30 Abu Dhabi

30

ABU DHABI

COSMIN

On Saturday night when I hear a knock, my heart briefly kicks into high gear, then stalls when I open the door of my suite.

“Wow—delighted to see you too,” Brooklyn says with an eye roll.

She saunters past, a gold robe swirling around her legs, and goes to a white armchair in front of the huge windows, flops down and puts her feet—clad in slippers with curled toes, like a genie—on the coffee table.

“I don’t wish to be rude,” I tell her, closing the door and following, “but the night before a race I adhere to a routine, and—”

“Yeah, gotcha. Owen’s the same way. But his routine is probably more fun than yours.” Holding up her phone, she adds, “I made your moody Romanian ass a playlist.”

I sit across from her on the sofa with a sigh. “Is the new playlist a pressing matter requiring a personal appearance?”

“Such a gracious host,” she drawls, crossing her legs. “Where are my hors d’oeuvres?”

“Brook.” I try to sound stern, but it just comes out tired. “I lack the mental resources for socializing tonight.”

She ignores me, fiddling with her phone. Mine lights up on the table.

“Check it out,” she directs, leaning back.

I scroll through the list. “Fleetwood Mac, ‘Go Your Own Way.’ Joy Division, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.’ The Police, ‘The Bed’s Too Big Without You.’ Bon Iver, ‘Skinny Love.’ Sinéad O’Connor, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’—”

“Wait for the best one.”

“‘Coast to Coast,’ Elliott Smith. ‘Back to Black,’ Amy Winehouse.” I look up. “This is all quite depressing.”

“Keep going,” she says teasingly.

I scroll farther. Spotting the song she’s likely referring to, I burst out laughing.

“You rickrolled me?”

“A little levity. Plus the lyrics fit.”

She recrosses her legs and the robe falls open for a moment before she covers herself. I know she wants to talk about Phaedra, and I both dread and yearn for such a conversation. Buying time, I fall back on a wink and a bit of suggestive banter.

“Trying to tell me something with those pretty legs, iubi?”

She snorts. “Down, boy. Point your bogus flirting somewhere else. I’m impervious to your charms. Plus you’re so messed up on Phaedra Morgan that if I full-on flashed the magic kingdom, you wouldn’t do a damned thing about it.”

I get up and walk to the dark window, eyes drifting over the glitter of the marina.

“If you understand that I’m torn over my feelings for her,” I ask quietly, “why would you twist the knife in my heart with this music?”

“Don’t be a drama llama.” She puts her hands behind her neck and leans back with a comfortable sigh. “I know you, Cos. Gloomy music is exactly what you need.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. Because it’s decision time: either you listen to those songs and get sad—women can’t resist a sad bastard, so that strategy would work—and go to her with your heart on your sleeve and win her back. Or—”

“I don’t think she’s still in Abu Dhabi. She wasn’t at any of the meetings today.”

Brooklyn lifts an eyebrow. “Did you ask anyone where she is? Don’t answer that—of course you didn’t. Men don’t ask for directions.”

“Some men don’t need them,” I retort.

She stands and stretches. “Sure. Anyway, the other option? You listen to the songs and get sad as hell and walk through that fire and get over her .”

I turn away in disgust—I’m unsure whether with myself or with Brook—and stare at the lights below.

“But you know what?” she concludes. “You need to pull the trigger one way or the other. Personally, I vote for trying again. Unless she’s genuinely not into you, in which case… same advice I gave you in Monaco: don’t mug yourself.”

I scrub one hand over my face. “I can’t think about this right now.”

“Yeah, gotcha. I’ll let you get back to your little prerace jerk-off ritual. Congrats on P2 in quali, by the way.” She offers a mocking curtsy before heading toward the door.

My brow furrows. I said I don’t wish to discuss it, but in truth, there’s nothing I crave more than the melancholy of tasting Phaedra’s name in my mouth. Brooklyn leaving without forcing the issue almost feels like a tease.

“Thank you for disturbing my fragile peace,” I snap.

“Again: draaaaa-maaaa ,” she singsongs.

Annoyed, I follow her to the door and pull it open. “Care to explain why it was necessary to show up in person rather than texting the playlist?”

