Page 66 of Hot Lap
What? Is this man for real?
I step back to let him in. "You’re not having any?"
He shakes his head. "Gotta make weight."
I wince. I'd forgotten about the brutal precision of race prep.
He chuckles as I duck-walk back to the small sofa in the sitting room. “Such grace, Maiken.”
I give him two middle fingers. “Beauty first, beastly man.”
“Always.”
City lights glitter beyond the room’s large window, almost obscured by the mass of roses.
He pulls a to-go box from the paper bag, opens it, and presents a magnificently-perfect slice of chocolate cake, a tiny pot of whipped cream, and a shiny fork. Reece sets them on the coffee table in front of me like an offering, then he sits back and considers me, his gaze steady and serious.
"You saw all of it, didn’t you?"
I know what he means. I didn’t bring it up at dinner because I didn’t know if he’d seen any of it. The interviews and Graham’s footage. The endless churn of gossip sites painting me as the gold-digging ho.
"Yeah. My friends sent me the links." I glance at him.
His jaw is tight "I’m sorry, Mai. I should’ve warned you."
"It’s not your fault your father’s an ass." I’m trying to keep it light even though remembering it makes me feel like shit.
He lets out a slow breath, some of the tension bleeding out of him at my words. "What about your friends? They’re good to you?"
I smile. "Yeah. Delilah and Yasmine would hop on a plane tonight if I needed them."
"Good."
I sit up, emboldened by the warmth between us. "I was thinking... next time I talk to my mom... maybe you could join us?"
His whole face lights up with a gorgeous, stunned kind of smile that makes something break open inside me all over again.
Damn, he’s got to stop doing that. My heart can’t take much more.
"I'd love to meet her."
He makes it sound so easy, and he reallymeans it.
Before I lose my nerve, I add, "Maybe we should do an interview. Together. Get ahead of the story?"
He studies me for a long moment, something shifting behind his eyes. The air between us sharpens and hums. "You’re serious?"
I nod. "If we’re in this... we should tellourstory. Not Graham’s."
He holds my gaze, unflinching, then nods slowly. "I'll talk to Claudia. We'll make it happen."
The moment stretches between us, charged and unspoken, and something in his gaze gains weight.
Is he seeing me differently? Like I’m not just the girl who married him on a drunken whim, but the woman who chose him?
That charge has returned again, that snap between us that feels the way a sky does just before a summer storm.
A little unnerved by the sudden intensity, I fork a bite of cake, swirl it through the whipped cream, and hold it out to him with a teasing lift of my hand.
