Chapter 21

PR Princeton had offices in Chelsea. It took half an hour on the tube to get there from Stratford, but going later in the day after rush hour meant that the carriage was far less packed.

Often on my ride in, a man named Neil would sit opposite me and eat a raw onion like an apple. It always put me off my iced coffee and breakfast bagel.

I didn’t miss my old job, but I missed the routine: after-work drinks with my friends, meeting my brother for lunch, even Neil’s nasty eating habits.

Ever sinceVinny’sdeath, a lot had changed.

Including me.

But the office hadn’t. I walked into the reception area with a wave at Tracy the receptionist. She stood, mouth open and lunged to hug me. “Livie!”

“You’re making me feel like the celebrity,” I joked, hugging her back.

“You basically are around here!” she laughed. “Heard we’ve got some lawyers coming in, and some of us are being summoned as witnesses?”

“Just three of us,” I told her. “But, obviously, there are over 400 articles to go through, so I’m here to find the worst of them.”

She squeezed my arm in comfort. “It’s not like you’ve been through enough.”

My smile was weak. “Yeah, I’m a bit worried about the media frenzy this case will be,” I admitted. “I think they’re going to make an example of this.”

She nodded gravely. “I should hope so. It’s awful.”

I agreed just as Adam walked in.

He’d been expecting me. I’d emailed his assistant, telling her exactly when I would make it in but he straightened when he saw me, went to speak and stopped.

I’d been in love with him. Or close.

I’d imagined my kids having his grey eyes, his dark brown hair. But I’d always wanted my kids to know their father adored their mother. That wouldn’t have happened.

We shared similar qualities. Ambition, hard work. Devotion.

His devotion to me had fallen ridiculously short.

All I felt now was niggling anger low in my stomach.

If he was too cowardly to approach me, I would approach him.

I offered my hand. “Adam.”

He only looked at my gesture in horror. “Come on, now,Livie, we’re not like that.”

I retracted my hand. “Come on, now, Adam, we are.”

I walked past him to the open-plan desks where my ex-co-workers sat. One or two new faces smiled at me, but the other six swarmed me, asking how I was and offering cups of tea.

I didn’t miss my old job.

But I hated how it had been taken from me.

How my friends had been taken from me.

How she had been taken from me. RuthlessLiviethat didn’t put up with shit.

In a way, I guessed Nix had unknowingly forced her back to the surface with how bloody annoying he was at first. Thinking about him made me smile, made me stronger.

We sat as a group in the conference room, eating doughnuts and ready to share what we had onVinny’scase. Adam, Victoria and I were the ones called as witnesses, and we placed all of the worst articles across the long table and on the pinboard. We scoured through emails to see if there was anything that would be helpful for the lawyers to draw their attention to.

But we still hadn’t been able to retrieve my sent emails. The only ones I could find that would be helpful were from replies when I’d initially emailed sayingVinnywas struggling with his mental health.

And when Victoria left for a phone call late in the afternoon, I pointedly stood at the pinboard, facing away from Adam.

“You don’t have to be like this, you know,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Cold.”

I laughed once without humour. I hadn’t spoken to him about anything other thanVinnysince I had insulted his skills in the bedroom. He was probably only hurt over that.

Either way, I wasn’t about to spend any more time alone with him. I texted Nix that I was ready to go.

His reply was immediate.

NIXONARMAS: I’m only around the corner.

Adam had stood and was at my side, looking over my shoulder at my phone. “Like I told your brother, I can get you some freelance work. You’ve done such a great job withArmas. He seems like an actual decent man. Though he isn’t. ”

My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

“Come for a drink with me,” he said.

The first time he’d said thatfour years ago,I’d been giddy with excitement. Now I just felt repulsion looking at his tanned, chiselled face.

“Let’s try and be friends again.”

Friends. Right.

“I’ve moved on,” I snapped. “I’m with someone else.”

He shrugged. “I’m not saying—”

“Tell me what you mean aboutArmas, Adam.”

