still bustling. Tourists love this place, and so do I. Or at least, I did growing up. There’s a bit of a sad feeling in my chest now when I’m here since my mom died.
My parents had a summer house here because my dad grew up just across the border in Biarritz, France, and his mother’s family was from here. He wanted Lucia and me to have the same sun and surf filled summers that he did. Only, we barely got a few weekends here because my mother always wanted to be with him at races. So eventually, we abandoned the winter home and life in France and made this our full-time home. It’s why Lucia and I always call ourselves mutts when people ask about our heritage. On top of our mom being Italian and our dad being French, we grew up in Spain, and although we speak Spanish, French, and Italian, English is our strongest language because it’s the main language of the sport which our family revolved around.
“I don’t think you can do this, Frankie,” Nick says, his French accent thick. “Iknowyou can, so don’t let all the misogynistic politics get to you.”
“It’s more than that, although that does suck.” I sigh and lean my head against the window. “It’s all the bad things it brings up. The lies and the what-ifs about that night. Taking this job means dealing with that every damn day.”
“I know you don’t want to hear it, but I still think that if you would just be honest with your father about exactly what happened—”
“No,” I reply, the same way I always do when Nick makes this suggestion. “First of all, I don’t know what happened. There’s no way to know who drugged me or with what since the hospital just assumed I was a rich party kid who took too much Molly and didn’t do the right tests. And my dad… he wouldn’t be able to handle the not knowing. It would just destroy his relationship with the entire racing community because every single one of those hundred people on that yacht were there because of racing.”
“I know you’ve told me before,” Nick grumbles. “If you just let him think you’d done it by mistake, you could also make it better, by letting him think you got better.”
I catch his eyes in the mirror again and smile. “Those six months in rehab and counseling in Switzerland were actually really therapeutic and helpful.”
He pulls to a stop behind Londres where the valet takes the keys and Nick opens the door to the hotel for me. In the lobby, we pause by the elevators after he punches the button. I impulsively hug him. I don’t do that often, so he startles a bit but then wraps one of his massive arms around me and pats my back. “Thank you for believing in me.”
“Frankie, I don’t spew bullshit, even to my boss. So I mean it when I say you are going to crush this job,” he says quietly as I let go of him and step back. He turns back to the elevator and puts a hand in the door as it opens and I step in. He follows me and punches our floor. “That thing with Billy on the balcony, you need to debrief me on that?”
“No,” I say and shake my head, pushing my hair back over my shoulders. I can’t wait until I can shove it all up into a topknot not worthy of public eyes.
“Because it looked intense,” Nick replies, blunt as ever.
“Everything with Billy always looks intense,” I mutter. “He’s a lot.”
“He’s still on the list,” Nick says, like I need reminding. I do not. Not at all. And I give him a level stare to express that.
“Sorry. It just looks like you forget that sometimes. You avoid him for a reason. You don’t know where he was that night you were drugged. He might have been at that party too.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” I reply as the elevator pings and opens on our floor. As we wander down the hall, I rub my lower back with my fingertips. I need to do my exercises, which involve a pool. Nick knows it too.
“You’re going to the pool?” he asks as we stop in front of the door to my suite. I nod. “I’ll make the call to Jose and meet you up there in ten.”
