Page 129 of Off the Grid

And as I’m directed away, I look over my shoulder, hoping that Camilla’s okay.

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CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Riggs

I don’t expect her to answer her hotel room door when I knock, but I try it anyway.

My texts haven’t been replied to. My calls unanswered.

She wasn’t in the paddock when I finished with the media. Then with the team debriefing. Then with Omar over a few quick things.

Meeting after meeting and all I can focus on is where the hell Camilla is and what the hell happened.

Or am I seeing shit and making mountains out of molehills?

But here I am in an empty hotel hallway. The team is out celebrating but I couldn’t. I needed to be here. I needed to know what’s going on.

My first set of knocks goes without a response.

I want to call out to her to open up. That I’m not going anywhere. But in the off chance that a team member decided to head back to their room, I can’t look like a jilted lover trying to gain access.

So I do the next best thing. I take a picture of me standing outside her door, alone, and text: I’m not going anywhere. Either let me in or the crew will find me sitting against your door. Talk about having to explain.

Seconds pass.

I think she might not be in there.

And right when I’m about to walk away, I hear the lock on the hotel room door clink, the door pulls open, then her footsteps pad away.

I enter her room. It’s exactly the same as mine. No one can claim that Moretti skimps on its accommodations of its drivers and crew. She’s sitting in the small seating area. Her bare feet up on the table. Her head is resting against the back of the couch, eyes are closed.

She’s a picture of beautiful melancholy. Of quiet strength. Of unspoken despair.

And I’m at a fucking loss of how to approach her.

But I have to try.

I take a seat on the table, beside her feet, and pick them up and move them onto my lap. Needing something to do with my hands, I begin to rub them.

At first, she tenses up, but then she moans softly. Her eyes still closed.

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Well, tough shit.” Her eyes flash open, and I nod. “You avoided questions the other night. I talked instead. I let you in. I trusted you. Now it’s your turn to do the same, Camilla.”

She inhales a shaky breath, and the sound makes my chest ache. To carry something with you so powerful that it hurts to talk about it? That must be brutal.

“Who did you see in the paddock today?” I ask softly, not expecting an answer. “Because I can draw some conclusions for you. Conclusions I made while I was in press conferences and debriefings and who the fuck knows what because I was so worried about you. About the look on your face when you bolted out of the paddock. Do you want me to share my thoughts?”

“Yes.” The single syllable is barely audible.

“Remember when I told you that we all have a secret that holds us back? That hurts us? I think yours has to do with why you walked away from F1 years ago. I think it has to do with why you needed to work through ‘some things.’”

I feel like an arse even saying that to her. But of course, I’ve considered and reconsidered that various reasons or events could have caused her insecurities, her . . . inability to trust a man during sex.