“It’s about Alv Mendes.”

I glanced at him, my heart in my throat. I couldn’t be hearing about his passing from Adam . Even if that was what he meant, the accident wasn’t Nix’s fault.

“One of these newspapers wants to release it, but… right now, the journalist is thinking it’s simply unethical.”

Pride was out the window, thrown out by the adrenaline pumping in my veins. “Tell me.”

He breathed in deeply. “They have pictures ofAlv’swife having an affair.”

“Fuck,” I rasped and started to bite my tongue. She seemed head over heels for him when she was commentating the race those months ago. An affair?

“That’s not the worst of it.”

“Go on,” I begged, trying to swallow my heart back down. Because I already knew. I already knew.

“They don’t have photos of the guy’s face, but… it’s a certain number 18.”

Nix.

NixonArmas. The first time I met him, he told me he was having an affair with a married woman. He’d left out the part that it was Alv ’swife.

“When?” My voice was hard. It didn’t belong to me.

“Before the crash,” he said softly and went to comfort me by reaching out his hand. I stepped back into the pinboard, cornered like a timid animal, with no option but to hear the worst. “Got a couple of occasions on film. He’s taller thanAlv, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” I stopped. “But it isn’t him. It wouldn’t be.”

Nix wouldn’t do that.

Adam analysed me, eyes slightly pinched.

“The journalist is a personal friend of mine and I’ve seen pictures,” he continued, tapping on his phone. “See?”

He swiped through a number of photos. A green sports car pulling up to a house, her outside of it and running her arms over the dark figure that got out the driver’s side.

A figure I knew.

“The car’s been linked to one Nix was renting at the time,” he said. “My friend hasn’t told her boss who the affair is with because he’ll push to publish. But she… she doesn’t feel right doing that with what’s going on.”

“But it will come out at some point,” I whispered, my voice not strong enough for anything else.

He nodded. “Probably when Alv dies.”

If Alv died.

“I know I wasn’t the best to you,” he carried on, stepping forward. “I know I should have handled things differently, but… this doesn’t make what I did okay, but I needed to do something for you.”

“This is something for me ?” I asked with a sour laugh. “This is for your own conscience.”

Damn, I really did have a type. Men out there for themselves, that clearly only thought with their dicks.

I didn’t know Nix at all.

He was… a cruel traitor, guilty of the ultimate betrayal.Alvwas his friend.

Adam was talking, but I wasn’t listening. I pushed past him, closed my laptop, placed it in my bag and slung it over my shoulder before grabbing my coat and starting to walk out.

“Livie, just talk to me!” Adam called, rushing to catch up. The people in the office all looked over.

Fuck him.

Despite all the fury that I’d had towards Adam going directly towards Nix, I was so grateful to see him at the reception desk talking to Tracy.

I went straight to his side, trying to control my breathing through my nose.

He steadied me, hands on my shoulders. His eyes flickered from me to Adam behind us. “Are you okay?” he asked, but it wasn’t soft and sweet like it had been in the club bathroom. It was filled with warning.

“He’s just being a dick,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Let’s go.”

Before we could, Adam leaned against the desk and pointedly looked the two of us over. “Some things don’t change, do they,Livie?”

I reeled. He wasn’t going to use that against me. Not that. “Adam, you’re a piece of shit, you know that? You’re pathetic. I won’t work freelance for you. I won’t ever do anything for you again. Lose my number.”

He kept his smirk. I wanted to hit him.

Nix followed me out and I didn’t say a word as I made my way to the tube station .

I just needed to breathe.

He didn’t ask what Adam meant by his comment and I prayed he never would.

Even if I had some questions to ask him myself.

“Livie, if you want to just go back to yours, we can.”

Shit, I’d forgotten about his plans.

“Sorry,” I said, stopping in the street and taking one last deep breath. “Where is it we’re going?”

“Back the way we came, mostly,” he said and took my hand.

I pulled it back.

I was too wired up, too angry.

