“Finish what Alain started,” Claire said quietly. “Win the title. Prove the bloodline didn’t die with him. It’s a lot for a kid who’s just starting his career. Makes him defensive. Makes him sharp.”
“If the public and sponsors don’t connect with him, it won’t matter how fast he is,” Mia countered. “My job would be to help him keep the confidence without the edge. Make him feel human.”
Claire studied her for a long beat. “You came highly recommended, you know. Professor Hargrove—your old tutor at Oxford—wrote quite the letter. Said you had an uncanny ability to read subtext in people the way most read it in novels. Said we’d be fools not to talk to you.”
Mia’s throat tightened. She hadn’t known Hargrove had followed up. The man had barely spoken to her after third year.
Claire leaned forward slightly. “Which brings me to the obviousquestion. Your degree is in English Literature. Strong one, from a strong college. Why pivot to communications? Why motorsport, of all things?”
Mia took a breath, steadying herself. The answer had been forming for months, maybe longer.
“I spent four years reading other people’s stories—learning how perspective shapes everything. How a single viewpoint can make a villain or a hero, how small details reveal motive, fear, desire. I got good at it. Really good. At seeing what someone isn’t saying, at reading the room, the silences. And somewhere along the way, I realized I didn’t just want to analyse those perspectives anymore. I wanted to help shape them. To give people—especially the ones who aren’t naturally good at telling their own stories—a way to be understood. To control the narrative instead of letting it control them.”
She met Claire’s eyes. “Motorsport is high stakes, high pressure, very public. If I can make someone like Lucas feel human to the outside world, help him tell a story that’s more than just speed and legacy… that feels like using everything I learned, but for something real. Something that matters beyond the page.”
Claire didn’t smile, but the line of her shoulders eased.
They talked for another twenty minutes—strategy, press cycles, crisis hypotheticals. Mia left convinced she’d blown it.
* * *
Lucas
Back in his apartment, Lucas slammed the door harder than necessary. He stood there for a second, jaw locked, pulse still ticking too fast.
Idiot.
The press conference replayed itself on a loop — the pause he hadn’t filled, the answer that had come out sharper than he’d intended, the way the room had cooled almost imperceptibly after the last question. He’d felt it in the moment, the exact second it slipped sideways. Pride had stopped him from fixing it.
By the time he dropped onto the couch, his phone was already buzzing. Team messages. His manager. Links he wasn’t opening.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and stared at the ceiling.
He hated this part. The performance that didn’t come with rules. On track, things were clean — faster or slower, right or wrong. Off it, everything blurred. Tone. Perception. Expectation.
And threaded through his irritation, uninvited and persistent, was her.
The collision replayed more vividly now: the soft impact of her body against his, the sharp inhale she’d made, the way coffee had drenched her blouse, rendering it nearly transparent. He’d caught the brief, perfect outline of her breasts—full and soft, the dark peaks of her nipples stiffening against the chilled, clinging fabric before she tried to cover them.
His cock had surged in his trousers right there in the corridor, thick and throbbing with sudden, inconvenient need. He’d hated it then—hated how his body had betrayed him in front of a stranger who looked at him like he was exactly the arrogant prick the headlines called him.
Now, alone on the couch, the memory hit harder. He shifted, thighs spreading slightly as blood rushed south again. His erection strained against his fly, heavy and insistent, the head already slick beneath the fabric. He pressed the heel of his hand down once—hard—trying to ease the ache, but it only made him hiss through his teeth.
Christ.
He could picture peeling that ruined blouse off her, exposing those tight peaks to his mouth, tasting coffee and skin while she glared at him with that same fire she’d thrown in his face. The thought made him throb harder.
He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling roughly. Discipline on track, indulgence off it—that was the rule.
Women were usually easy. Predictable. No one who looked at him like they already knew he’d disappoint.
But this one… she’d called him an ass to his face and walked away with her chin up, nipples still hard under wet cotton.
His phone stayed in his hand, thumb hovering over familiar names. A shower first—cold—then a drink. Somewhere loud enough to drown out the pulse beating low in his cock and the image of her that refused to fade.
He pushed to his feet, decision settling into place.
Whatever that moment outside the media suite had been, he wasn’t about to dissect it now.
