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So are you, Max.So are you.
We spend the rest of the night and the next day in bed, getting properly reacquainted with one another’s bodies. I recall that Max still enjoys breathy moans in his ear while he enters me, and he remembers that I love having my hair pulled.
Most of all, though, we talk. It’s not like we can have sex every waking moment. We bring each other up to speed about our past seven years, and I tell him about my dreams of someday finding a job that involves motorsports yet without the entrenched bro culture of the tech gaming world.
“Why don’t you work with your dad?” he asks, staring at me with serious blue eyes. We’re propped up in bed, him shirtless, me wearing his Team Onassis T-shirt, which smells like him.
“While sleeping with you?”
He lifts a shoulder. “You never know. Things could change, and if you weren’t the boss, it wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Stranger things have happened before on a team. Remember Savannah and Dante? They hated each other when they first met, and the only reason they started to date was because the team owner wanted good PR.”
I stare at him, horrified. “No.”
“Yeah. I was there. It was my first year on the team, that season after we broke up.”
“Wow.” That was my first year at the game company, and I was trying not to read anything about Max’s new team. “I must’ve missed that scandal. I thought they fell head over heels instantly.”
He huffs out a chuckle. “Hell no. Dante, being the arrogant SOB he is—or was—didn’t even want her on the team. Then Brock Bronson, the owner, proposed a whole fake relationship scenario. He claimed it was because I was under investigation by the FIA, along with my engineer and Lucas.”
I groan aloud. “I remember that. What a mess that was.”
Max’s old engineer eventually retired from the sport.
“Yeah, between that and our breakup, I wasn’t sure if I’d even continue in the sport.”
There’s a touch of bitterness in his tone, and I run my fingers through his golden hair. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “There’s no need to apologize. I’m not proud of some of the things that engineer did back then, or of some of my personal antics. Eventually I had to make it all right, though. I had to be right with myself.”
He pauses to kiss my lips. “I think that’s why I’m able to be so open and honest with you. I know what I want now.”
His disarming, matter-of-fact words are enough to silence me. I can’t stop thinking about how I want to tell Max those three little words: I love you.
Somehow, because I’m his boss, because I’m running the team he works for, I feel like it’s a line I can’t cross.
Even though in my heart I’ve already crossed that line, sped past it, and left it far in my rearview mirror.
Chapter Thirty-Six
LILY
The next morning, after Max wakes me up with kisses that end with me on all fours and him absolutely pounding into me from behind—and another soul-draining orgasm—we shower and throw on T-shirts, shorts, sneakers, and matching Team Onassis ball caps.
Never in my life have I been the kind of person to wear matching clothes with a guy, but here I am. We look so adorable in the hats that I insist on taking a selfie.
“We should put that on the team’s Instagram account,” he says.
“Yeah, right. My father would lose his shit.” I’m already feeling guilty enough about my relationship with Max and going behind Papa’s back. That’s a problem for a future me, though, because as far as I’m concerned, Max and I can keep this thing on the down-low for months.
I’m wearing my bathing suit underneath my clothes. Max puts a couple of towels, two water bottles, and some granola bars in a backpack and we inform the security—who are staying in a small cabin next door—that we’re leaving. We head outside alone, freed from the shackles of 24/7 monitoring because we’re so secluded and safe here.
According to the photocopied, dog-eared guest guide left in our cabin, there’s a path in the backyard that leads to a small pond. We find it easily and begin to walk. The cool morning air, damp with dew, mingles with the hush of the forest. I breathe in deeply, relishing the freshness against my throat. The sun is beginning to rise and the path is illuminated in soft light and warmth. For the first time in a while, I’m totally relaxed.
Max makes me walk ahead of him, and we’re mostly silent as we make the two-mile trek to the pond. It’s a comfortable silence, and I easily slip into a fantasy.
This is how our lives could be.
He’d retire and we’d travel the world, having adventures together. Maybe learn to mountain climb—Max has always been intrigued by extreme sports, and I like the idea of roughing it, backpacking, being in the middle of nowhere with only him.
