28 Abu Dhabi

28

ABU DHABI

EARLY DECEMBER

PHAEDRA

I send the printed email up to Klaus through the front desk when I check in. On the back of the envelope, I write Call me.

Shuffling exhausted through the lobby, riding the elevator, and walking down the hallway to my room, my gaze discreetly sweeps the surroundings for Cosmin, not wanting to be caught blatantly hunting for him in case he spots me first. I’m as nervous as a middle schooler scanning the lunchroom for an eyeful of her crush.

My flight came in late, local time. It’s dark—eight in the evening on Friday here, only eleven a.m. in North Carolina. The flight was fourteen hours, and I can’t sleep worth a damn on a plane even in first class.

I’m lying on the bed in my suite on Emerald’s reserved floor of the hotel—staring at the ceiling and trying to summon the energy to take a shower—when my phone buzzes.

Klaus

20:07

Meet me in the lobby, please. 15 mins.

“Oh, fuck a duck,” I say, sighing and rubbing my eyes before remembering I put mascara on. “Phone call maybe, Klausy?”

I rub my black-smudged fingertips on the front of my shirt, then haul myself to my feet and hurry into the shower. Five minutes later my wet hair becomes a braid with a tip that drips onto the left boob of my CAMP SOH-CAH-TOA T-shirt, and I’m not getting any fancier than yoga pants (which—surprising no one—have never seen the inside of a yoga studio).

The Department of Culture and Tourism should hire Klaus for a side hustle in ads where he stands and looks regal in Abu Dhabi’s priciest hotels, because if I didn’t know he’s naturally suave without trying, I’d swear he’s doing a bit.

He’s in a tailored suit, his wavy hair tumbles over an elegant brow, and he’s holding a saucer while tipping a cup of espresso (evening espresso! so bold!) to his shapely lips, gazing pensively out the hotel’s front window.

As he sees me walking across the lobby, he hands the cup and saucer to a hotel employee who gives a little bow before scurrying away. He’s so thoroughly the embodiment of a commercial that he almost needs a string quartet soundtrack.

I walk up and am taking in a breath to serve up a helping of sass, teasing him for being a perfect handsome son of a bitch, when I see his eyes are red. My mouth freezes mid-snark.

“Schatzi.” He pulls me into an embrace.

I stand with my arms hanging dumbly, unsure how to respond. Finally I give him a pat on the lower back—Klaus is like a hundred feet tall, so I only come to mid-chest on him. His cologne makes my heart ache because it reminds me of Mo, even though Klaus’s cologne probably costs as much as a tractor trailer full of Brut by Fabergé.

He pulls back and, gently holding my arms, nods toward the door. “Shall we walk by the waterfront?”

“Uh, sure.”

It’s warm outside the climate-controlled hotel, and before we even get to the railing near the water, Klaus has removed his jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves to the elbows, displaying gym-toned arms. He slings his jacket over one shoulder and leans on the railing.

“Being shamed by the dead is humbling,” he tells me. “And also defeating, because there is no way to tell them they were right.”

I snort. “Most people would say that’s a plus.”

“The irony,” he continues, staring at the water, “is that I would have agreed with Edward, had he made his opinion clear.”

“Yeah, well. You know how Mo was. The same thing that made him a good father made him a good team owner—his leadership strategy was ‘questions, not commands.’”

“I thought I was reading him correctly and giving him what he was reluctant to ask for: your return to North Carolina. I wasn’t truly worried about you losing your head over Cosmin. It was an excuse to send you home, which is why I didn’t bring HR into it. I always felt it was more of a personal matter than a professional one.”

“I agree, but I could hardly stick a finger in everyone’s eye and be like, ‘Hey, the rest of you keep your lusty little paws off each other, but there are different rules for me.’”

Klaus gives me his “smize” side-eye. “As your business partner, it’s my recommendation we omit that clause from contracts going forward. It was already in effect when Edward bought the struggling Montrose Racing team and changed the name to Emerald. Fletcher Montrose was a moralist. But that stipulation has no place in a team that treats its members as adults.”