She pauses on the threshold and throws a smug look over her shoulder. “Maybe to remind you how much you wished it’d been Phaedra when I knocked.”

Jet lag is part of the job in this sport, and traveling eastward is especially hard on the system. The general rule is one day’s acclimation for each hour’s time-zone difference. Abu Dhabi is seven hours ahead of S?o Paulo, and I arrived nine days ago after a brief stop to see Viorica and the Vlasia House children. But the adjustment has been unusually difficult this time.

The morning of the grand prix, I give up on sleep at four thirty and go down to the gym to run on the treadmill. Guillaume will arrive at six o’clock for a short training session, then I will have a massage before breakfast and the strategy meeting.

I listen to the playlist Brooklyn made, running at a breakneck pace and wondering if Phaedra is still in Abu Dhabi. Is it possible she’s asleep upstairs?

Over the course of a dozen songs, I change my mind as many times:

Yes. I must try one final time and make her see.

No. My job is demanding enough without a personal life that veers between euphoria and despair so routinely I almost suffer altitude sickness.

But if we commit to—

No!

We are too similar. We would become miserable within months.

I cannot win her if I don’t take the risk. She must see! I will tell her—

Stop, you fool. You already did, and she walked away.

When Guillaume shows up, I’m all but scaling a mountain at the machine’s maximum incline, my feet punishing the belt, thighs burning, arms swinging as if I’m delivering killing-blow uppercuts.

“Putain de bordel de merde!” he barks at me, jabbing the control panel to slow the speed and lower the ramp. “It is only flesh and blood, as they say.” He throws a small white towel at me in disgust. “Imbécile. You push a car like this? It fucking breaks.”

I pace on the treadmill as it slows to a stop, then twist my canteen open and take a long drink before mopping my face and neck. As I catch sight of myself in the window’s reflection, hollow eyes stare back, and I wonder if I’m already broken.

“Killing yourself,” Guillaume all but spits at me, “because you… comment dit-on? You are ‘in your head’ about this woman.” He scoffs. “I ’ave some advice for you, mec. Say ‘Je m’en fous’ and move on. Why give a shit?”

He adjusts the weights on one of the machines and beckons me over to sit on the bench.

“You could have anyone. How many girls last year when you drove for Greitis? Every week, different one on the arm.” He backhand smacks my stomach. “Assez de ces conneries—remember who you are and find a new one.”

She’s not at the morning meeting either.

Recalling Brooklyn’s teasing, I consider asking Klaus for Phaedra’s whereabouts. But how would it look for me to be moping over her when the most critical race of the year is hours away?

If I make podium and Jakob finishes sixth or better, Emerald nets third in the constructors’ championship, securing a place in the “big three.” I must remain focused on the goal. Any distraction could quite literally be deadly.

Draaaaa-maaaa , I seem to hear Brooklyn taunt.

Fuck!

I need my mind to be silent now, and instead there’s a crowd in it.

I cannot forget Phaedra’s expression on Friday before she walked away in the hotel lobby. What did she see on my face? Could she read the truth of how miserable I am?

I sat through a four-course meal with a ridiculous girl who doesn’t eat and who chattered my ears off with vacant scraps. The whole evening, I was yearning for the rich conversation I share with Phaedra—whether the topic is music, books, history, or pure silliness, there is no moment she fails to captivate me.

I must stop thinking about this.

She’s gone. All I can do today is give her a win, if possible.

I do some final preparation with Guillaume: breathing exercises, eye muscle exercises, reaction drills. In my darkened driver’s room I lie down for ten minutes before going to the garage, attempting to relax and focus my mind, doing a mental walk-through to visualize the race.

Once I’m in the car and the pit lane opens, we head out for a reconnaissance lap. The E-19 is beautifully responsive, track conditions are near ideal, the weather is agreeable—everything on the outside feels perfect.

Inside me, all is chaos.

I have to admit to myself, I’m pained that she’s not here. Certainly, my selfishness is at the tip of the emotion, but the larger part is knowing I may have driven her away when she came to Abu Dhabi to honor her father.

I allowed her to assume I was on a date with someone else. And she left. End of story.

We assemble on the grid, where Emerald’s team of mechanics wait. I climb out. Someone follows me with an umbrella to ward off the sun, attempting to keep in step as I pace, and I have to dismiss him so I can think.

