Nausea consumes me, and I try to keep the room from spinning. The pain of his betrayal rips my heart in half. We aren’t on speaking terms, but I never thought he’d ruin my career to get revenge.
“Listen, I can explain. Lincoln and I have never had a physical relationship, and Adrian and I—” I start, but Ms. Martin stands up and slams her palms onto the desk, making Genevieve, Mrs. Lu, and I jump.
Ms. Martin’s pink dress sways from side to side at the movement, anger covering her features. A few strands of her blonde-gray hair fall over her face, but she doesn’t seem to care as she yells at me.
“No, you listen, child. You have given us a lot of headache for someone we only hired because her father paid us to!” she yells, making my body freeze.
Time stops as all the blood rushes out of my face.
“He what?” I ask, making Mrs. Lu’s eyes go wide.
Clearly, Ms. Martin wasn’t supposed to tell me that, but her anger let it slip. Tears shoot into my eyes as I sink onto one of the chairs, my legs no longer capable of holding me upright.
“Did you really think things just came that easy, Nevaeh? That a journalist who just started at a company would climb up the ladder so quickly?” she asks, shaking her head in disbelief. “Wake up, child. The world doesn’t work that way, especially not the world of Formula One.”
“Tell me what he did, please,” is all I manage to say, tears collecting in my eyes at the betrayal.
“He paid us to give you a chance. For the first two months, your salary was paid by him as well,” Mrs. Lu explains, but my head is spinning and her words sound distorted. “We didn’t have a position open, so he paid us to open one. He asked for you to be in the Formula One department too, but he wouldn’t tell us why.”
Ms. Martin’s voice is a lot harsher as she continues explaining what my father did.
“When he found out what happened with Gillian and the deal you made with Adrian, he started contacting all of the Formula One teams, convincing them to let you write those articles for every other driver. The ones who didn’t want that, he paid to convince them otherwise. He was behind everything, your success, the reason you got to write those articles. It was all him, none of it you.”
Tears spill down my cheeks as my heart shatters into a million pieces.
“You can’t seriously have thought things would be so… so easy. Do you think other journalists whose fathers aren’t the team principal of one of the biggest Formula One teams would have made it as far as you without much of an effort?” Ms. Martin asks, but it’s a rhetorical question and one she answers as quickly as she phrased it. “No, Nevaeh, they wouldn’t have.”
I can’t take this anymore. The lies, the betrayal, all of it makes my heart ache worse than I’ve ever experienced before, worse than when the doctor told me I’d never be able to play tennis competitively again.
“We can’t keep you on any longer. If a video like this were to get out, the credibility of our company would be questioned. Not even your father can pay us enough money to keep you on, Nevaeh. I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Lu is a lot gentler and more understanding about this situation, but it doesn’t make it any easier either.
“I can’t, I can’t breathe,” I say as I stand up once more and make my way toward the door.
They already fired me so there really isn’t a reason to stick around and have an anxiety attack right there in the office where I don’t feel safe.
My fingers barely hold onto my phone as I struggle to make my way down the stairs and into the hot summer day. I cover my mouth once more when I’m outside, this time to muffle a sob combined with a scream of pain.
None of it was my doing.
None of it was my achievement.
It was Papa’s money, the one thing I’ve been trying to get away from since I started working atGriffin Sports. I was so proud of myself for getting the job, but it was all because of him, not because of who I am, my achievements, nothing.
My arms wrap around my chest while I look around the place I call home. Ms. Lu and Ms. Martin sent me here for what? Why did they turn my life upside down if they only hired me because of my father? Or was it Papa’s idea, too? Is that why he was so adamant about me moving, to chase my independence? Because it was his idea all along?
I feel sick to my stomach.
I guess it makes sense that my father is capable of something like this. He helped Lincoln get a seat at Grenzenlos because of his best friend. He meddles, interferes, and buys people the chances they wouldn’t be given otherwise.
“Are you okay?” a woman asks in French, and I nod, not realizing how much of a scene I’m making until that very moment.
Everything is so messy and complicated now, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve risked everything for a job that wasn’t even mine to begin with, and I hate my father for what he’s done. All I’ve tried to do is establish my own life. Why didn’t he let me? Why did he have to interfere?
Everything was a lie.
Tears stream down my cheeks, but I wipe them away when determination takes over.
I have made a life for myself. Monaco is where I feel at home, which is not something I have ever been able to say about any other place I lived in. None of the other places felt like this, but they also didn’t have the family I found in Val, Gabriel, and Adrian.