Nix had slept with his best friend’s wife. But I was no better.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I was going to have a panic attack. It was coming, rising in my chest.

It was already here. I balled my hands into fists as I leaned against the wall of the building, trying to remain calm, counting backwards from ten, breathing.

Breathing.

“What’s seven times seven?” Nix asked.

My head hurt with the frown. “What?”

“Quick. Seven times seven.”

“Forty-nine.”

He asked a couple more questions like that and, at first, it made me more flustered, but eventually, concentrating on the maths took away from the blockage in my chest and throat.

Opening my eyes, Nix was offering me a stick of gum. “Peppermint,” he said. “Like the tea you like.”

I took it eagerly and chewed. It cleared my airways, overwhelming, but not as overwhelming as the complete and utter loss of control.

My fingers felt numb.

“I’m here,” he said and leaned against the wall at my side to shelter me from those passing. The shadow from his cap forced me into a world of just us. “You do what you’ve got to, but know I am just here. I’ve got you.”

I kept chewing. Kept breathing. Kept answering maths questions.

He ran soothing strokes up and down my arm as my breaths settled.

“Let me know when you’re ready and we’ll grab you something sugary,” he said. “Iced coffee? Shot of caramel?”

I nodded and, this time, when he offered his arm, I took it.

“What was that?” I asked with a shake of my head. “The numbers.”

“Well…I wanted to be able to help, so I researched panic attacks,” he said with a decisive nod. “There are loads of different methods, like the 333, the 5-4-3-2-1 and focusing on hard maths questions can sometimes be helpful. Seeing as you like data so much, I thought you’d like the challenge of multiplication.”

I didn’t talk as he ordered my drink or as we sat down. I gave my chest some time to recover. That had been a small one, not as bad as many I’d had before.

“Do you get them often?”

I looked down at my coffee and nodded.

“Hey,” he said and placed his hand over mine under the table, on top of my knee. “You don’t need to be embarrassed. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I don’t want you to see me like that,” I admitted and sucked on my straw until I was only filling my mouth with air.

“Tough luck,” he said. “I want to see everything.”

My chest was already weak, but that… knocked me for six. “Wh at are our plans?”

“They’re just around the corner,” he said. “Take your time.”

But we couldn’t. A group of teenage girls had noticed Nix, even in his cap, and were all turning around, talking in hushed tones. Their phones were not-so-subtly being lifted to take pictures.

So I stood, and he took my bag before walking us to a glass high-rise building. A suited man welcomed us with a smile into the lobby, quickly pressing for the lift before approaching. “Mr.Armas, Miss Quinn.”

Nix didn’t correct him for calling him mister.

He’d brought us to a hotel. He hated my flat so badly that he wanted us to leave. My face was hot, my chest tighter than before with shame.

“Stanley,” Nix said with a nod before ushering me into the lift.

“What is this?” I asked as he waved a key card and we started to move up. He placed it in my hand.

“Well, you’ve got furniture, and…”

“Nix, mentally, I am incapable of a riddle right now.”

He pulled me to him for a hug, stroking my back with his hand. “I don’t want you to sell your things, they mean a lot to you. So, I found a way you don’t have to do that.”

The lift door dinged and opened into an entryway, chevron floors and bright, white walls leading to a black kitchen.

“As I said,” he said and gestured before us as we walked in, “you have furniture, and I don’t. So… you can live here.”

What was happening? He wanted my things? He wanted us to… to what? Move in together? In here? He…

What ?

I was still.

“Damn, I should have thought this through,” he mumbled. “You’ve got a lot going on and I literally don’t even have anywhere for you to sit—” He looked around frantically. “This was a silly idea to do today. We should have just gone home.”

He was calling my house home, and I was pretty certain that wasn’t a language slip.

“Do you have a bathroom? I need… a minute.”

“Yes! You can sit on the toilet,” he said. “I do have toilet roll.”

Nixon Armas was like a puppy dog.

My chest was crushed.