Reporters mill about. I spot Natalia Evans and Alexander Laskaris from Auto Racing . Natalia is deep in discussion with Drew Powell, and Alexander descends upon me.

“Hey, mate!” he calls out.

“Mr. Laskaris,” I return with a noncommittal smile. I’ve never liked the man. UK-born to wealthy and famous Greek parents, he affects a personality seemingly assembled from a half-dozen American archetypes—from hard-boiled detective to frat boy—in hopes of bringing an “edge” to his posh and pampered roots.

He flicks on a voice recorder.

“Today’s your day, yeah? Nearly made pole. Weather’s hot as hell, but of course you’re prepared for that. Ready to net that number one for Emerald, finally —after all those almosts. So close to victory you could’ve touched it.” A sly smile curls on his face. “But you’re not a man to worry he’s been ‘jinxed’ by, uh…”

His words die as I slide the phone from his fingers, fixing him with a cold eye and tapping the screen to stop recording.

“Miss Morgan’s estimation of you is accurate,” I say. “You like to play mind games.”

He takes his phone back. “How’s that, exactly?”

“‘ Nearly made pole,’” I repeat. “Commenting on the heat to emphasize it. Predicting a win as if it’s assured, and in the same breath reminding me of the lingering stain of failure.”

He shakes his head with a chuckle. “Are you superstitious or just easily rattled?”

“Hmm, and apparently you’re still trying.”

“Damn, you’re touchy.” He gazes theatrically into the middle distance, sketching out a pretend headline with one hand. “‘Is the Paddock Pinup Boy Not as Confident as He Appears?’ Now that’d make a fun article…”

I force an aloof expression in case anyone is taking photographs.

“Do you have any journalistic questions, or are you simply a nuisance? I know you sailed here on your little raft of nepotism, wearing the smart sailor suit Mother dressed you in, but perhaps you could look to your colleague Miss Evans for guidance on professionalism.”

He tries for a smirk of bravado, but I can see the comment was a direct hit. One of his eyebrows lifts as he prepares his return fire.

“You are fazed. Big time. And it wasn’t my doing—word on the street is Phaedra Morgan is the one gaming your mind. Got her hooks well into you.”

“Laskaris,” I warn.

His look is innocent. “Hmm?”

Weeks of frustration come to a head, and I can imagine viscerally how satisfying it would be to knock him down—the weight of my fist powering into his flesh.

My smile is malevolent, my voice a lethal purr, low enough that no one will overhear.

“I wouldn’t risk injury to my hands minutes before a race. But if you continue this line of discussion into disrespectful territory… the next time I find myself in your presence, I will beat some manners into you.”

A flicker of fear crosses his face. There is fear in me also as I recognize the words my uncle spoke so many times.

My God. I’m even wearing his cruel smile. The mob in my head presses closer as Andrei Ardelean joins it.

Alexander puts his phone in his back pocket and holds his hands up. “I get carried away with the friendly shit-talk. Boys’ll be boys.”

“Some of them remain boys while others become men. And we both know you weren’t being friendly. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Holdonholdonholdon,” he says, almost putting a hand on my arm. “Sorry, I can’t help winding you up a little to see if I can get a livelier quote than, uh—”

I notice him glance toward Natalia, then stop himself.

“A better one than anyone else,” he concludes.

I suspect the competition between them has ramped up since Natalia started doing a show for the magazine’s YouTube channel. It’s become quite popular.

“When you find yourself behind another car,” I say casually, adjusting one cuff of my race suit, “bitterness won’t help you overtake.”

He pulls a wry face. “Yeah, well. Circumstances can make a win impossible sometimes.”

“If so, you fight for the place you can achieve, accept it gracefully, and learn.”

“Some days that place is a DNF.” He extends a hand to shake. “No hard feelings?”

I glance at his hand before reluctantly accepting. I don’t like the man, but making enemies in the press is unwise.

“Fine.”

“Coolcoolcool. Incidentally—my advice, since you gave me yours—if you want to lock the girl down, scare her . Let the tabloids catch you cracking on with some hotties. Jealousy’s a top-notch motivator.”

He’s such an absurd parody of a human, I can’t even be angry this time.

