She slid into her car. The door closed with a soft thud. As it pulled away, she glanced back through the tinted window—he was still standing there, hands in his pockets, watching until her taillights disappeared around the corner.
???
Jax
Back in his hotel suite, Jax kicked off his shoes and dropped onto the edge of the bed, still in his shirt and jeans, elbows on his knees, staring at the carpet like it held answers.
The night kept replaying in sharp fragments.
The easy rhythm they’d had at the start—laughing about Singapore, trading stories about grandmothers and writing songs. Then the proposal, laid out calm and clinical like a contract negotiation.
Not my type. Still hung up on her ex. Strictly business.
The words had landed harder than he’d expected. Not because he had any feelings—he barely knew her—but because for a few hours he’d let himself forget the mask. Let himself sit across from someone who saw the cracks in the charm and didn’t flinch. And then she’d reminded him: this wasn’t real. It was a transaction.
He rubbed a hand over his face, exhaling hard.
The plan was insane. Fake dating for publicity, a mutually beneficial arrangement with zero strings and zero sex. Four to six months of playing boyfriend in public: hand-holding for paparazzi, casual arm-around-shoulder photos at events, maybe a staged kiss on the cheek at a sponsor dinner. Then a clean, amicable breakup announcement—something vague and classy like “mutual respect, still friends”—and everyone walks away satisfied. No messy feelings. No real vulnerability. Just a performance.
He should say no.
He didn’t need a fake girlfriend to fix his season. He needed podiums. Consistent qualifying. Better race craft. Not another layer of PR smoke and mirrors. Pretending to be in a committed relationship wouldn’t magically make the owners trust him again. It wouldn’t erase the table-dancing videos or the Vegas headlines. It would just give them something new to talk about until the next slip-up.
And her? She was using him to make another man jealous. A man she still loved. A man she called her soulmate.
Jax wasn’t anyone’s rebound prop. He wasn’t a prop at all.
He reached for his phone, thumb hovering over her contact—newly saved as “Aria.” He could type it now. Polite. Grateful. Final.
Hey Aria – thanks for the lovely evening. Dinner was great, conversation even better. But I’m going to pass on the proposal. Good luck with Min-Jae. Take care.
Simple. Clean. Done.
His thumb moved to type.
Before he could finish, the phone vibrated in his hand.
Claire Whitman.
He opened the message warily.
Attached was the paparazzi shot from twenty minutes ago: them stepping out of the restaurant together. Her in that sleek black outfit, small and luminous under the streetlights. Him towering beside her, shoulders relaxed, easy half-smile. They looked… good. Natural. Like two people who’d just had a real night.
The text read:
Another date with Aria Moon? Do I smell a thing? This is reading well, Jax. Owners saw the photo already. Marcus forwarded it with one line: “Finally some positive press.” Keep it going. Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.
Jax stared at the screen.
He read the message twice.
Then he looked back at the draft in his messages to Aria.
The polite rejection still sat there, half-typed.
He deleted it.
And in the sudden quiet that followed, the truth he usually kept shoved to the back of his mind slipped forward.
