Page 109 of Break My Heart

The fact that he even questions his actions makes me fall in love with him even more. “I think the right thing to do is whatever makes you happy. No matter what you decide, I will support you.”

His gaze searches mine, not for validation of his actions, but for sincerity. I tell him, “I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me whether you’re Viscount Raleigh, Leo the F1 driver, or if you decide to chuck everything tomorrow and we move to Saratoga Springs.”

He reads the truth in my features before turning back to the table. “I’ve made my choice.”

Dario pushes back so his chair is resting on only two legs. “Then we prepare for the fallout.”

My father leans forward slightly, his presence grounding in a different way than Dario’s. “I’ll help Dario. He and I will manage the optics,” he adds. “But you need to be certain.”

“I am,” Leo says. “The only thing I’m more certain of is how grateful I am that you’re all here.”

The next three days are a blur that reminds me far too much of my mother’s death. Grief that isn’t loud, but constant. In the dark of night from our suite, Leo doesn’t say much, but I hear him anyway—the weight of being stuck in this place. The ghost of expectations he thought he’d banished.

I hate it. I hate that, for now, his father still believes he has that kind of hold on him.

“Are you okay?” I ask him the night before the funeral.

“Right now? No. But I will be,” he says.

I close my eyes, holding onto that.

Because it’s enough.

It has to be.

40

MANAGING GAPS: CONTROLLING DISTANCE TO CARS AHEAD/BEHIND

The estate looks exactly the same. That’s the first thing I notice as the limo we’re in fights against the winds that surround the gates of Hawthorne Manor.

Nothing’s changed. Not the iron fencing stretching across acres of land. Not the ancient trees standing like sentries along the drive. Not the gray stone manor rising in the distance, cold and imposing beneath the overcast English sky.

Places like this aren’t built to acknowledge grief. They survive generations. Death becomes another date carved into stone.

I stare out the window as we pass the family cemetery tucked into the western edge of the estate grounds.

That’s where we’re headed because apparently Hawthornes don’t get the chance to leave. Not even after death.

The funeral itself passes in front of me in broken fragments. Black umbrellas. Muted condolences. Voices low enough to imply respect but not low enough to hide curiosity.

Because they’re not all looking at me as Leo Hawthorne, Formula One driver. No, they’re addressing me as “Viscount Raleigh.”

God, I despise it.

I stand beneath the sprawling oak trees overlooking the burial grounds and stare at Albert’s coffin. Then my sister-in-law’s and nephew’s. There’s nothing I regret more in this moment than Albert and I not setting things to rights. I wouldn’t be surprised if my father saw to that. Although we were raised by the same worthless family, we were separated by more than age.

We were divided by expectations.

He was the heir. He had a son. Now, I’m here as a consolation prize. Still, I’m stunned when the complete strangers Albert called friends inform me that he closely followed my races. Talked about reaching out.

That he, too, regretted the distance between us.

Sorrow flows through me at the realization we’ll never have the chance to reconnect.

Though I’d much rather Christin, Dario, and Lewis be by my side, they aren’t part of the Hawthorne family or the peerage. For now, I can’t lean on them despite how much I want to buck tradition. But I know I have a responsibility to my brother to participate in his service without starting a ruckus. I feel Christin’s love wash over me, even with the distance between us, as I suffer through sitting near my father.

After the service ends, I try to avoid interacting with my father’s peers. I’m definitely trying to avoid my father, who stands near the grave accepting condolences like he’s hosting a bloody garden party instead of burying his son.