Page 133 of Hot Lap
My husband mutters, “You fucking kidding me?”
I shift, curling against his side, head on his shoulder. “What is it?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares at the screen.
I nudge him. “Reece?”
He exhales through his nose. The kind of sound that’s more about containment than breath. “Fucking Peony.”
I lift my head. “Your ex texted you?”
He angles the screen so I can read it.
Funny how you go for women who take their clothes off for other men.
“Holybitch.” I sit up, ready to punch her in the twat.
Reece reads aloud as he types his reply. “Yeah, but only one of them is honest about it.” He hits send without hesitation.
I study his face. “She saw the hot lap footage.”
“Mm, and is fishing for a reaction.” He tosses the phone back onto the nightstand.
“You didn’t give her the one she wants.”
“No.”
Tension radiates off him like heat from an overworked engine.
I settle back against the pillows, watching him in the dim light, because this middle-of-the-night interruption just explained something he didn’t want to discuss before we went to sleep. “She was at the track last night.”
His jaw tightens. “Yeah.”
“That’s why you were like that when we got back to the hotel.”
Reece nods, then drags a hand over his face. “Yeah.”
“The cheating little bitch is back.”
“Yeah.”
God, I still feel his pain. I hesitate, then ask a question I know is gonna make it worse, but hopefully just temporarily. I need more information if I’m gonna help him get through this. “Was it with someone you knew, speed demon?”
There’s a beat of silence. Then another. Maybe he won’t answer, which will be answer enough.
His voice is raw when he finally speaks. “Graham.”
My stomach hollows out. I thought it might’ve been Wyn, and hoped to hell it wasn’t. Yet this is worse. The two people he should’ve been able to count on committed psychological warfare against him. It’s cruelty designed to destroy him from the inside out.
“Oh,fuck.”
Reece turns away, then sits up, feet braced on the floor, elbows planted on his knees. “I’ve never told anyone. Not Ona. Not Wyn or Mum. No one.”
Christ, this explains so much. His hatred for Graham, the wall he’s maintained between himself and his brother, the nosedive his results took last spring.
I kneel and wrap myself around him from behind, chin on his shoulder. “Why not?” Holy shit. I want so badly to draw all this pain out of him and turn it into a weapon. If I could hunt down Graham and Peony right now, I’d cut off his nuts and choke her with them.
“Dunno, really.” Reece shrugs, but it’s a broken motion. “If I say it out loud, it sounds insane and pathetic. Like I didn’t see it coming so I deserved it.”