“For fuck’s sake, Klaus. It might’ve been helpful for you to mention this a few months ago.” I shake my head with a grim laugh. “But I suppose you had to buffalo both Mo and me a little to get us to do what we wanted to anyway.”

We watch a yacht pass, each lost in our thoughts.

I lean over to nudge Klaus with my shoulder. “Well, as Mo would say, ‘I don’t know whether to shit or go blind.’ Do I give it a shot now with Cosmin because I got Mo’s posthumous thumbs-up and doctored the rules? Or should I let sleeping dogs lie?”

Klaus puts his arm around me, and I’m wondering if he’s going to be more affectionate all the time now because of Mo telling him in the email to take care of me.

“What does your heart say?” he asks.

“I don’t know if it matters what my stupid heart says. I was a dick to Cosmin in Texas. We sort of, um, ‘had a moment,’ and he was like, ‘We’re gonna fight for this!’ and then I ghosted him. Didn’t exactly do his pride a world of good.”

“Men who allow their pride to get the better of them are failures. Successful men are resilient. Those who adapt become kings, and those who entrench themselves in bitterness remain peasants.”

“Oh my God, you sound like such a rich bastard right now. Peasants ! Did you hand Cos the same speech when he stank up the track in Austin and then sniveled about it?”

“I did.” Klaus’s lips twitch with a suppressed smile.

We’re comfortably quiet for another minute.

“All righty.” I stand up and stretch. “Maybe I’ll lay my cards on the table and see what happens.”

Klaus fixes me with a look. “I hope you end up as happy with Cosmin as I was with Sofia as a young man.”

I scrunch my mouth to the side, feeling a prickle of tears and going for casual to hide it. “And I hope someday you’re happy with Natalia, so I don’t have to use you as a fuckin’ speed bump. I admit you guys would make a great couple, if you can pull your head outta your ass.”

I’m galumphing toward the elevators, the tongues of my untied Converse flapping, when I spy a group of four gorgeously dressed twentysomethings heading to the dining room.

Cosmin’s best friend Owen Byrne—a talented but inconsistent driver from Team Easton—is in a jewel-blue suit, the color enlivening his ginger hair. His arm is draped around a tall, curly-haired goddess with colored streaks in her wild mane, who’s wearing white jeans that are all but painted on and a metallic wrap shirt plunging between gravity-defying tatas.

Cosmin’s wearing the green suit I teased him about in Melbourne, his beachy-gorgeous hair exquisitely styled aside from one perfect lock hanging like sexy punctuation on his forehead.

With two Pilates-toned arms threaded through the crook of his elbow is none other than the horny emoji from Austin—Peach.

He brought her to Abu Dhabi?

Her yellow dress is skintight with semicircular cutouts down one side, as if she’s been nibbled like an ear of fuckable corn. What is it with this bitch and produce?

They see me, and Cosmin adjusts their trajectory to meet mine.

He has a faint smile of courtesy, but his eyes are cold. I’m trying to figure out the appropriate thing to say—my plans have been derailed in the space of an instant—and simultaneously throwing my defensive shields up, anticipating a blast of shade from the emoji.

Did I mention my heart is also breaking?

Because yeah, Cosmin has moved on.

Fuck. It. Sideways. I’m going back to North Carolina and getting a condo and a dog, and once a year I can find some big-dicked Tinder moron to service me, because love is for chumps, and I lost the title by parking just shy of the finish line.

Cosmin Ardelean was ready to take on the world and fight for our love, and I gave up like a coward days before my dead dad sent me “permission” to love Cosmin back.

I deserve to have failed. It occurs to me with brutal clarity that running to Cosmin now, saying I’m ready to love you—ghost-Dad green-flagged it is the feeblest argument for love ever, and I’m an idiot who deserves to be alone.

The emoji and I are glaring at each other with such “bring it, bitch” energy that I can practically hear light sabers activating as we metaphorically crouch into battle position.

“Oh my God. Did you get mugged?” she asks with fake concern, eyes combing my outfit. “Did they take anything other than your dignity?”

I’m about to clap back, asking if she also lost half her brain in the shark attack that claimed half her tacky-ass dress, when Owen’s date makes a giddy squeeeeee! noise and launches herself at me for a hug as if we’re long-lost friends.

