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“I just called her last week and she didn’t say anything. Communication is a two-way street, you know. She’s welcome to voice her concerns to me at any time.”
“If you say so.”
“Mom, I don’t want a guilt trip. Right now I’m on an actual trip, an amazing one, and I’m having a great time. I want you to be happy for me.”
“Your father and I are happy for you,” she said. “We just don’t want you to miss out on things that matter.”
“I’ll call Carly after the race and clear the air. It will be fine. I have to go, the race is about to start.”
Tristan leaned over the concrete railing to gaze down below. “I have never been this close to a start before. How exciting!”
“It’s really cool,” I said.
Tristan glanced at his watch, then looked over at me. “I wanted to let you know, I took the liberty to research your former partners at New England Digital Marketing. Robert Ethier and Robert Beschloss.”
“The Bobs?” I asked. “What about them?”
“Their marketing company is currently afloat, but only just. Out of curiosity, I had some of my contacts put feelers out about their willingness to sell. I am told they are not opposed to it.”
“Sell? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well,” Tristan smiled, “Pierce owns a holding company that has its fingers in quite a few pies, so to speak. A soft drink distributor in Poland. Luxury GPS watches in Japan. Even things as mundane as a wholesale bread manufacturer in Florida. We would instruct this holding company to purchase New England Digital Marketing from them, at a favorable price depending on external pressures we could bring to bear on them. Once purchased, we would oust the two from their positions and install you as the head of the company. It would right a wrong, and become a useful tool in the holding company’s toolbox.”
“You would do that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The decision would be up to you and Pierce. But I have done the preliminary research and primed the market. It was an interesting exercise.”
“That would be amazing,” I admitted. Ideas of revenge began running through my head. “Thank you for doing that, Tristan.”
He put his arm around me and gave me a side-hug. “It was a pleasure. The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite novel, so I love a good revenge plot. And from everything I have learned about the two Bobs, they’re a pair of cunts.”
I laughed. “Truer words were never spoken.”
“Here we go!” Tristan said, pointing. “One minute to start.”
I didn’t know much about Formula One, but apparently there were three days of races. We had arrived on the third day, which was when the main race occurred. The twenty cars lined up at their starting positions below us. Tristan was grinning more than I had ever seen; he was like a child who was seeing a puppy for the first time.
“The start of the Monaco Grand Prix is typically chaotic,” he explained excitedly. “We are in a perfect position to witness any crashes in the first turn.”
The engines all revved up, and then the race began to a roar of cheers. The cars were so much louder than I expected; they were like jet engines, the sound echoing off the old city buildings and making it difficult to carry a conversation when they zoomed by after the first lap. I wasn’t very interested in this kind of sport, but I had to admit: it was thrilling being so close to the action.
“It’s good to be back,” Pierce said, putting an arm around me.
“Technically, you’re not back. We’re in Europe now,” I teased.
“I meant back with you. Two weeks away on my race was far too long.”
“Agreed.”
The race was 78 laps. For a while, we drank fancy cocktails from the bar inside the apartment—there was a dedicated bartender, of course, and a buffet of food as well, but we didn’t want to leave the action. The balcony overlooking the course was higher than all the other apartments around, which meant nobody could look down on us. Pierce appreciated the privacy, I assumed.
Somewhere around lap 65, Pierce’s hand slid down and cupped my ass.
“Wow, that’s awfully presumptuous of you,” I said.
“Is it?” He gave it a healthy squeeze. “I bring you here, to the most famous race in the world, and you won’t even let me cop a feel?”
Pleasantly buzzed, I slid in front of him and ground my ass back against his crotch. The concrete balcony was chest-high, preventing any other spectators from seeing us.
