Page 113 of Downforce

Max

“First it was Shakespeare, and now books on OCD?” Edwin asks with a raised eyebrow, holding up the book on OCD I was reading once my most recent interview finished.

We’re in the main hotel where most drivers and staff are staying this weekend for the Silver Stone Grand Prix.

“Need something to entertain me,” I reply. “Listen,” I say before he can make a comeback, “my mum will probably be here this weekend. Keep her away from me.”

I arrived in Silverstone a few hours ago, dropped my belongings in my room, and have already done two interviews. I’m hungry and pissed that I haven’t found Annalise yet. The last thing I need to worry about is my mum showing up and putting a damper on my already low mood.

“What’s got your knickers in a twist?” Edwin asks. “You’re not usually this cranky until Italy,” he says off-handedly. Apparently, he doesn’t notice the way I flinch at the mention of my most dreaded race of the season because he keeps going. “Anyway, what do you expect me to do about your mother?”

“Keep. Her. Away. From. Me,” I say through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to deal with her this weekend.”

I haven’t had much contact with her since Monaco, but it hasn’t been for lack of trying on her part. Mainly, she texts to ask for more money. When I don’t respond to her texts soon enough, she resorts to calling and once showing up at my flat. Luckily, I wasn’t there, and since I had a code put on my door that I did not give her, she wasn’t able to waltz in.

She must’ve gotten the hint because she wasn’t at the Barcelona or Austria races—both of which I came in second and third, respectively.

But now we’re back home in the U.K. and it’s a certainty that she’ll turn up.

On the other side of the closed door, I hear what oddly sounds like a baby crying.

“Right. I’ll take care of it,” Edwin assures me. His phone rings and he frowns. “Christ. These blokes again.”

“Who is it?”

“The guys from Brazil. They’re really on about you doing that thing in Sao Paolo this year. No matter how many bloody times I tell them to back off.”

I don’t have to ask what that thing is. It’s the same thing I get asked to do every year since I signed my first Formula 1 contract.

“What did you tell them last time?” I ask.

“Same thing I always say. He’s not interested,” Edwin blusters.

I’m familiar with his dramatics, so I don’t tell him to tone it down.

“You’d think they’d get it by now. You know what it is, mate?” he says, getting closer as if he’s about to let me in on a secret. “It’s because you’re in the lead this year. I don’t think you’ve ever been this high up on the grid so early in the season.” He nods at the book on the table. “Maybe that new reading habit you’ve picked up has improved your driving.”

He chuckles like his joke was the funniest thing in the world.

However, I barely hear him because the sound coming from the opposite side of the door captures my attention. The crying noises I’d heard earlier have dulled to a murmur but they’re distinctly that of a baby.

The female lilt accompanying the baby’s voice brightens my mood immediately.

“Take this.” I thrust the book into Edwin’s hand.

He looks at me sideways.

“Should you be somewhere else?”

“Oh,” Annalise says a beat later after pushing through the closed door. Her gaze falls on Edwin first. “I’m sorry. I assumed the conference room was empty.”

She finally glances over at me, and her smile catches in the sunlight streaming through the window behind me.

My heartbeat stutters as I watch her standing in the doorway, a smile I know she’s not even aware she’s wearing on her incomprehensibly beautiful face while holding her nephew in her arms.

“Hi,” she breathes out.

“Annalise,” Edwin says, interrupting what’d felt like a private moment. “Max just finished his interview. Do you need the room for Travis’ interview?”