Revived (Revved Series Book 2) (20 page)

I’D LIKE TO SAY I’VE MOVED ON FROM LEANDRO
, but the truth is, it’s like I’m still standing in my hallway, watching him leave.

The ending I play through my mind is the version where I chase after him, tell him I’ve changed my mind, that I want him.

The reality is, I’m sitting in my office after my day has ended, alone and missing him.

For days after he left my house, I wanted to speak to him. But each time I picked up my phone to call him, rationality would get the better of me, knowing I could lose everything if I went after what I wanted.

Then, time slipped by, and before I knew it, it had been weeks, bleeding into months, and there was no going back for me.

He’d moved on.

Even though it was hell—not seeing him, not speaking to him—it had to be this way.

But even still, I torture myself with him.

I do my usual ritual where I tell myself not to go online and search today’s news for him. I relent for a few days, thinking how strong I am, and then I crack, just like I’m going to today.

I bring the screen on my MacBook to life. Bringing up the search engine, I type in
Leandro Silva
. The screen fills with stories of him and the races he won this past year since he returned to Formula 1.

I feel an undeserved sense of pride when I see the pictures of him crossing the finish line and when he’s on the podium, holding the trophy. I might have helped him to a point, but he took himself the rest of the way.

I am happy for him. Happy that he’s racing. That he has his life back the way he wanted it. He has it back in every way it was, if the press is anything to go by.

Leandro’s name has been linked with several women since the racing season started, and there are pictures of him with women.

Each one hurts as much as the next.

He’s moved on. That’s what I knew he would do.

I knew that his attachment to me was purely because of the closeness we’d built during his treatment and what he felt for me was gratitude.

Still, it hurts badly to know I was right, especially when I can’t seem to move past him.

I filter the page to read recent news stories.

Nothing new since the last time I checked a few days ago. Just the same pictures of him arriving back home for the British Grand Prix, which starts next weekend.

Staring at the pictures, I trace my finger over his face, like the Internet stalker I’ve become.

Not that he wasn’t handsome before—because, of course, he was—but in these pictures, he looks amazing. There’s a lightness in his expression, which wasn’t there before. I’m guessing it’s because of his return to racing.

He looks beautiful.

Leaning back in my chair, I close my eyes, trying to ease the ache of missing him.

Will this ever stop?

I thought I’d be past it now. Maybe if I stopped torturing myself with news of him, then maybe I’d be able to move on.

Sitting up, I shut down the screen.

My phone lights up with Jett’s name.

“Hey, honey,” I answer.

“You still at work, Mum?”

“Yeah. I’m just finishing up, and then I’m heading home.”

“Well, just letting you know that I’m at the track with Uncle Kit and Carter. We’re gonna grab something to eat here. We won’t be home too late.”

Dinner for one. Takeout and a bottle of wine it is.

“Okay, be safe and have fun.”

“Will do. See you later, Mum.”

“Bye, honey.” I put the phone down on my desk and let my head follow it with a thud.

I’m turning into a total sad case Friday night, I’m childfree, and the best I can do is takeout and a bottle of wine.

I berate myself for this every week, too, yet I still do the same thing.

There’s a knock on my door.

I lift my head from my desk. “Come in.”

It’ll be Sophie, my new assistant. She’s been with me for a month now. Sadie left to go traveling with her boyfriend.

“I’m heading off for the night.” Sophie crosses the room. “Here’s the mail. I forgot to give it to you earlier.”

“Thanks.” I take it from her hand.

“The top letter was hand-delivered.”

“Hand-delivered? What do you mean, hand-delivered?”

“A man came in earlier. He asked me to make sure that you got the letter.”

“What did he look like?” I turn the letter over in my hand. My name is handwritten on the front.

“Black hair. Really good-looking.” She grins.

My heart starts to race.

“And he had a foreign accent. I think it was—”

“Brazilian?”

“Yeah.” She clicks her fingers. “Do you know him?”

“Yes…I do.”

My hands are trembling, and I can’t stop staring at the letter in my hands.

“Okay, well, I’m gonna head off. Have a good weekend, Dr. Harris,” she says, retreating.

“Yeah, you, too,” I utter, distracted.

