Lucas swallowed hard. “Thanks, mate.”
Jax nodded, gave him one last look—empathetic, steady—then walked off.
The days blurred: wind tunnel data, tyre compounds, sponsor shoots. He smiled for the cameras, answered questions with polished lines. But the despondency clung—meals tasteless, sleep fractured, every quiet moment pulling him back to her walking away. The car felt foreign under his hands in testing, like he’d forgotten how to trust it. Or himself.
* * *
The interview came mid-February—a sit-down with SkySports, pre-season hype piece. The studio was bright, too bright. The interviewer—polished, smiling—started light: car upgrades, expectations for the title fight.
Then the pivot.
“So, Lucas, the Vegas incident is still making headlines. Your ‘Mystery Girl’ turned out to be your Comms assistant, Amelia Brookes. There are rumours she’s the reason you and Sienna split. Care to comment?”
Lucas’s jaw tightened. He felt the heat rise in his chest—fury, protectiveness, grief all at once. “Mia was a colleague, a friend. That’s all. She was never the reason for anything ending with Sienna. The Vegas thing… the photographer crossed a line. I reacted. I shouldn’t have. But Mia didn’t cause it. She didn’t deserve to be dragged into it.”
The segment ended shortly after. Lucas walked out of the studio shaking.
Back at the factory, he went through the pre-season motions: sim runs, fitness tests, sponsor calls. He smiled when he had to, answered questions with the same measured calm.
He didn’t know if he had the fight left.
The engines would roar again soon. But the track ahead felt lonelier than ever.
???
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mia
The days blurred into routine, small and steady, like stitches pulling a wound closed.
Morning runs along the beach track—sand cold under her bare feet, waves crashing just beyond the dunes, salt air sharp in her lungs. She pushed until her legs burned, until the ache in her muscles drowned out the one in her chest. She came back sweating, showered under the outdoor hose (the same one she’d used as a kid to wash off sand), then helped her dad with the morning chores: feeding the lambs, checking fences, mending gates with wire and pliers. Her hands remembered the work even if her mind felt distant—twisting wire, hauling feed sacks, the familiar rhythm of farm life grounding her when nothing else could.
Afternoons in the garden—pulling weeds with quiet fury, planting seedlings her mother had started in trays on the windowsill. Her mum worked beside her in companionable silence, occasionally passing her a mug of tea or a fresh scone still warm from the oven. They didn’t speak much. They didn’t need to. The earth was dark and cool under her nails, the scent of turned soil and rosemary steadying. Sometimes Mia cried while she worked—silent tears mixing with sweat. Her mum never commented, just squeezed her shoulder once and kept going.
Evenings on the veranda—her dad reading the paper, her mum knitting, Mia curled in the old swing chair with a book she didn’t really read. The sky turned every shade of pink and gold; cicadas screamed in the dusk. She watched the light fade andfelt the weight of everything she wasn’t saying. The phone stayed face-down on the kitchen table, notifications silenced. She didn’t look. Couldn’t.
Lucas’s messages came for the first few weeks—gentle, careful, never demanding:I’m sorry. For Vegas. For everything. Just tell me you’re safe. I miss you. No pressure to reply.
Dana’s were more frequent, more worried:You vanished. I’m not mad. Just scared you’re hurting alone. The garage isn’t the same without you. He’s not the same either. Call me when you’re ready. I’m here.
Apart from a quick message to Dana to let her know she was safe—“I’m home. I’m okay. Just need time.”—Mia read them all. Never answered. Each notification felt like pressing on a bruise—sharp, familiar pain. She’d open the messages late at night when the house was quiet, scroll through them in the dark, then close the app and stare at the ceiling until sleep took her.
Since the moment she had arrived home, she had avoided all media—every screen, every headline, every whisper of the racing world—because even the smallest glimpse threatened to reopen the raw wound in her chest. But one Sunday in late March—Australia—she found herself in the lounge, remote in hand, volume low. Lucas was on pole. She told herself she’d just watch the start.
He finished P4—solid, clean, but joyless. No media smile. No spark in the onboard shots. The commentators mentioned “personal distractions” in passing; the camera cut to his face after the race—eyes dull, shoulders heavy. She turned the TV off before the anthem played, chest tight.
One afternoon in early April she walked down to the beach alone—tide out, sand firm and damp. She sat on a driftwood log, knees drawn up, staring at the horizon. The waves rolled in, steady and indifferent. She cried again—quiet, exhausted tears that left her empty. When they stopped, she stayed there until the sun dipped low, painting the water gold.
She started noticing small things again: the way the lambs followed her across the paddock, bleating for milk; the smell of her mum’s baking bread in the morning; the way her dadstill whistled the same tune when he fixed fences. They weren’t fixes. They were just… life. Continuing. And slowly, almost without her noticing, she began to continue with it.
???
CHAPTER THIRTY
Mia
Autumn had set in—leaves turning gold on the poplars, evenings cooler, the sea sharper and greyer under low cloud. Mia kept running. Kept helping. Kept breathing.