The bathroom was huge, yet I felt so claustrophobic. Grey veined marble glistened under bright lights, but I couldn’t take in the grandeur of the place when I needed to simply think.

My mind was racing faster than him at the Japanese track. I wasn’t capable of thoughts, they kept on cracking in multiple directions as I stared at the key card in my hand.

Nothing was going to become clearer until I spoke to him.

I splashed my face with water, pulled out my ponytail to relieve some of the pressure in my head and went out to the kitchen.

The room was empty apart from a kettle bubbling away. He had his back to me, in the fridge getting out a bottle of milk. “I already got your tea,” he said and lifted it up proudly.

“What is this?”

He stood straight. “This isn’t a declaration of love, nor me asking you to move in with me.”

But it looked like that .

“So… what is it?”

He opened the bare cupboards. Bare apart from the two mugs he retrieved. “It’s that I don’t like the thought of you thinking you don’t have a home. I want you to keep your things. We can come here together between races, or you can come here alone. You can stay whenever. This will be your home.”

“I can’t afford—”

“No, no,” he said and shook his head. “You can furnish this place. That will be your contribution.”

That didn’t seem fair. At all. It went without saying that the apartment was stunning, and in the heart of Chelsea, it had to cost more than I would ever make in my lifetime. It was too much.

“Nix, I always pay my own way.”

“Well, if you feel you must, you can pay per stay.” He poured our drinks, stirring in the milk. “But, really, you staying here would be doing me a favour. You have one lock on your flat,Livie. One. I had to drill it’s screw back in this afternoon because it was pointless. Whereas this place has around-the-clock security. The thought of you staying there…”

I needed to sit down. I was genuinely going to have to sit on the toilet again or the side of the bath.

“I’ll owe you.”

“Nope,” he said firmly. “You won’t. I promise you. I can be here as much or as little as you want.”

“This is a lot, Nix,” I whispered, but picked up the tea he offered me and cradled it in my hands.

“If you want, I can have my lawyer set up a contract stating everything inside is yours. If you ever want to break up with me, you’ll have time to move your stuff out. I just thought… I ju st thought this would help both of us.”

Break up?

My heart was still racing. It needed a moment to rest.

“And I realise now that I may have got carried away,” he admitted, looking behind me to the apartment.

“I need to think,” I said.

Nix was so happy. Or he had been.

“It’s been an odd day,” I told him.

He lifted me to sit on the kitchen island. “Tell me all about it.”

“I don’t think you’d want me to.”

His face hardened. “Did he touch you?”

“No.”

He didn’t relax. “What did he say?”

“He said…” I shuffled further back on the island to get ready for the conversation I couldn’t put off any longer.

I was never one to avoid conflict in relationships.

But this had been going so well.

Too bloody well, knowing my luck.

I could already feel our relationship cracking along with my voice as I asked, “Who did you have an affair with? Who was the married woman?”

His eye contact was intense as he went to speak and stopped.

“I want to hear you say it, Nix. I’ve got to hear it.”

He leaned against the opposite counter and closed his eyes as if physically pained. “CallyMendes.”

“So, you’re a piece of shit, too,” I snapped and jumped down, ignoring how faint I felt and the anger pulsing in my ears.

I had been right. I couldn’t trust him with anything other than my body .

He wasn’t even trustworthy with those he loved.

“Your best friend’s wife ,Armas,” I cried, shaking my hand as I picked up my bag. “Your best friend . The only person you liked!”

He snorted and shook his head, grabbing hold of my arm to stop me from leaving. “And you’re so innocent?”

I swallowed.

“You know, you’re not the only person capable of googling a name.VinnyGarvs. That picture in the papers of him and his lover? Do you know whose body I recognise? Do you know whose tattoo I recognise in it? Yours.”

My eyes were burning as I tugged away from his grip.

“You don’t fuck your clients? That must be a new rule for you. One you’re really shit at abiding by.”

