“Exactly,” I say, like he just proved my point. “I’m still in it.”
Luc laughs, burying his face in my hair. “You’re impossible.”
“I know.” I really do.
Dane throws up his hands. “Alaina, that’s a hundred and fifty-point gap!”
“Which I can close,” I shoot back. “One solid race where Luc eats a rock and Raine flats out, and I’ve got it.”
“I’m not planning on eatingany rocks,ma Petite,” Luc says dryly, but there’s amusement in his eyes.
“Then stay on your bike,” I tease.
Dane groans. “You’re not invincible. You’ve broken more bones than a stuntman, and you still think you can finish this season like nothing happened.”
“I don’t think,” I say. “I know. I have to.”
He looks between me and Luc, then rubs his hands over his face. “You’re gonna give me a stroke.”
“You’re too young for strokes.” I pat his chest like I’m reassuring an old man.
“God help me,” Dane mutters.
Élise’s voice floats in from down the hallway. “You guys want a coffee?”
Luc perks up immediately. “Oui, s’il teplaît, Maman!”
Dane sighs, looking down the hallway like caffeine is the only thing keeping him from committing a murder.
Luc threads his fingers through mine and tugs. “How do you take your coffee?”
“Black,” I answer automatically as we file out, and the reminder that mydadis here creeps in.
He grins. “Knew it.”
“Let’s table the coffee flirting,” Dane says wearily. “We’ve got to survive whatever fuck-up this is with Dad first.”
Perfect.I mutter the word under my breath. “What did he say?”
“Not much. Only that he wanted to see you. So, yeah. We’re in for a ride.”
“He’s that bad?” Luc asks, whispering.
“You’ll see,” I whisper back, eyes ahead.
At the end of the hallway, Élise greets us like we’re heading into a garden brunch instead of a psychological battlefield filled with landmines. She kisses both of us on the cheek,then squeezes Dane’s forearm as she meets my gaze.
“Ready?”
“Have to be,” I mutter.
Then we walk into the kitchen, and I freeze when I see him.
Ambrose Crews.
His arm is flung casually across the back of a chair at Élise’s dining table, but nothing about him is relaxed. His tailored suit is as severe as his expression, and his hair is now more ash than blond, cut short and neat. Those same green eyes that once flicked to my race results on screens without ever looking too closely sweep over me like I’m an unfinished report, some quarterly problem he didn’t approve.
I can’t move, and for a beat, I forget how to breathe as the air stiffens around him like the room is bracing.