“I’ve wanted to meet you like forr… evv… errrr . You’re a legend!” She jams her hand into mine, doing a sawing motion as if we’re working together to fell a tree. “I’m Brooklyn Katz—this guy’s old lady.” She jerks a thumb over her shoulder at Owen.

I force a smile. “Nice to meet you. Cosmin mentioned, uh—” I nod in his direction, and something feels unnerving about referring to him at all, so I rephrase. “I’ve heard about you.”

“ Lies! ” she faux-screeches, laughing. “Nah, it’s probably all true.” She shoots a look at Cosmin so ecstatic I wonder if she’s coked up or just always like this. “You haaaaave to come to dinner with us,” she insists, seizing my hands in a death grip.

Before I can take a breath to decline, the emoji cuts in.

“Brook, there’s probably a dress code.”

“So what?” Brooklyn retorts. “She can go upstairs and change and meet us.”

I sneak a glance at Cosmin, whose nostrils flare that tiny arrogant bit I recognize so well. We haven’t said a syllable to each other, and I think everyone other than Brooklyn has noticed.

“You’re sweet to invite me,” I tell her. “But my flight was the equivalent of four Zack Snyder films long and I’m dead on my feet.”

“That explains it,” the emoji pipes up, all sympathy. “You were sleepwalking!”

I’m gratified when Cosmin disentangles his arm from her tentacles and takes his phone out, glancing at it. I wonder if there’s anything on the screen. Is he low-key putting her in her place for being ratty? Or putting me in my place by pretending to check the time, implying I’m wasting theirs?

I point at the elevators. “Sorry, but for real, I gotta hit the hay.”

The emoji attempts to slither her arms around Cosmin’s elbow again, and for a second time he avoids her, putting his phone in his pocket and straightening his cuffs. She pulls a pout and he offers her a stiff smile, plucking her hand up and hooking it on his arm. I’m not sure what to make of the exchange.

For some reason it hurts especially that I had a territorial showdown with her hours before being fucked deliciously half to death in that Lincoln. Her being here with him now makes it seem like the afternoon I spent with him, rather than being a transcendent moment of connection, was a detour in their journey.

How long did he wait before calling her? Was it the same day I left for North Carolina? She must’ve gone with him to S?o Paulo. I could spit poison, realizing that while I was reading my dad’s email and crying during the Brazilian GP, this halfwit was waiting for Cosmin at the Hotel Emiliano.

Folding my arms, I back away from the group. “Brooklyn? Lovely meeting you. Nice seeing you too, Owen.”

I flatten my lips in a regretful way when I look at Cosmin, unable to affect any pretense that I’m not dying inside.

Let the bitch savor her victory—there’ll be no parting middle finger from me this time. The best I can manage is to ignore her, which is pretty weak sauce.

The only person I hate more than her right now is myself.

“Awwww!” Brooklyn whines, rushing to bear-hug me again. “Another time, right?”

“Of course.” I pat her fashionably emaciated shoulder blade and disengage before shifting my focus to Cosmin.

Ugh, he’s so gorgeous. I let myself unabashedly peruse his dumb perfect face—the marble-angel bone structure, the delicious lips I’ve felt everywhere, the eyes I’ve locked with as I came, the lush hair I’ve grabbed while his head was between my thighs.

“Good luck on Sunday,” I tell him.

“Will you be there?”

“Undecided.”

He extends a hand, and if there ever existed a more soul-punching door prize than a goodbye handshake from the guy you’re in love with, I don’t wanna know about it. I take his hand and hide the shiver that goes through me at his warmth.

“You’re still the best race engineer,” he says with a melancholy smile. “Lars is good, but you’re the best.”

“ Was the best,” I correct. I pull my hand from his and put it behind my back. “Bag a win for Mo this weekend, Legs.”

I pivot toward the elevators because hell no I’m not letting the emoji see my tears.

As I walk away, Cosmin calls after me, “Noapte bun?, drag?,” and I wish I’d never learned a word of Romanian, because even a simple “good night” is like a beautiful curse, damning me never to be free of my love for him.