She met his gaze.
“No,” she said softly. “I’m tired.”
Something shifted in his expression—barely there, a crack in the armour. He hesitated. His eyes dropped to her mouth for the briefest flicker—gone before she could name it—then snapped back up. The silence stretched, heavy and electric.
Then he turned and left, shoulders filling the doorway as he disappeared.
That night, Mia lay awake in her hotel room, staring at the ceiling while the city hummed beyond the window. She thought of home—of Amberley’s quiet fields, the scholarship that had carried her here, the distance she’d crossed only to end up feeling small again.
And of Lucas Moreau. Not just the arrogant headlines or the brilliant driver, but the man shaped by things she didn’t yet understand: the shadow of a legacy that demanded perfection, the reflexes honed against knocks he’d never admit to. The way his shoulders had blocked the light earlier, the low rasp in his voice when he spoke to her like the words cost him something vital. That flicker in his eyes when she’d said she was tired—as if he’d wanted to close the distance. To fix it. To fight it. To touch her.
Her skin prickled at the thought, heat pooling low in her belly. She turned over, pressing her thighs together against the sudden, unwelcome ache.
The season had only just begun, and already the air between them felt charged—like the breathless moment before a storm, or the split-second before the lights went out.
???
CHAPTER SIX
Mia
If Melbourne had been a collision, the weeks that followed were erosion.
The season didn’t give them space to breathe. They moved from Australia to Asia to the Middle East in a blur of airport lounges, trackside motorhomes, and identical hotel rooms where the curtains were too heavy and the air-conditioning too loud. Mia learned to sleep sitting upright on flights, to answer emails in shuttle vans, to keep smiling even when her head felt packed with cotton wool.
Lucas was… complicated.
Not because he’d changed — he hadn’t. He remained cool, crisp, clipped around the edges, a walking ice sculpture in team kit. But the longer the season went on without points, the harder that temperature was to work around. His silences stretched. His replies sharpened. His posture grew a fraction more rigid each time he checked the timing screens.
And on track, he was close. Agonisingly close. He’d hook a strong sector, then lose time in the next. P15, P11, P13 — always brushing the threshold but never cracking it. Mia didn’t need to hear him say anything; she saw it in the way he stood beside the car afterward, helmet still in hand, jaw tight, attention drifting somewhere past the journalists waiting behind the barrier.
His interviews were polished, the media training stickingexactly as designed, but there was a remoteness in his tone that people picked up on. Fans called it icy. Sponsors called it concerning.
CLOSE, BUT NOT BREAKING THROUGH
POLITE ON CAMERA, INVISIBLE IN THE POINTS
Mia read every article, every comment, every whispering thread she wished she could scroll past. She passed Lucas only what he absolutely needed — the toned-down versions, the summaries without teeth — even though the sharper headlines stayed lodged in her own chest.
They worked side by side without ever quite syncing.
At the track, she hovered beside him in the garage while engineers debated run plans, jotting notes while he stood motionless, eyes fixed on a monitor like he could will the car into something more. In the paddock, she walked half a step behind him through the crush of cameras and noise, headset on, redirecting anyone who moved too fast toward him. In hotel corridors, they exchanged brief, functional nods before retreating to their rooms to prepare for another pre-dawn departure.
Their hands brushed once in Bahrain when she passed him a printed schedule she’d grabbed on the run — accidental, fleeting — and both paused for half a heartbeat, before moving on.
Neither acknowledged it.
* * *
Lucas
The influencer shoot in Dubai was supposed to be easy.
Bright lights, curated questions, carefully staged laughs. The rooftop studio overlooked the Burj Khalifa—white marble floors, gold accents, the city glittering below like spilled jewels. Everything polished, everything controlled. Lucas hated it on sight.
Jax lounged on a couch in the pre-shoot suite, feet up, lazily tossing a stress ball as though they were killing time before abarbecue. Mia stood in the centre of the room briefing them, voice calm and professional—the tone she used when she cared too much to let it show.
“Keep it light,” she said. “They want personality, not performance. Jax, you’re good at that—just be you. Lucas… try not to look like you’re mentally running practice laps.”