“Mr. Laskaris, you were this close to being tolerable,” I say, holding my fingers a centimeter apart. “But you’ve also given me something to think about. So I thank you.”

Walking away, I pull in a deep breath through my nose as if savoring mountain air. Something settles in me, tranquil, reflecting upon Phaedra. Everyone—including this crass fool Laskaris—seems to have an opinion on the “strategy” I should employ with her.

Listen to sad songs and wear your heart on your sleeve.

Walk through the fire and get over her.

Find another girl—the hotel is full of them.

Jealousy is a good motivator. Scare her.

I cannot think of Phaedra in terms of strategy: she’s not a car, a racetrack, a puzzle.

This relationship may be a DNF. But you cannot run a race with the car you wish you had. Do your best with what you have, and—as I told Alexander— accept the result with grace .

I’ve been intent on asserting my position: the indisputability of our being right for each other. I’ve used my words, my will, my body.

Push push push.

It’s time I accept that she will make up her own mind. Even if what she chooses is a future that does not include me.

Natalia heads my way. “Can I get a few words, Cosmin?”

“Certainly.”

Her focus shifts past me and she waves enthusiastically, rising on her toes to peer into the milling crowd. “Phae—oh my God, you came after all!”

I wheel around, and Phaedra’s smile envelops me.

I can barely feel my feet. Her eyes are wide, glossy, the new green of growing things. My arms lift, then drop, uncertain.

“You’re… here ,” I say simply.

She’s not dressed for work, but in white from head to toe: a tuxedo-style jacket with a longer, gauzy shirt beneath, skimming the hips of white trousers. My eyes travel to her feet, where I find her usual black Converse sneakers.

“Gotta do it my way,” she jokes, pointing at the shoes.

We’re still two strides apart. Eyes are certainly on us, given the persistent gossip since Silverstone, months ago. Not knowing what she’s feeling—though I have my hopes—I don’t dare move any closer. Then I notice the way she peeks at my lips in tentative invitation. I recall the first time I saw that shift of her eyes, in her room at Santorini.

The white noise of crowd chatter brings to mind the sigh of the Aegean outside the windows that night. Our words, like small pebbles dropped to test the depth of a well:

Afraid of losing those earrings to Natalia?

I’m afraid of losing more than that…

I narrow the gap between us by another step, unable to hold back my surge of emotion at the memory.

“Whatever else happens today, seeing you here… will have been the best part, drag?.” My brow furrows at having let the pet name slip. “If I may call you that,” I add.

She takes the final step, so close now. “I’d prefer draga mea . Because…” A smile—uncharacteristically shy, yet expectant—blooms on her lips. She hooks one finger into the placket of my race suit and pulls me toward her. “I’m yours.”

Her words assemble my ruined heart and spur it into motion. I pick her up around the waist. A happy whimper spills from her, and it almost sounds like pain. Then my mouth is on hers. Sixty thousand spectators at the track around us disappear, the grim voices inside me fall silent, and we are the only two people on earth—dizzy and kissing as if breathing depends upon it.

The clicking of cameras pulses in the background, but I can’t stop—I’m almost afraid if we part now, she’ll change her mind. I put into our kiss the echo of every moment we’ve had together, and I sense she’s doing the same. I devour her lips, an arm bracing her waist, crushing her against me, the other hand tangled in her hair.

The blast of a horn signals ten minutes until the race—time to clear the grid of guests, journalists, and nontechnical team members. I set Phaedra down with one last kiss and a contented sigh, unable to take my eyes off her, and cradle her face, stroking it with my thumbs.

I know I should already be in the car for the systems check, and Phae knows it too. She plants one palm on my stomach and gives me a shove.

“Get in the fucking cockpit. What am I paying you for?”

“You’ll still be here when I cross the finish line?”

She snakes her arms around my waist, looking straight up at me, and her expression is half teasing, half serious.

“I hope I’m with you when we both cross the finish line, at a hundred years old.”

I offer a wink and a mischievous quip to head off the swell of emotion her words bring.

“ You’ll be a hundred, draga mea—I’ll only be ninety-five.”

“You’ll be planted in the back garden if you don’t watch it, you pain in the ass.”

She steps back and lifts her hand in a small, static wave. Near my car, the chief mechanic calls out to me, and I trot off.

