“So,” she prompts, breaking our silence and forcing me out of my swimming thoughts. “What happens now?”
There are about a thousand ways I could answer that question, but I go with the most obvious and immediate. “I have to go do more interviews and a race debrief with the team.” I check my watch. It’s far past midnight. “You must be exhausted.If you want to head to bed, we can talk more in the morning before I have to fly out for the next race.”
“And where’s that one?”
“Abu Dhabi.” I grab a towel off the shelf and scrub it over my face. “It’s the last of the season, then I have a few more work commitments before I get about a month break.”
Her lip catches between her teeth before releasing. “Then I think this is going to be where we part for a while.”
I’m surprised by the note of disappointment in her tone and its echo behind my ribs. We haven’t spent much time together over the past week, but I’ve adjusted to our check-ins. It’ll be odd to be on the opposite side of the world from her.
“Right.” I have to clear my throat to keep the word from getting stuck there. “You have your company to get back to.”
“I mostly work remotely,” she explains with a rueful smile, “but I need to go check in on things after being away. And then it’s Thanksgiving on Thursday, so I’m going to be with my family.”
It all makes perfect sense, yet my stomach dips with each addition that will expand our separation. “So you won’t be at that race.”
She shakes her head. “Not unless I hop on a flight first thing the next day.”
I take a second to gauge whether she might be up for that, but quickly shut down that line of thinking. Yes, I want us to parade our fake marriage around, and I want to spend more time with her, though not at the expense of her missing out on being with people she loves. “I won’t ask you to do that. Being seen together tonight should tide the masses over for a bit.”
“What about after that?” she asks, and it’s a relief to know I’m not the only one concerned about how everything is up in the air. “Where will you be?”
“London mostly. You?”
“DC.”
An ocean apart. An eight-hour flight, sure, but it’s not an easy commute. Plus, with the commitments I have in the UK following the end of the season, I wouldn’t get back to the States until mid-December. And we still haven’t figured out whose family we’re going to spend the holidays with, or how we’re going to present a united front to my parents, or when Stella and Figgy will meet…
A million questions and logistical nightmares swirl in my head. And then there’s the little fact that I’m…going to miss her. Which is probably the reason I end up blurting, “Come to London with me.”
Stella leans back at my outburst, brow dipping in the center. “Excuse me?”
“Let’s make it look like we’re a real couple.” My momentum is building, fueled by an anxious energy to make this fake marriage work for us. For her to never be too far away for too long. “Come to London. Move in with me. Be my real pretend wife who’s by my side.”
Stella’s staring at me like I’ve lost every single one of my marbles. But that’s okay. I can make her come around, I know it. I convinced her to stay married to me, so there’s no reason I can’t pull this off too.
“We can consider it a flatshare,” I push on. “I have a bunch of bedrooms. And I’m always back and forth to McMorris HQ at Silverstone, so I’m hardly there anyway. You’d practically have the place to yourself.”
“Thomas,” she says slowly, and I know she’s trying to figure out a way to let me down easy, but I can’t let this opportunity slip away.
“You said you work remotely, right? You can be anywherein the world. So why not London? If you need to go back to DC at any point, you can absolutely use my family’s jet. I’d make sure it was always available for you.” I take a breath, stopping myself from rambling further. But that still might not be enough. I need more to convince her to stay with me. “Besides, won’t Janelle be living there soon?”
There it is—there’s the spark in her eyes I was waiting for. Clearly I’m not enough of a draw (understandable), but Janelle? She’s my key to everything.
“My whole life is in DC,” she tries to reason, a waver of doubt passing over her face. “I can’t just up and leave.”
She doesn’t fully believe what she’s saying. Yes, her job is there, and I’m sure she has a network of friends in the city she’d miss if she left. But there’s an ex-fiancé there too and what’s certainly a mountain of memories and regrets she wants to move on from.
“You could have a fresh start in London,” I offer gently, not daring to push too hard. “You could make some new connections—business or otherwise. Maybe open another Stella Margaux’s. Or hell, start a brand-new chain of whatever you want. The European market is ripe for it, and it would be so much easier to explore it from that side of the pond. I’ll help you as much as I can.”
Her full bottom lip is back between her teeth, biting down as she thinks, and my eyes drop to her mouth. I might be ashamed of where my mind has gone if I didn’t already know this attraction was achingly mutual. She’s the one who pulled me in for that second kiss, after all.
“Fine,” she finally blurts, surprising herself judging by the way her eyes go wide. “I’ll move to London.”
I’m too busy resisting the urge to kiss her to register her words at first. But then they hit me, sending my heart intooverdrive and making me want to kiss her evenmore. “Are you serious?”
Stella nods. The move’s a little hesitant, sure, but there’s a smile edging onto her lips. “I’m serious.”
