Page 58 of Cross the Line
She’s beaming up at me now, and I swear my heart doesn’t know what to do at the sight of it. I’m down so fucking bad.
CHAPTER 19
Willow
With a week between races and no desire to fly back to North America only to have to turn around and fly to Hungary a few days later, I’m back in Monaco – with Dev.
If we’re going to push on with our plans to show other teams why they’d be lucky to snatch him up, we kind of need to be together.Togetherin the physical sense. Well, notthatkind of physical, but physical as in being in the same place. Yeah. That.
The saving grace is that he’s put me up in a hotel instead of insisting that I stay with him at his apartment. I have no doubt he was tempted to offer, but he was smart enough not to try.
In the past several days, the tension between us has been stretched taut, and it’s threatening to snap. I’ve put as much distance between us as I can while still doing my job, no matter how difficult that’s becoming. Anddifficultfeels like an understatement at this point.
This past weekend, at Silverstone, he started and finished eighth. Nathaniel, on the other hand, was forced to start from the pit lane because of a gearbox replacement, which meant the team had nothing to hold over Dev’s head in order to make Nathaniel look better. Still, Dev used the slight from the week before as inner fuel to push as hard as he could, and seeing him do so made me want to work even more diligently. I’m determined to get him out of Argonaut and to a team that actually deserves his talent.
But that means spending more time with him, andthatmeans fanning the flames of my crush more fervently. I didn’t think it could get any more intense, especially after the Fourth of July party and the way Dev winked at me at the press conference. And yet my heart swelled when he pointed me out to his fans for being the one behind some of their favourite videos of him, or when he smuggled a vanilla latte in for me before the full team meeting on Saturday because I’d been running late and hadn’t had a chance to grab one.
I’ve been careful to keep my feelings firmly in thecrushcategory, avoiding any other labels. Nothing like falling in love, even if that might be a more apt term for what I’m feeling. I can’t let it be that serious.
Thankfully, he’s given me some time to breathe and get a handle on my emotions, since he insisted I take a few days off over the break. And even better, it has coincided perfectly with the last-minute trip Grace planned after she called me on Friday night to ask where in the world I’d be next week – perks of having the summer off and no concerns about money.
So now the oxygen is being squeezed from my lungs as one of my best friends hugs me. Or maybe she’s trying to kill me. I’m not quite sure.
‘I missed you so much,’ Grace coos, somehow clutching me even tighter. ‘I’ve been sobored. I absolutely needed to go somewhere fun.’
‘You’ve been in Hong Kong,’ I point out once I manage to suck in a slight breath. ‘Objectively one of the coolest places on the planet.’
She waves a hand, brushing off my comment and also giving me a much-needed reprieve from her embrace. ‘Yeah, yeah. It’s a cool hometown, but still a hometown. But this place’ – she sweeps the same arm to motion to the hotel we’re standing in front of – ‘thisis what I’m talking about. This is the vacation I needed.’
‘Don’t get too excited,’ I warn her as we turn for the lobby. Behind us, an employee of the hotel is loading her luggage onto a cart. She’s staying a week, but that didn’t stop her from packing six bags. ‘I’m not exactly a high-rolling gambler, and I definitely don’t have the budget to spend more than five seconds on a yacht.’
That said, my paycheques from Dev and Argonaut have been eye-wateringly large. They’ll be enough to keep me living comfortably in New York for the next year, even if I don’t find another job after leaving this one.
The reminder that Dev and I will part ways at the end of August, just a month from now, makes my heart lurch. The past several weeks have been some of the best and most exciting of my life. I’m going to miss the action and the thrilling pace of the sport – and I’m going to miss Dev.
Even knowing I won’t see him again until the end of this week sends a wave of disappointment washing over me. Grace’s presence takes the edge off the sting, but still, I just . . . miss him.
‘So, have you fucked him yet?’
I blink in surprise and dart a look at Grace. One of her black brows is raised, and the smirk on her lips says she’s got me all figured out.
‘Excuseme?’ I splutter, taking a stumbling step back.
She uses one perfectly manicured nail to circle my face. ‘That look. You were thinking about Dev.’
‘Was not,’ I say, entirely too quickly to be believable.
‘Yousooowere.’ She pokes her finger into my forehead, grinning as I bat her hand away. ‘I know that look. You were thinking about a boy, and the only boy you’re interested in is Dev. Thus, my question: have you fucked him yet?’
I shush her, whipping my head around to make sure no one overheard her. ‘Keep your voice down,’ I hiss, grabbing her arm to drag her into the lobby with me.
‘What?’ she protests, taking one step for every two of mine. ‘It’s a legit question. I need to know if I won that bet with Chantal.’
I barely resist the urge to groan. ‘You’re awful. And neither of you is winning.’
‘Are you saying youdon’twant to fuck him?’
This time, a few sets of eyes swing our way, and I quickly pull her into an alcove by the elevators for some semblance of privacy. ‘What I do or don’t want doesn’t matter,’ I say. My tone is firm, but my heart is thudding away and threatening to make my voice shake. ‘We’re working together, and we don’t need that kind of complication, or the backlash, no matter how we feel about each other.’