After donning my helmet and climbing in, we fasten the harness and collar-like HANS device. I can undo the safety harness but can’t fasten it—a mechanic does the job. There’s little opportunity to change it if it isn’t perfect. During a pit stop, one doesn’t want to be fiddling with the harness—a good stop is under 2.5 seconds. Emerald’s pit crew is the best, averaging quicker this season than even the two leading teams.

At the one-minute signal, engines are started, tyre blankets removed, and the car is lowered from its stands. Mechanics are trotting away—each car’s personnel and equipment must be off the track at the fifteen-second mark.

We go out for the formation lap, and my focus is concentrated like a live wire humming the frequency of every detail—the movement of other cars, the angle of light and shadow, the sound and tactile sense of my car, the connection of my own body, which feels plugged in—an extension of the machinery.

Right down to the most subtle scrap of minutiae, I’m present, living this process.

I weave to get heat into the tyres, responding to operational cues from Lars, his staid voice dropping effortlessly into my ear through the radio. I give the team firsthand feedback on track conditions, and we make a few last-minute setup adjustments.

Back at the grid, we line up again, and the starting sequence is initiated. As my eyes lock on the five red lights on the gantry, a thought spreads in my mind, smoothing and leveling everything: if my focus is a live wire, seeing Phaedra minutes ago was the insulation around that wire.

It’s stabilizing knowing she’s here, watching from the garage with the other engineers, crowded around screens of data, graphs, camera feeds, and circuit maps.

The lights go on one at a time and fall dark, and we’re off.

Drew Powell is on pole, and we both get off to a clean start, running on soft tyres. Neither of us knows whether the other team will be using a one-stop or two-stop strategy. There are countless variables that could make each the better approach.

Responding to the decisions made by the other teams—in addition to evolving changes in track conditions, weather, and the myriad mechanical details not only of your own car, but your rivals’—is like a chess match played at 200 kilometers per hour. Anything has the potential to upend the game when one is playing with thousandths of seconds.

Eight laps in, Powell and I have pulled ahead of the pack. I attempt an overtake and fall back when he blocks.

“Pe dracu,” I mutter in frustration.

It shocks me when Phaedra speaks over the radio.

“Ai grij? ce vorbe?ti,” she says with a smile in her voice, scolding me to watch my language. “What if the kids at Vlasia are watching?”

“Fancy meeting you here, draga mea,” I reply. I’m silent while navigating the next few turns, then ask, “Where is Lars?”

“One seat over. Musical chairs—Klaus is in the garage. Ready to tackle this together, Legs?”

“Beautiful.”

I can’t resist teasing her, because she once told me it used to annoy her when I said that. Her hum of laughter in my ear harmonizes with the engine to produce the potent music I’ve badly missed hearing since July.

Our communication is so light and direct, as natural as gravity. She’s part of me, present in every motion, look, breath.

Emerald’s plan A is one-stop, with a single change to hard compound tyres around the twentieth lap out of fifty-eight. Things such as the safety car going out could change these plans at a moment’s notice.

We’re confident Powell’s team—Allonby—is going one-stop as well when he sails past the pit entrance at lap 20, wringing everything he can get out of the aging soft tyres. Each team is keeping an eye on the other’s pit crew for signs the car will box. Powell is known for good tyre management, and I’m feeling the degradation on mine.

“Tyres are holding up,” I tell Phaedra, confident she can read the extra bit of information in my tone and phrasing.

“Copy—understood.”

Powell pits on lap 21 and I fly past, finally enjoying the brief respite of clean air after chasing him at close range for so long. Seconds later Phaedra speaks up.

“Four-one,” she comments, her voice light as a leaf.

It’s all she needs to say, and it’s almost conversational—the way one might note a cloudless sky and say, “Nice weather” to a stranger. Part of the beauty of our effortless communication is that I instinctively recognize the smallest changes in her delivery. It gives me as much detail as the words themselves.

“Copy,” I reply.

Powell’s pit stop was a bit long at 4.1 seconds—a gift for Emerald, if our crew sticks to the better-than-average time it’s managed for most of the season.

“Box this lap, Cos,” she tells me.

