Henri rolled to his side, pulling me with him.He found my hand and laced our fingers together, kissing my knuckles.“You’re incredible,” he whispered, his smile lazy and soft.“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than this.”
I pinched his shoulder, grinning.“Well, now that we’ve broken every team rule in the book…”
“Technically, no more rules,” Henri reminded me, smug.
I snorted.“Just don’t get too cocky.I still plan to beat you tomorrow.”
He leaned in closer, giving me a small peck on the cheek.“I expect nothing less, Lillian Blackwood.Not from you.”His smile turned wicked, familiar and new all at once.“See you at the finish line.”
Epilogue
Lily
The roar of the Silverstone crowd was so loud it almost drowned out my engine.I settled deeper into the seat, my fingers grabbing the steering wheel for dear life, as the mechanics made their final adjustments.Through my visor, I could see the Union Jack flags rippling in the July wind, a sea of red, white, and blue stretching as far as the eye could see.
One full year since my gutting loss at Silverstone, and we were back with another pole position.
“Radio check, Lily.”My race engineer’s voice crackled in my ear.
“Loud and clear,” I replied, running through my mental pre-race checklist.
The championship standings flashed on the Jumbotron across from the large grandstand at the start of the race.After twelve races, I led Henri by eighteen points—a comfortable margin, but not insurmountable.Not with another fourteen races still to go.Last year, he’d edged me out by two points in the final race in Abu Dhabi, his Hermes car crossing the line just ahead of my Rennen.The trophy presentation had been bittersweet: pride at watching my boyfriend claim what he’d fought so hard for, mixed with the burning desire to be standing in his place.
This year, the script had flipped.
“One minute to formation lap,” Mark announced.
I glanced at the timing screen, finding Henri’s name in P3.He’d qualified brilliantly yesterday, but a mistake during Q3 had cost him the front row.
Just as well.After he won Monaco this year, I told him Silverstone was mine.
The formation lap began, and I fell into the familiar rhythm, weaving to heat the tires, testing the brakes, feeling for any inconsistencies in the car’s behavior.Silverstone stretched out before me, every turn and apex etched into my muscle memory from countless laps over the years.This circuit haunted my dreams, a victory here always just out of reach.
But not today.
The lights began their sequence, and time seemed to slow.Five red lights, each one illuminating with mechanical precision.Then lights out.
My car launched forward, the acceleration pressing me back into the seat.Turn 1 approached fast, the pack bunching as we all fought for position.I held my line, defending the inside, as the driver in P2 tried to dive up my left side through the turn, the high-speed complex that separated the truly brave from the merely fast.
Or, at least, that was what the commentators liked to say.
By lap ten, I’d pulled out a three-second gap to Georgia in P2, the car singing beneath me.Every input felt telepathic, the car responding to the slightest touch of the wheel.This was what I lived for, that perfect harmony between me and the car.
“Henri’s fastest lap,” my engineer informed me on lap twenty-three.“Purple in sectors one and two.”
I smiled inside my helmet.Of course he was pushing.That was Henri—never giving up, always finding another tenth of a second somewhere.Even now, after everything we’d been through, we were still racing each other with everything we had.
The pit stops came and went, a perfectly executed 2.3-second stop that maintained my lead.Henri had gone long on his first stint, trying an alternate strategy, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the pace advantage.By lap forty-five, with seven laps remaining, I had a twelve-second cushion.
“Manage the tires,” my engineer said.“We don’t need to push anymore.”
But I did push.Not because I needed to, but because this was Silverstone, and I was leading my home race with a handful of laps to go, and I wanted to savor every single second of it.
Three laps to go.
Two laps to go.
Final lap.