“It happened only once!” I shouted. My words echoed around the empty flat. “After my dad died, he got me stupidly drunk, took me back to my flat and I woke up in the morning — naked — without a clue . One second, I was absolutely fine. The next, I was blacked out. I don’t even know if I wanted it. I feel dirty that maybe I did. The one thing I do know is that he was sober. Completely sober.”

He let me go for his hands to ball into fists. His words brimmed with anger, practically spitting them. “What? He did what? ”

“Do you think I don’t hate this?” I asked, forcing up my top and bra to show him the tattoo. “I got this done the day after my dad died with my brother. Over our hearts. His words. And it’s ruined. Ruined.”

Nix went to speak, but I wasn’t done.

“And if it wasn’t me in that photo, it would be one of the other women he slept with! I wasn’t a good person, but I refuse to be made out to be the villain in comparison to your crime.”

“My crime ?”

“Wasn’tAlvyour closest friend? And with how keen you were for your affair to continue, I bet you slept with his wife hundreds of times!”

“Seven,” he snarled. “I slept with her seven times. One for every storyAlvsold about me to the press.”

I stopped short. “What?”

“Look around you,Livie, we’re sportsmen . We’re not celebrities. ButAlvmade me one by selling stories to the media. None positive.”

Nix first received attention after a shot of him in his leathers went viral years ago when he won his first race. He’d been invited on a couple of podcasts and a TV appearance, but the publicity only lasted a couple of months.

Then a story came out of him berating a member of staff at one of the hotelsCiclatiwere staying at.

Then another about his drug use.

Then another about him supporting PedroVelazco.

Then it didn’t stop.

“You’re certain?”

“Photos from angles where he was, knowledge only he had,papsarriving places only he knew I was going. Pictures of me leaving visiting hours at the prison. Do you think I’m proud of myself?” he spat. “Do you think I don’t feel horrific guilt at the fact he’s now in a hospital bed and will probably never wake up? The fact it was me who put him there?”

“I…” He felt guilty, of course. But he never seemed to be ashamed of himself like he did now.

“Probably the same guilt you feel,” he said. “But you shouldn’t feel guilty. He should have. No, don’t pretend you don’t. Staying up late, scouring the internet and your files for any uncovered article about him. You’re not discreet,Livie. You owe that man nothing , dead or not.” He sighed and I went to speak, to defend myself but he was right. Every timeVinnyGarvswas mentioned, my stomach would knot. “I need you to know that I fucking care about you! So, yeah, maybe I got over-excited about being able to give you something. Something that the most infuriatingly independent woman in the world might need. And I’m sorry that I was an awful friend and a prick and I let revenge fuel me for four years. I was adamant I wouldn’t give it up because he wouldn’t give it up.”

“Why would he…”

“Fuck knows!” he shouted and turned, holding on tight to the counter. “I wouldn’t have even touched her if he hadn’t.” His back rolled with his deep breaths before facing me again, his face twisted with desperation. “And if you’re worried about my loyalty to you, you really shouldn’t be. I only want you,Livie. Only you. It hurts to think you’d hate me over this. There are things I’ve done that would make you despise me, I know that, but…” He shook his head and sighed, looking completely defeated. “Take this place or leave it, but I just want to know you’re happy and you’re safe.”

“I’m fully capable of looking after myself,” I reminded him.

He groaned. “Tell me about it.”

“And making my own decisions. I don’t think I’m capable of hating you,” I added. “Feel like I probably would have by now.”

“Please, just… give me a chance.”

“I will,” I promised, stepping towards him. “I’m sorryAlvdid that to you. ”

He nodded. “And I’m sorry that piece of shit did that to you.”

My bones locked up, arms tight at my sides.

There was a silence between us, but I shook my head. There was nothing more to say. I’d gone to therapy. I’d tried to work through it. I never wanted to talk about it again. He smiled weakly, acknowledging my pain but not pressing it.

