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“Don’t worry, Cara, now we’ve both seen each other naked. You know, me just now and you in your dreams,” he said with a wink. I froze for a moment and then turned to Henri, who had just spit out his coffee onto my nice Persian rug. Henri turned to me and quirked an eyebrow up, although I could see his expression was asking me if this wasactuallytrue.
Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Umm… you weren’t naked!” I said it with way too much sass for someone who had experienced a sex dream about their fake boyfriend.Luca just smirked, but his interest was definitely piqued.
Fuck, why had I just said that?It was clear thatLuca knew, that I knew, that heknew –unfortunately– that he had starred in my recent sex dream, but now I had basically just confirmed it in my pit of anger. I turned my back and internally cringed, pretending to busy myself with the empty coffee maker.
“Better hope you haven’t seen my sister naked,” I heard Henri mutter to Luca. He clearly wasn’t amused at the joke, although arguably forverydifferent reasons. I knew my face had gone a new shade of red, so I continued to play with my coffee maker, my back to the two of them.
“Wouldn’tdreamof it,” Luca quipped back.I truly could have died in that moment.
Fortunately, before the awkward silence could continue, Henri's cell phone rang. It was their team principal, and he was requesting him in the paddock a little early to do a couple of extra social media stints for his home race. Henri came over and gave me a big hug, waving at Luca on his way out – albeit alittlecoldly.
Luca and I finished our coffees in silence –a smug silence for him and a mortified silence for me– and then we headed towards my parking garage. As we arrived at my Volkswagen Beatle, Luca turned to me, a horrified look on his face.
“What the fuck is this?” He asked with some amusement – but mostly horror – in his voice.
“This is a car,” I deadpanned back, getting into the driver’s seat. Luca just stood by the passenger door; he couldn’t quite shake the look of disbelief from his face. I think in that moment, I had actually stunned Luca Rossi into silence, and I felt quite victorious.
Georgia: 2 Luca: 1
As we arrived at the Monaco paddock, the place was buzzing with people, more so than I expected for a Thursday. I parked the car in the assigned parking garage, and then, hand in hand with Luca, walked through the VIP areas and into the main area with the garages. We took some selfies with fans and waved to the cameras as we were instructed.
Luca walked me to the Valkyrie garage, and just as he was about to leave, Isabelle called us both over with just a wave of her hand. Luca turned to look at me, and I could see he was a little nervous. Isabelle had quite the reputation in the paddock, and even though she was Francesco’s wife, I always felt like Luca was still terrified of her. Francesco was a piece of cake compared to Isabelle. I took a small amount of pleasure in seeing Luca squirm as we walked towards her office.
Before we walked in, I took a big breath and put on the biggest‘I’m not hungover, don’t be silly Isabelle’face I could muster. Isabelle looked up at us as we walked in and scrunched her nose, clearly assessing the two of us, and I immediately knew I had been caught.
“Had too much to drink last night, Georgia?” she asked – a clear tone of disapproval in her voice. I could hear Luca let out a small chuckle before Isabelle turned to him and chastised, “Don’t look so smug, Luca. Takes one to know one.” And with that, we both sat down quietly, like two toddlers who had been scolded by their mother.
Isabelle: 1 Luca: 1
After a few more awkward moments of silence, Lizzie, Hugo, and Lily filtered into the office, followed by Francesco and Matteo.
What is this, a party at the Valkyrie paddock?I grumbled.
“So, I have called you all here because the BBC has asked to do a segment on Luca and Georgia. Apparently, F1’s newest couple will be good for ratings,” Isabelle announced. “As much as I would like to push back on this, I think it would be a bad look for the team. The BBC is very good at getting their story out regardless of participation, and if we don’t agree, then we won’t be able to control the narrative. They are going to add this into the next season regardless; might as well be a part of that.”
I cringed a bit. I had never dreamed of being on TV. Hell, I think the idea of being on the next season of Full Throttle just as a driver was infuriating, never mind as someone’s girlfriend. While I hated media events, the BBC documentary felt worse because I knew this would be readily available to millions of people across the globe.People who didn’t even watch Formula 1 would watch this.
I felt Luca shift a bit in his seat next to me. I had expected him to be pleased about this, but his face told a different story, which intrigued me. Was it because he knew we were going to break up at the end of the season, and he didn’t want the embarrassment?Probably.
There was a silence in the air as if no one knew what to say. Putting a fake relationship on in the paddock was one thing; presenting it to the world on a huge national TV show was another. After a few more minutes, Isabelle dismissed both Luca and me, neither of us truly knowing what to say.
Will deal with that after Monaco,I decided.
* * *
When I woke up Saturday morning, I heard the pitter-patter of rain on my window.
Well, shit.Not exactly the weather I was hoping for. Rainy days were good for the teams that were in slower cars, but I planned to be in pole position after today, and the Valkyrie car wasn’t the best in the rain. Or, to be more precise, I wasn’t the best in the rain.
Still, I’d never backed down from a challenge before.
Luca and I got ready quickly on Saturday and headed to the track in his Lamborghini. The rain continued to pour down, and as we got to the paddock, Mel, my race engineer, informed me that FP3 had been delayed by thirty minutes in the hopes that the rain would cease. Based on the weather forecast, that felt very unrealistic, but I knew the FIA was willing to send us out in pretty terrible, blistering conditions.
Sure enough, as thirty minutes passed, I was loaded into my car and sent off to the third free practice of the weekend, only to be recalled back into the pits twenty minutes later, after another driver had crashed into the wall. They were fortunately fine, but the FIA decided that FP3 was too dangerous to continue, so everyone else was called back in to see if the rain would calm down.
As I hopped out of the car, Lizzie motioned for me to come over.
“This might be a while. Why don’t you go pop round the Hermes garage, hmm?” I gave her a pleading look; it was cold and wet, and I did not feel like dealing with either Luca or my brother, but I saw Isabelle behind her give me a nod, and that was that.