The second the door closes, I slide my finger under the fold of the envelope and open it. My mouth is dry, fingers trembling. I pull out the contents of the envelope.

Tickets. Two of them to the Prix at Silverstone next week. Full VIP weekend passes.

And a folded piece of paper.

I open it, reading the same handwriting.

TICKETS FOR JETT, AS PROMISED. I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE, TOO.

L.

My heart free-falls through my body.

He brought the tickets here. Hand-delivered them. But didn’t ask to see me.

Of course he didn’t.

The last time we saw each other, I was ending us before we had barely begun.

Maybe he wants to see me. Hope lifts my heart even though it’s wrong to feel it because nothing has really changed. Only time between us. I was still his therapist.

I hope to see you there.

Or maybe he doesn’t want to see me, and he’s just being the good guy that I know he is and giving Jett the tickets he promised.

My heart sags back down.

I miss him though. Like I’ve never missed anyone in my life.

I need to see him. For what reason, I don’t know. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just know I can’t go on feeling like this.

And if he doesn’t want to see me, then it gives me a foundation to start moving on from him because I’ve not found a way to move on in the last seven months.

But I guess there’s only one way to find out if he does want to see me.

So, it looks like I’m going to the British Grand Prix.

THEY’RE HERE
.

She’s here…India.

It’s been seven months since I last saw her, and now, we’re in the same building.

I can feel her nearness like a vibration throughout my body, systematically making me feel alive and terrifying the fuck out of me.

She’s here. I got her here, and now, I’m afraid to face her.

A million reasons not to go see her run through my mind.

I asked the guy doing the VIP tour to text me and let me know when India and Jett arrived.

I received that text an hour ago, and I still haven’t had the nerve to go see her.

I’m telling myself that I’m needed in the garage. Truth is, it’s practice sessions, and one of the test drivers has my car out on the track.

I’m just standing here, watching the screens, as he takes my car around.

I could go see India now.

Only, I don’t know if she wants to see me. Sure, she’s here, but Jett is obsessed with Formula 1, so of course, she’d bring him.

She was the one who ended us. Well, not that there actually ever was an
us
, because she never gave it a chance to get that far.

Granted, after I left, I didn’t try to go back. I walked out of her house, and I shut down.

I haven’t seen or spoken to India since I left her standing in her hallway.

Afterwards, I was hurt, frustrated and seriously pissed off, and instead of going home, I went straight to Lissa headquarters, got my Formula 1 car ready, climbed in her, and took her out on our test track.

My anger at India got me past that final stage of my fear. So, I threw myself back into racing, so, I didn’t have to think about her. It only worked when I was in my car. Every other waking moment was controlled with thoughts of her.

I have everything back that I wanted after the accident. I still have my fears, but they don’t control me like they used to. But, now, without India in my life, it feels just as empty as it did before.

It’s like the universe is playing a fucking sick joke on me.

My racing was taken away from me, and then I’m given her. I get my racing back, and I lose her.

Well, not that I ever really had her.

But what I did have with her, the way I feel about India…

I can’t get over her.

I have tried. Hard. I thought that being back on the track and racing would help.

It hasn’t.

I’ve stayed out of the country, away from her. After I left for Melbourne at the start of March for the first race of the season, I just flew from race to race, not coming home, hoping the distance would help.

It didn’t.

I thought putting myself back out there with women would help.

It didn’t.

I knew I was done for when one of the hottest models around kissed me, and I felt nothing but this weird sense of guilt that I was somehow betraying India by kissing another woman.

Yes, I know how lame that sounds. But it is the way it is.

So, I’ve stayed away from all women even though I’m continuously linked with them.

If I speak to a woman and pose for a photograph with her, the next day, it will be in the press, saying that I am either dating or fucking her. The press has been aggressively intrusive in my life since I came back to the circuit. I guess it is to be expected after my accident, then absence, and now my return.

But a sick part of me hopes that India sees those pictures of me with women and that they bother her.

I hope they hurt her.

I know that makes me a bastard, but I don’t care.

Now, I am back for Silverstone, and I thought I would be okay with being here, in the same country as her.

But what do I do?

A few days after I’ve been back, I find myself driving to her office and hand-delivering the tickets for the Prix that I promised to Jett last year, in the half hope that I might see India.