Chapter 228
CHARLOTTE-
The suite was quiet.
Nothing like the track.
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I kept seeing his mouth near mine. The inch we had not crossed in front of everyone. The squeeze hand on my shoulder after the trophy. How he had looked for me over the cup like the win/did not count unless I was still standing.
of his/
Luca dropped his bag.
Damp hair. Tired eyes. Still in the heat of a Sunday that had started at the back of the grid and ended with champagne.
“You okay?” he asked again. “I’ve never seen you that scared. It worried me.”
I swallowed. “I’m better now that you’re here. Safe.”
“I’m sorry I made you worry in the first place.”
We looked at each other too long.
Then at each other’s mouths.
The space between the couch and the door shrank without either of us moving much. I could still feel his hands from the garage. The lift. The spin. The check of my face like I was the one who had hit something. Heat crawled up my neck. He watched it happen. His throat moved.
“The other night,” he said.
I blushed. “Yes?”
“I was thinking-”
We were moving closer without meaning to. My hip found the back of the couch. His hand landed there too, not quite touching me, close enough that I could smell him. Cologne. Champagne.
“Mmm?”
Then knocking.
Persistent knocking. The kind that would not go away unless you opened the door.
Luca groaned. “I’m going to kill Marco.”
He yanked the door open.
It was not Marco.
His parents stood there, both with pissed expressions on their faces.
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I froze.
They did not look like they had come for a celebration.
They looked like they had come to stir up trouble.
Luca went still.
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“You crashed,” his father said, walking in without waiting to be invited. “And then you got in a car again the next day.”
His mother followed. Eyes on him first. Then on me. Sharp. She took in the suite, the bag/how close we had been standing. She eyed it all.
Always judging.
“We warned you about this career,” she said. “You could have died. Do you understand that, or is the trophy more important than your life?”
Luca shut the door harder than he needed to. “I don’t have a scratch on me. You’re overreacting.”
“Overreacting.” His father laughed once. With no humor. “We watched you hit a wall. Then we watched you start last and play hero. That is not courage. That is addiction. Poor addiction.”
“It’s my job.”
“It is a job that buries people,” his mother said. “And you still went out. You smiled on a podium as if your life meant nothing.”
My hands had started shaking again. I hid them in my sleeves. The win from hours ago felt suddenly thin. A story they had not come to hear.
She turned to face me.
“Charlotte. Are you sure you checked everything on him properly before he went out? Saturday.”
Luca stepped in front of me so fast I felt the shift in the air.
His back became a wall. I could see the tension of his shoulders through the shirt, and the heat of him reached me even with an argument in the room.
“She had nothing to do with the accident,” he said. Voice flat. Dangerous. “Don’t put that on her. I turned in late. That’s on me. She does her job. Better than most people in that garage.”
His mother did not blink. “Someone is responsible for the details. She is always with you. She is always in the way of the car.”
“I am,” Luca said. “Not her. You want a name, use mine. You want a lecture, use me. Leave Charlotte out of it.”
I stood there with my mouth dry and my pulse racing.
I should have stayed behind him.
O
<
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I did not.
tepped out just enough that they could see my face.
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“I checked him,” I said, because silence would have felt like guilt. “Both days. Every strap. Radio. Visor. The same as always. Mistakes happen in a car. That is not the same thing as someone failing him.”
His mother’s eyes sharpened. “You speak very freely for a guest.”
“I’m not a guest,” I said. “I’m the person who stood in that garage and watched him hit a wall. If anyone in this room is allowed to be upset about Saturday, it is him first and me second. Not people who arrived after he already won.”
Luca glanced back at me.
Something like pride moved through his face.
His father set his foot down. “We are not here to celebrate your near-death experience. We need a serious discussion about your future. This cannot continue as it is. There is too much risk.”
“My future is fine. I won today.”
“You won after you wrecked a car the day before,” his father said. “That is not a future. That is a warning you are ignoring. A win today does not change what happened yesterday.”
“Then congratulate him anyway,” I said.
They both looked at me like I had forgotten my place.
I did not care.
“He started last,” I continued, voice trembling and still not stopping. “He could have sat out. He didn’t. He kept his word and he brought the car home in one piece. You should be telling him you are glad he is alive. You should be telling him you saw what he did out there. Instead you walked in here and started tearing him down like the trophy is an insult. Tell him how brave he is! Not that he is ruining his life. This is what he loves!”
“Charlotte,” his mother said.
“No.” Luca’s voice dropped. He shifted again, half in front of me, like he could not decide if he wanted me protected or wanted me right there beside him. “She is not wrong. You did not ask if I was okay. You did not say well done. You came for a fight.”
His father stepped closer. “We came because our son crashed on international television and then smiled like it was nothing.”
“It was not nothing,” I said. “He was in a hospital bed yesterday. He got back in the car because that is his job, and he still thought about not scaring the people worried about him more than he thought about winning. If you had been in that garage, you would have seen it. But you’re never there. Never supporting him in what he enjoys.”
The suite felt smaller.
Luca’s hand found the back of my arm. Brief. Hidden. I’ve got you, that’s what it said. His fingers pressed
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once, a claim and a warning, and my skin remembered his touch from that night.
The wall. The glass. His mouth saying my name.
Heat moved into my body in the middle of a family war.
He felt it.
I knew he did, because his thumb moved once and his breath changed.
“Charlotte stays out of this conversation,” he said.
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“She lives with you,” his father said. “She is already in it. She travels with you. She speaks for you. She is the reason you think this life is a game you cannot lose.”
“Do not talk about her like that.”
It came out harsh. Not a request.
“Then send her out,” his mother said. “If she is so innocent, she does not need to hear what we came to say
“She stays if she wants to stay.” Luca’s voice dropped further. “You are angry at me. Be angry at me. You do not get to walk into this room and use her as a target because it is easier than admitting what you actually feel.”
His mother looked at me as if she might ignore him.
I lifted my chin anyway.
“I am not the reason he races,” I said. “I am the reason he comes back. There is a difference. And if you cared about the difference, you would have started this visit with are you hurt instead of how dare you
win.”
Luca made a sound that was almost a laugh and almost a groan.
His father pointed at him. “We are angry at the crashes. The headlines. All of the women you seem to be around without settling down. Charlotte is part of the problem for encouraging this behavior. You are going down the wrong path, son.”
“Then say that to me,” Luca said. “Not to her. Not about her. She is not a scandal you get to clean up. She is the person who held me together after I hit that wall, and if you say her name like that again we are done talking.”
His mother looked from my face to his hand, which had not fully left my arm.
“This is exactly what I mean,” she said. “Distraction. Attachment. A mess. You are making a mess out of your life! Charlotte is the reason you left home. She made you believe that this is the life you are destined
for!”
“She is my life!” Luca snapped, and then froze like the words had gotten out before he could stop them.
The room went very quiet.
I stopped breathing.
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He did not take it back.
What did he mean? I was his…life? Did he just say that to piss off his mother?
Mission successful. She looked like she wanted to rip my hair out.
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He just stood there, jaw locked, body angled toward me like the sentence had been true longer than he was ready to admit.
“Whatever you came to demand,” he said, quieter now, dangerous still, “it does not include blaming her. That part is finished. She is my best friend, nothing will ever change that. Say what you want about me Leave her name out of your mouth.”
Best friend? Nothing will ever change that?
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Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.