Page 72 of Retrograde
She shushed him by shoving her hand over his mouth. ‘Nope! I don’t want to hear it. Not until you retire.’ She shuffled back down into her favourite spot in his arms, a position she was supposed to be avoiding amongst others, her head resting on his chest while he played with her hair.
‘If I was racing a different championship, I could be retiring in…’ he thought about it for a second, ‘ten years? Maybe a few more if I wasreallygood.’
‘Youarereally good.’
‘Yeah, in our championship. They’re all different, Sunny,’ he laughed, although not in a self-deprecating way. It was true, each championship required different styles of driving and different skillsets. Some drivers were the best in one championship, moved across to another and failed miserably.
‘I suppose you’re right. But you ended up in the best one, because we’ve got drivers in their fifties and sixties. I’ll probably be booted out before you.’
‘You’re like Gabriel’s adopted child. He would never replace you.’
‘Gabriel won’t be CEO forever, though. He’ll leave one day, and whoever takes his position might want a bunch of teenagers running socials with the way content creation is going.’
Brett kissed the top of her head and she sighed with contentment. ‘Can’t imagine walking through that paddock without you. If your job’s ever at risk, I’ll hire you as my personal assistant. You can, like, I don’t know, hold my sunglasses and reply to my emails.’
Since the start of their careers, they’d had each other. At the end of every bad day, every good day and everything in between. The only time in ten whole years Lucie and Brett had considered a life where they weren’t attached at the hip was when Sienna was in the picture.
To her, a life without Brett was the most terrifying thing in the world. It was the driving force behind her bringing him out here to Tuscany in the first place. Having sex with him daily was never part of the plan, and she knew it couldn’t become routine. Brett wasn’t going to settle, and it wasn’t fair to keep going the way they were going knowing this, and knowing she wanted more. She would end up resenting him, regretting this summer they were spending tangled in bedsheets, and their friendship would never be the same again.
It had to stop. They needed firm boundaries in place, and they needed to learn to stop living in each other’s pockets. How was Lucie ever going to get the happy ever after she desired if she couldn’t let him go?
28
Brett stood on the driveway, waving goodbye to Jasper, who had sent for a chauffeur to collect him from the farm and take him to the airport. Brett didn’t know how he did it. The bloke was constantly travelling around the globe between races for meetings with sponsors, investors and Revolution Racing’s team owners. At least when he wasn’t travelling for a race, Brett was a free agent. Jasper never stopped.
He was on his way to Hong Kong right now, chartering the team’s private jet to secure a new sponsor for the upcoming season. It was part of his grand plan to be able to run a second car. A plan nobody was supposed to know about yet, but Jasper had let it slip last night.
Julien hadn’t been ready to go back to Belgium yet, despite Faith and Jasmine being there with Ford. He wanted to spend more time with Brett. They had a busy day ahead before they let themselves back into the office to play with their new toy.
‘Are you off somewhere, Luce?’ Julien helped Lucie wheel a bicycle out of the barn while Brett watched on.
‘Yeah, I just want to go down to the market and get some fruit and veggies, do a bit of shopping.’ She smiled appreciatively as he let her take the bike handle, thenstretched up to hug Julien. Should Brett hug her too? He mentally scolded himself for having such a ridiculous thought. It would be weirder if he didn’t scoop her up into his arms and squeeze her tight.
He wrapped his arms around her. ‘Have a good morning, Sunny.’ His voice sounded weird. Strained. He hoped he was the only one who noticed.
He was starting to fear they shouldn’t have crossed the line. They weren’t going to stay in this Tuscany bubble forever, and when they left it, they would go back to their old lives. But what if something changed? What if Brett changed?
‘Don’t cause too much havoc. And don’t let my dad use the heaviest weights during his workout. He can’t handle it,’ she warned.
Mateo had joined Brett ononemorning run last week and ended up sitting in the middle of a field, unable to run any further. They’d stayed there for half an hour while Mateo caught his breath and worked up the energy to walk back at a snail’s pace. He was naturally lean, and he ate well. He also didn’t have a racing car to drive, or intense g-force to contend with. He didn’t need to work out every day.
‘I am the king of chaos, Sunny,’ Brett shrugged. ‘But I’ll try to behave.’
Julien snorted. ‘King of chaos? Sounds like something a character from one of my wife’s romance novels would say.’ He laughed as they waved Lucie off.
‘You know you don’t have to say “my wife” every time you talk about her, right? Your wife is Faith. We worktogether. She’s our best friend. We know who she is, ya doughnut.’
‘I like saying it.’ Julien scowled at him playfully.
‘You’ve been married a while now, Jules.’
‘It doesn’t get old, Anderson. I would say you’ll find out for yourself one day, but you’ll be on your deathbed before you get the balls to propose to Luce.’
‘What?’ Brett snapped, Julien’s comment igniting something inside him about a future with Lucie, one he wasn’t sure would ever be his.
‘What’s going on, mate? Because that exchange just now was a bit on the tense side. I’ve never seen you awkward around Lucie. Not once in ten years.’
‘I’m not too sure. It just is what it is. No label, no conversation.’ Brett swallowed roughly, looking around in a desperate attempt to find something else to talk about. ‘Let’s go sort that barn roof out, eh? Should be done mid-afternoon, then you can help me cook dinner for Rosa and Mateo. I’m doing paella.’