My stop is poetry—a flawless 2.3 seconds—and I zip through the tunnel section of Yas’s pit lane exit and rejoin the track smiling inside, though my face is impassive, focused down to the smallest muscle.

My tyres are one lap fresher than Powell’s—a negligible advantage, if any—and I’m hunting for an opportunity to overtake. Neither of us puts a foot wrong as our cars dance with each other.

I tell myself I have a slight psychological advantage, as Powell already has the title locked up, and I’m ravenous for my first win and riding high on the euphoria of Phaedra’s return and our effortless teamwork.

On lap 36, Powell lengthens his lead a touch just before turn 8, but I’m well within range of DRS—which opens a flap on the rear wing, thus reducing drag—as we shoot into the area between turns 8 and 9.

It’s not enough.

As we wend our way through the marina section, Phaedra speaks up. “Plan C, plan C.”

An added rush of adrenaline jets through me. This could be it.

We’re pivoting to a two-stop strategy. It’s a massive risk, but if everything lines up precisely right, it could mean victory.

First, we need the pit stop to be faultlessly quick. The outcome rests partly in the hands of my crew—the briefest delay could spell disaster. In this sport, one second may as well be an eternity.

Next, we need to gain at least one second per lap for the remainder of the race.

Every. Single. Lap.

The average full time expenditure of pitting—from entry to exit, not merely the span where the car is at rest—is just under twenty-two seconds at this track. There are twenty-two laps to go, and I’ll have to work my way back up to where Powell is.

If I go in for fresh medium tyres, it may be too late for him to do the same. If he chooses to pit on the next lap, he most likely drops behind my position. He’ll probably stay the course and take a gamble that I won’t be able to gain a second per lap.

I slot into the pit box and, o Doamne, it’s the best stop I’ve had all season at 2.1 seconds. I shoot away down the pit lane, riding the precise speed limit.

Her voice is there again.

“You should come out ahead of traffic in P6, Cos. Clear road ahead,” she says calmly.

“Copy.”

I glide back onto the track precisely as predicted. The tyres are still a bit cool, but the next lap should be phenomenal. I overtake Akio Ono at turn 5 and open up DRS on the straight, where I also pass Mateo Ortiz.

Owen in his Team Easton car and Anders Olsson stand between me and second place. Once there, I need only focus on plucking those precious seconds one at a time like ripe fruit.

I can feel how deliciously fast the car is by the time I’m halfway through lap 37—it wouldn’t surprise me to hear I’ve gained three seconds. As if reading my mind, Phaedra is there again, and the way she says it—a cool and matter-of-fact, “Keep it up; this pace is good”—tells me I’m right. I’ve grabbed this race by the throat.

At the end of lap 38, she gives me the words I long to hear.

“Cosmin, you are the fastest man on track.”

Her smooth voice all but vibrates with a timbre of profound-yet-calm elation, and the moment between us is as intense as sex. It feels irrefutable . So right, so real.

Fucking hell! I’ve set fastest lap for the race.

“Fastest driver , I mean,” she amends with an amiable note of laughter. It’s the first time she’s been on the pit wall since Sage took over a seat at Harrier.

Owen gives me a good fight on lap 48 before I get past him at turn 9. At lap 51, Olsson is having some sort of struggle—his car is slowing—and I whip past him. I’m all but praying he won’t end up in a spot requiring the safety car to come out. Moments later, Phaedra tells me he managed to limp into the pits, and I breathe a metaphoric sigh of relief.

This is it. A handful of laps to go, and I’m within striking distance.

Closer and closer each time around. Powell’s tyres are nearly spent, but his ART09 is a faster car, were all other factors equal. Allonby took an aerodynamic risk this year and it paid off.

My E-19 is good, Emerald’s strategy is strong, and my drive today has been potent. Still, without getting within a second of Powell by turn 8 of the final lap, there’s little hope. I need DRS to give me the necessary boost, combined with my better tyres.

Even if circumstances line up perfectly, I likely only get one shot.

I just make it between turns 6 and 7, and we bunch up. The moment we hit the straight, I attack.

He blocks once, but a second defensive move would be weaving, and as I overtake him and see the gorgeous sight of clear track ahead of me, the crowd is in my head again, but this time it’s all cheering.

“Foarte bine,” Phaedra sighs into my ear. “Beautiful, beautiful.”

