UNTIL REHAB
FRANKIE
I’m out of the car before Nick has even come to a complete stop.
“Attention, Francesca!” my bodyguard calls out in French, but I ignore him. After all, if I’m dead, my father can’t ruin my life.
I storm up the steps to the front doors of Londres, the hotel my father calls home when he’s visiting home. He hasn’t lived in San Sebastian, Spain, since my mother died when I was fourteen, and although he still owns the family home that’s within walking distance of this hotel, he doesn’t set foot in it. Now in his defense, my sister Lucia and I also haven’t set foot in it more than once since she died. At first, we were too young to go there on our own, and he wouldn’t take us. But now… it just feels too haunted with memories we don’t like to remember, like her taking her last breath in the magnificent carved wood bed in the master bedroom while the ocean breeze blew in through the open terrace doors and we all held her hands.
Dad is sitting at his usual table in the restaurant, right against the window, overlooking the ocean. His wife of six months, Adelaide, is with him. Her brown eyes meet mine before his hazel ones do, and they’re filled with sympathy. She gets why I’m reeling. Or she’s pretending to because she’s still desperate for Lucia and I to see her as more than a gold digger. Jury is still out on that.
I pull my eyes from her to my father as I skid to an abrupt halt right in front of him. “I called Doctor Sanz Amador, and he’ll be here at noon.”
“Why on earth did you call him?” My father’s voice is soft and deep and perfectly calm.
“To have you committed,” I reply. “You’ve lost your mind. Dario and Rocco will back me up, I’m sure. They’ll hold your spot as Team Principal until you’re sane again.”
“Oh, the drama.” He rolls his eyes. “You need to dial that back in the pit and with the press, sweetie. No one will appreciate it.”
I want to punch him. That’s a first. My dad has never been difficult to deal with. He’s hot-headed and passionate and larger than life, but I’ve always appreciated every aspect of him. Until now. I ball my hands into fists, my fingers on my left hand curling tightly around the handles of the designer bag I’m holding. “You send me an email with a press release set for tomorrow telling the world I’m your replacement, effective immediately. I’m taking over your spot as Team Principal? Was that your version of a practical joke? Because the only way you haven’t lost your mind is if this is a failed attempt at humor.”
“Francesca,” he says softly as he stands, drops his napkin on the table, and bends to kiss Adelaide on the cheek before smoothing his navy pants and reaching for my hand. “Walk with me.”
I grit my teeth, but I walk. Mostly because I know he’ll drag me away anyway if I resist.
“Don’t forget to wish him a happy birthday!” Adelaide calls out, and I pause to shoot her a withering stare, but she just shrugs with a sheepish smile. I glare at her, but to be fair, it’s not in anger. It’s more of a ‘why did you let this happen?’ look.
We move away from my twenty-nine-year-old step mother, from the savory smells of the hotel restaurant, to the darkly floral scent of the hotel lobby, to the light, salty scent of the ocean air outside. He leads me across the boardwalk to the white iron railing that rings the half-moon shaped beach. Only then does he let go of my arm to put his hands on the rail. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. The only person who loves the ocean as much as I do is my dad. My mother didn’t hate it, but she didn’t love it. Lucia has no interest in anything but driving.
“If Adelaide is gold-digging, someone needs to explain to her she’s doing it wrong,” I say flatly as I stare out at the Playa de la Concha beach. It’s fairly empty right now. Less than thirty people are lying around in the sand, and about the same amount are floating in the ocean. This beach will be packed by noon. “Adelaide is supposed to make sure you keep making money, not give it up.”
“First of all,ma louloutte,” he says, using the French nickname he bestowed on when I was in my mother’s womb, if the stories are true. “That’s a cheap shot, and there isn’t anything cheap about you, so stop it. Second of all, Adelaide wants more time with me. Being Principal of an F1 team is a twenty-four seven gig, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and I’m pushing fifty.”
“Youarefifty. Happy birthday by the way. You’re pushing fifty-one,” I correct him, which makes him frown. I defend myself. “The truth isn’t a cheap shot.”
His glare softens a little, and he lifts one arm from the railing to run it through his thick salt-n-pepper hair. I inherited that thick, dark hair with the untamable wave. My little sister Lucia got my mother’s hair, which was nearly black ringlets. We have almost identical coloring – a light, sun-kissed golden tone since both our parents had that in common. Well, maybe that’s just because we tend to live in places where others vacation. Casteras didn’t chase the sun, they basked in it. “Even more reason to let go of the job and enjoy the finer things while I can.”
The conversation was going nowhere. “You always said creating that race team was the finest thing you ever did. And it was an homage to our mother. It’s named after her for crying out loud. And now you’ve remarried so you’re dumping it?”
His eyes always glint with mischief. The man could lose a race, crash a car – whatever – and that glint was still there. He was so damn charming that it oozed out of him whether he liked it or not. But right now, that gleam of frivolity, the twinkle of playfulness, is suddenly gone. I tense. He turns from the ocean, leaning on the railing with his left forearm while he faces me. I cross my arms in defiance. “Your mother was not replaced. That’s not fair, and you’re not a child anymore Francesca, so I won’t tolerate a tantrum. Last warning.”
“I’m sorry,” I confess because I admit that was a low, uncalled for blow. He stayed a widow for almost thirteen years. And it wasn’t out of some kind of need to protect his kids, or because he was too busy with his race team. He had a broken heart. I’m an asshole for insinuating otherwise. “I know you aren’t replacing Mom or forgetting her. I just… I don’t understand where this is coming from. I’ve left the racing team and my dreams around it behind. I’m doing my own thing. I figured you’d stay until Lucia retired and then give the business to her.”
“Frankie you have wanted this since the day you were four and a half and toddled off from my trailer at the track.” Oh my fucking Lord, we’re back tothisancient history. He smiles, despite the seriousness in his eyes. “I was panicked. I thought you’d been kidnapped and even if you hadn’t—”
“There are a thousand ways a toddler could die at a professional race track forty minutes before race time,” I finish for him because he’s recounted this tale in private, and public, more times than I can count. It’s in magazine articles and YouTube clips and everything. “But I wasn’t dead. I was in the pit. I had taken some headphones and put them on myself, and I was pretending to be the boss and telling everyone what to do.”
He’s grinning proudly. It’s ridiculous. I was four. “And the actual Team Principal let you sit in that pit every race after that while I was on the track. He answered all your questions. He said you were voraciously passionate about the sport.”
“I was,” I reply breezily. “Because I was a toddler and it was my whole world. Mama, Lucia, and I used to follow you to every race.”
“You were still in the pit, yacking with Principals and listening to the engineers and me bark at each other at nine years old. And at ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen...”
“Not eighteen,” I shoot back quickly. It’s a warning shot.
He ignores it. “Eighteen for a while. Until rehab.”
“No. Until I realized that the sport didn’t interest me anymore. No offense,” I reply, my words clipped. “I was around the track because I had no choice. Mom was gone, and I wasn’t old enough or healthy enough to do my own thing.”