“Yeah,Alv’s… I don’t know how I feel,” he said with a deep exhale. “I don’t hate him. I know there must have been a reason but… he doesn’t deserve what I’ve done to him.Callyor…” He swallowed. “He’s not going to make it.Lucacalled.Callystill has hope, but… he’s not coming back.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice breaking. “It’s not… his accident was not your fault. Please don’t take that burden.”

Without a word, he turned away from me, nearly knocking over his tea.

This had been such a wholesome moment. He’d even brought tea bags. I’d ruined it.

“Hey, Nix,” I said softly and put my hand on his shoulder.

When he looked up, his eyes were red. “Despite everything, despite what we’ve done to each other, he’s still my friend. I’ve killed my friend.”

“You haven’t,” I tried to reassure him. “You haven’t, Nix. It was not your fault.”

He bit his lip, trying to hold back the tears.

“The inquiry should be done this week. They interviewed me again on Friday.”

“And it will tell you what I’m telling you — it’s not your fault, Nix.”

He hugged me fast, tight in his arms. He didn’t sob, but I was sure he was crying. We stayed like that for some time, just holding each other.

“You could have been on coke and it wouldn’t have been your fault,” I reassured him. With a pang of guilt, I remembered how relieved I had been when his drug test had come back negative that weekend. “You could have been high as a kite and it wouldn’t have changed it. You couldn’t do anything.”

“I haven’t taken anything since,” he said. “I’ve smoked two cigarettes. Haven’t had so much as a beer.”

I stroked his back through his top.

“I wasn’t on anything at the time, haven’t been on anything for a year, but I can’t bring myself to even sip a drop of alcohol.”

That first day at the hotel… his room had stank of booze.

“The morning of the reshoot…” I started.

He shook his head. “That was Abbe. You know I hate gin.”

“So you weren’t hungover,” I clarified.

He pressed a kiss into my hair. “I just wanted to spend time with you. Alone.”

“And on the phone? In India?”

“Sober,” he said. “When you said you were tipsy, I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

I relaxed further into him. In his arms, with it all out in the open, it really felt like everything else was far away. All of our problems.

But I was already thinking of the potential media this could come with.

I just couldn’t stop myself. Not from wanting the whole world to see the Nix I could see.

“So, the press know?” he asked, running his fingers lightly through my hair.

“Adam said they’ll wait for definitive news onAlvbefore publishing anything,” I told him, my words in his chest. “Or… I guess the inquiry being complete might give them enough reason to publish.”

His chest lifted with a deep inhale. “Can I pay for it to go away?”

For him or for her ?

“Is it not worth seeing what they have first? Apparently, they don’t have photos where they can see it’s you, but…”

“Okay, yeah, let’s see what they’ve got. I’ll pay.”

“One catch. Adam is the one who told me. He has a connection to the journalist. I might have to suck up to him a little.”

He groaned and his head fell back. “Not worth it, then.”

“Definitely worth it. He wanted to go for a drink, that’s all.”

“That’s all? ” he asked, his tone telling me he didn’t think it was a small ask.

I looked up at him, resting my chin on his top. “Do you not realise what I would do for you? What I would do for your career?”

He sighed, looking down at me with serious eyes. “Maybe you shouldn’t be my publicistanymore.”

I jerked back out of his hold. “What?”

“Maybe you should take the job atPrixton.”

He wanted me gone?

He wanted… what? For us to not be a secret, like I’d suggested?

“Why?”

“Because…” He looked down at his hands. “I don’t want your career to be hurt by my actions.”

“Well, just don’t do anything stupid,” I laughed .

He lifted a hand to his head, turning away.

“You’ve already done something stupid, haven’t you?”

He wouldn’t look at me.

“What have you done?”

“It was years ago… I’m not the same person. I have far more to risk now,” he said and pulled me back to him. “Please don’t ask. We’ve already had to go through a fair bit tonight. Let’s just… enjoy our time here.”

I wasn’t so sure.

“We can pack up your stuff, find a storage facility or move you in here. That’s the priority. Then this article.”