Page 38 of Red Flagged
“You’re trying to kill me.”
“Non, mon amour. I’m trying to marry you in a stairwell, apparently.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Au fait… je fais du cinq et demi.”By the way… I wear a five and a half.Another pause. “And I prefer antique settings, oval cut, platinum band. Not that I’ve been looking.”
He made a strangled sound at the back of his throat, somewhere between a groan and a laugh, and buried his face in my neck like he needed a moment to survive me. His nose skimmed my collarbone, his breath warm against my skin, and he muttered something about how he was going to consummate the marriage the second I saidI do.
“Maybe once you win your fifth title, mon cœur.”
“Or you win your first,” he countered, eyes soft—so soft it made my heart hurt. That painfully earnest hope in his expression. Like he believed in me so completely he didn’t know how to question it. Like loving me had become his favorite fact about himself.
And I wanted to bottle this version of him—the one who dreamed with me, rooted for me, worshiped me—and keep him safe for the rest of my life.
“Whichever happens first,” I murmured.
For a second, we just stared at each other, our chests rising and falling in perfect sync. My lips parted on a sigh as I reached up to trace the line of his jaw, and he leaned into it like he couldn’t help himself. His lashes fluttered, and for a beat he just…breathed me in. Like I was the victory lap after the checkered flag. Like I was home.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you more,” he said back instantly.
We kissed then, like we were sealing a deal. Like it meant something.
Because maybe it did.
His mouth slanted over mine, slow but still hungry in that way he always got when we’d barely finished one round before already needing the next. My fingers tangled in the hair at the base of his neck. He groaned, low and rough, like he’d never get enough of me. The weight of his body on mine was grounding, anchoring, the kind of pressure that made me feel wanted down to the marrow.
And underneath it all, I was dizzy with need. Drunk on this man. My heart ached with how much Iwantedhim—not just like this, not just in bed, but in boardrooms and boring breakfasts and post-race chaos. The good, the bad, the boring, the challenging. I wanted himeverywhere.
We broke apart, breathless, smiling like idiots.
He grinned, dropping a kiss to the top of my head. “D’accord. So back to your outfit dilemma. What are you thinking?”
Oh, right. That. I forgot that was where this conversation started.
“I’m thinking of asking Ivy to go get me something. I’m too high-profile, and all these bruises will just cause more speculation than I want to deal with right now,” I said, already grabbing my phone from my side of the bed. “Because she owes me for that time I helped her escape from a date with that Swedish billionaire after Barcelona.”
“You say that like it’s a normal sentence.”
I raised a brow. “Too soon in our friendship for international scandals, maybe. But that’s what happens when a woman seduces her way into the paddock with a fake press pass just to get close to me. I saw potential and chaos and I took the risk.”
“And now you’re stuck with her.”
“I’m stuck with all of you,” I said fondly, already typing out the message to Ivy. “Which, unfortunately, means I have to call in my chaos favors sometimes.”
It took Ivy less than twenty minutes to respond. Apparently, she’d already been out “running errands,” which Ithoughtmeant scouting what paparazzi were circling the hotel. She promised to bring options. Which… should’ve been my first red flag.
Because when there was a bang on the door only an hour later, it wasn’t just Ivy.
“We brought the whole boutique,”Marco announced as I opened the door to our suite. He was wearing a long-sleeve black fitted shirt, tailored black trousers, and a gold chain with a cross pendant hanging around his neck.
He was the first face I saw as he barged in like he paid for the place, followed closely by Kimi, who was carrying three shopping bags and a milkshake. Ivy strutted in behind them, looking entirely too pleased with herself.
Kimi wore khaki pants and a maroon dress shirt that did amazing things for his golden eyes and light brown hair. Ivy had on a trench-style leather jacket over a slinky black romper and platform boots, her oversized sunglasses pushed into her hair and a gloss on her lips so lethal it could qualify as a biohazard.
“What the fuck is this?” I demanded as I re-situated myself on the couch, adjusting the heating pad over my hips. The cramps were dull now, but not completely gone.
“This,” Ivy said, tossing her hair over one shoulder, “is an emergency consultation. You said black and dramatic? Baby, I brought the Vatican.”
“Literally,” Kimi added, dropping the bags on the ground with a thud. “One of these has shoulder pads that could stab someone.”