I dive around turn 9, Powell in my mirrors, but with the shape his tyres are in, it’s all over unless I make a mistake. As I twist through the marina section, I’m riding on air. Only a few turns to go and the checkered flag is mine.

Rounding the final corner is both unreal and the most concentrated reality I’ve ever experienced. The black-and-white churning of the flag plucks a cord of emotion that wrenches a tearless sob from me as I streak past, Powell mere yards behind.

I’m shouting deliriously, and through the radio I hear the team whooping as well. The crowd in the grandstands are thrashing like a field of flowers in the wind, and as I spy a wildly flapping Romanian flag—blue, yellow, and red—I’m laughing and crying all at once.

On my cool-down lap, a turn worker leans into the track with another Romanian flag, signaling me to stop and take it. I know it’s frowned upon as a safety hazard, but I can’t resist. I pull over and the young, dark haired man rushes to the car, shouting, “Ce zi glorioas?!”— What a glorious day! —and I feel like a king returning from battle.

I finish the lap, clutching the flag in my gloved fist, and head for the parc fermé area near the podium. Once stopped, I take a moment to pull myself together with a few deep breaths, then remove the steering wheel and wriggle out of the car, climbing up to stand on top, the flag clamped in both hands in triumph.

As I display it over my head a final time, the roar of the crowd surges. I hop down and stride to the fencing to throw myself into the beckoning throng of team members.

Someone takes the flag and I remove my helmet, panting with excitement and exhaustion as I comb a hand through my hair. My grin, after ninety minutes of my face being nearly immobilized in the fitted helmet, seems to split me in half.

Cameras lift and hands wave, questions and congratulations are called out, and through all the commotion… I see her .

The formerly pristine white clothes are a bit wrinkled, her auburn hair is disheveled, and her cheeks are pink with wide-eyed thrill. I touch the anonymous hands being held out as I pass, but the only thing in my sight is Phaedra.

There’s an expectant pause as I stop, and we survey each other.

“Nice driving, Legs.”

I remove my gloves and pull her into my arms, each of us on one side of the fence. “I had help.”

I kiss her twice, three times. Our aim is poor in our enthusiasm, overjoyed to be touching, however inelegant the execution.

“I have to go weigh,” I tell her with regret, nodding toward where the scale is. “But I don’t want to let you go.”

She kisses me again. “Scram. I’ll catch up with you after you’re soaked in champagne.”

Suddenly Klaus is there, in the crush of people.

“Congratulations,” he tells me, pride shining in his dark eyes. “You’ve done Emerald proud. Thank you.” He shakes my hand, smacking my shoulder firmly. “Edward would thank you as well.”

My throat is tight, and the look Phaedra gives me tells me she knows what I’m feeling—that this is the praise I always wished I’d got from my uncle, had he been a good man.

Klaus’s attention shifts to Phaedra. “A winning combination, you two. I’m glad you agreed to serve as race engineer today when I asked.”

She chuckles. “Glad I could help. And did I have a choice? I am basically wearing the white flag of surrender.” Eyeing me with amusement, she adds, “That was probably this guy’s plan all season.”

“It wasn’t surrender I wanted,” I assure her. “You’re not easily overthrown, Phaedra Morgan. An equal partner, not a conquest.”

“Well, on track a white flag means a slow-moving vehicle ahead,” she teases. “But it still fits—I’ve been slow in admitting I can’t live without you. Admitting it to myself, and to you.”

“I love that you’ve challenged me to battle for my place in your heart.” I take her hands. “Do you really have no clue why I imagined you in white after that first race?”

Her brows draw together and she offers a perplexed smile. Seconds later, her eyes go wide. “Wait, are you talking about—?” She bites her lip. “Do you mean what I think?”

“I do.”

“That’s crazy—it’s so soon… isn’t it?”

“A long engagement is fine, if you’ll have me.” I kiss her again. “Stay fierce and make me earn every moment.” I shake my head with a helpless smile. “I know I’m not doing this properly. There’s no ring.”

She flings her arms around me. “It’s far from being round,” she says, her broken laugh half tears, “but we’re technically standing next to a ring right now.”

“Twenty-one rings a year, draga mea. And you are the jewel in each one.”