Page 144 of Knot So Fast
"Stand there," she orders, pointing to a section of barrier where the old Marlboro logo is still visible. "Try to look brooding and artistic."
"I don't do brooding and artistic."
"You literally do nothing but brooding and artistic."
She snaps photos while I pretend to be annoyed, but really I'm watching her work. The way she moves around to find the best angle, completely absorbed in what she's seeing through the lens. She photographs the track, the abandoned grandstands, my initials on the wall. She even makes me sit on the hood of my car, though I draw the line at "pensive gazing into the distance."
"These are actually good," I tell her, looking at the camera's display. The photos have that vintage quality the camera is famous for, making our morning look like something from the 1970s.
"Don't sound so surprised," she says, but she's pleased. I can tell by the way she bites her lower lip while scrolling through the shots.
We pack up as the morning advances, the sun now properly up and starting to heat the cracked tarmac. As I'm closing the garage where the Lotus lives, she's distracted, trying to get the perfect shot of the way the light falls through the broken roof.
But I see it again—the same SUV, parked now on the hill overlooking the circuit. Just sitting there. Watching.
My pulse spikes, but I keep my expression neutral. I've gotten good at that over the years—hiding the parts of my life that don't fit the carefully crafted narrative. But this is different.This is her safety in question, and that changes the calculation entirely.
"Hey," I call out, casual as anything. "We should go if we want to beat the tourist traffic."
She comes over, camera still in hand, and I rest my hand on her elbow as we walk to the car.Not possessive, just... present.A subtle message to anyone watching that she's under my protection.
"You okay?" she asks as we get in the car. "You seem tense."
"Just hungry," I deflect, starting the engine. "There's a place about thirty minutes from here that does burgers that'll make you reconsider your entire life philosophy."
"I already reconsidered my entire life philosophy," she says, and the way she looks at me makes it clear she's not talking about food.
I pull out onto the road, watching the mirrors. The SUV doesn't follow, but that doesn't mean anything. If they're smart—and they usually are—they'll have gotten what they came for already.
But I push that thought away as we hit the main road. I lower the windows, letting the morning air whip through the car, and find a radio station playing the kind of classic rock that belongs on a drive like this. She immediately starts singing along to The Eagles, slightly off-key but with enthusiasm that makes up for it.
"You're terrible," I tell her, but I'm grinning.
"You love it," she shoots back, and she's not wrong.
The road stretches out ahead of us, winding through the mountains toward the coast. She's got her feet up on the dashboard, camera in her lap, hair whipping around her face in the wind. The morning sun turns everything golden, and for a moment, I let myself forget about mysterious SUVs and whatever game someone's playing.
I glance over at her—at the way she's completely lost in the moment, singing badly to "Hotel California" while the French countryside blurs past—and feel something fierce rise in my chest. It's possession, but more than that. It's the need to protect this, to keep her exactly like this, wild and free and unaware of the shadows that follow me.
"What?" she asks, catching me staring.
"Nothing," I say, but I reach over and take her hand, interlacing our fingers. "Just thinking."
"About?"
"About how I'm never letting this go," I say, and I mean it more than she knows. "Whatever this is, whatever we're doing—I'm not giving it up."
She squeezes my hand, and we drive on into the morning, the ghost of that SUV already fading in the rearview mirror. But I memorize the plates anyway. BGK-7739. Monaco registration.
Because Caspian Thorne didn't survive this long by forgetting threats. And anyone who thinks they can use her to get to me is about to learn exactly why I'm still here when so many others aren't.
But for now, we have the morning. We have terrible burgers to eat and bad songs to sing and the kind of happiness that feels stolen from someone else's life. She's taking pictures of our joined hands with that vintage-effect camera, and I'm pretending not to notice the way my chest feels too tight when she smiles.
The abandoned circuit falls behind us, taking its ghosts with it. But I carry mine with me always—the angry kid who carved his initials into concrete, the son who couldn't save his father, the driver who learned to channel rage into precision. They're all here in this car, watching this woman sing off-key to classic rock while the sun turns her into something mythical.
"Thank you," she says suddenly, turning serious. "For showing me that. For trusting me with it."
"Yeah, well," I say, deflecting because sincerity before noon is dangerous. "Everyone needs to see where the magic happens."
