Page 73
Chapter Twenty-Three
I try to focus on preparing for the meeting I’ve secured, but I can’t. I’m onboard the Collings Motors private jet, a Dassault Falcon 8X, en route to London at an obscenely early hour of the morning. I’m sitting in a luxurious grey leather seat with a glossy black table in front of me, a fine china cup holding Earl Grey tea to the left of my laptop and a crystal tumbler filled with ice water placed next to it. Isla and Caleb are in seats across the aisle from me, engaged in conversation. Mum is behind me, reading something on her Kindle.
In the back third of the jet’s cabin is my dad. With Mason.
I stare down at my tea and push it away. My stomach has been churning since the moment Mason and I boarded the plane. Dad immediately asked Mason to go to the back with him, and they’ve been there for nearly an hour now.
I knew Mason was keen to talk to my dad about us, but I didn’t expect the conversation to go this long.
That has to be good, right?
Or does it mean that Dad has changed his mind and things are bad?
Of course, my brain scripts the worst-case scenario, as I’m exceptionally good at doing that. Maybe Mum got to Dad. Maybe Dad really doesn’t want one of our drivers dating his daughter. Did my grandfather somehow get wind of this? He loathes the tabloid attention around racing, and he wanted my dad to divorce my mum because things were, in his words, “a damn mess.” I know Grandfather will not be pleased—and that’s an understatement—about us. I just assumed I would deal with that fallout later. As in right before we were about to go public. After I got Dad, Mum, and Caleb on my side.
Not whilst we are still getting to know each other. UGH.
Maureen, our cabin attendant, walks through, pausing at my table. “Would you like anything to eat, Catherine?”
I shake my head. “No, thank you.”
She nods and moves further back, pausing to talk to my Mum. I hear the muted voices of Dad and Mason from the back of the cabin, but I can’t make out what they are saying.
At least they aren’t yelling.
Shit, why am I even thinking this? Dad told me he doesn’t care if I date Mason. Why am I playing scriptwriter in my head over here? I’m not even a good writer, so taking up this hobby is bloody stupid.
Mum appears and slips into the chair across from me. “Mason has certainly been back there a long time.”
I fight the urge to frown. Mum sounds a little pleased by that, and it makes me angry.
“Your dad and I had a long talk about you and Mason last night,” she confesses.
I stare at her. “What?”
“Catherine, I’m sorry, but I had to get it through to your father about the consequences of this relationship once it becomes universal knowledge in the paddock.”
“I knew it!” I hiss at her. “I knew you did something!”
Maureen walks back past us, not batting an eyelash. She’s been with us since I was a teenager. She was here for the hysterics on this jet after the Lars scandal. In other words, she has seen and heard everything.
And she might be about to see a new family drama erupt in flight, because I don’t care. This is about my future. My happiness. And nobody, not even my mum, is going to destroy that.
“Don’t snarl at me like that,” Mum says. “You aren’t thinking clearly. This is not just about you, Catherine. How can you not see that?”
I laugh harshly. It’s maniacal sounding to my own ears, but I don’t care. “You have got to be kidding. How dare you say that to me? When you thought of no one but yourself when you slept with Lars!”
“You are never going to forgive me for that, are you? You say you have, but you have not! Maybe you need more therapy and to work on yourself before becoming entangled in a relationship.”
HOW DARE SHE. HOW DARE SHE TRY TO USE MY FEELINGS AS A WEAPON AGAINST ME.
“I bet my therapist would tell me to distance myself from a toxic mum,” I retort.
“Toxic? You think I’m toxic?”
I’m about to reply when suddenly Caleb leaps from his seat and positions himself at the edge of the table. “Hey. Both of you need to stop it. Don’t do this. And don’t do it in front of Isla and Mason. They don’t deserve the awkwardness you two are about to throw over this entire cabin.”
“Oh, we’re going to do this right here because Mum thought it was appropriate to bring up her concerns about my relationship with Mason to Dad,” I say, my voice shaking with barely repressed rage.
