"Amy," he murmured against my neck, his breath hot and ragged, "I want... I need to feel you."
I didn't respond with words, just arched my back, inviting him to explore.
I moaned softly, my head falling back as he kissed my neck, his lips leaving a trail of fire in their wake.
Charles looked at me, his eyes filled with a mixture of desire and admiration that made me feel powerful and vulnerable at the same time.
"You're beautiful," he whispered, before kneeling before me.
My heart raced as he slid his hands up my thighs, his breath hot against my sensitive skin. I gripped the counter, my fingers tightening around the edge as he kissed the inside of my thighs, his tongue tracing a slow, tortuous path toward the center of my body.
"Charles," I moaned, my voice shaking, as he finally found me.
He stared down at me, his green eyes shining with an intensity that made me gasp, before he plunged into me with his mouth and tongue, his dexterity taking my breath away.
I writhed beneath his touch, my hips moving against his mouth as he explored me, his tongue firm and insistent on my sensitive clit.
"Charles, please," I begged, feeling the pleasure building inside me, a wave ready to engulf me. He knew exactly what he needed to do to bring me to the edge, his tongue exploring me.
He smiled against me, a smile I felt more than saw, before he picked up the pace, his mouth and fingers working in harmony to bring me over the edge.
"Come for me, Amy," he murmured, his voice husky and thick with desire. "Let me feel you."
I couldn't hold back any longer. My body tensed, and I moaned his name as the orgasm hit me, waves of pleasure spreading throughout my body.
Charles continued, his mouth gentle now, until I stilled, my body relaxing under his touch.
"You taste so good," he said, looking at me and sliding a finger inside me, his thumb applying pressure to my clit.
Than he stood up, and I pulled him to me, my lips seeking his urgently. "My turn," I whispered against his mouth, before kneeling before him.
Charles gasped as I slid my hands down his chest, unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it to the floor.
I kissed his neck, his jaw, before kneeling down fully and slid my hands down his body, feeling the tension in his muscles.
He was all mine, and I intended to explore him completely. My hands went to the belt of his pants, and I looked up at him, seeking permission. He nodded, his eyes never leaving mine, and I smiled before setting about the task of removing it.
He was hard. So fucking hard.
I wrap my hand around his cock, making slow movements, he pulls me into a slow kiss.
I pull away as my lungs start to burn for air and than I start to kneel slowly in front of him, he looks at me with lust and desire, my eyes roaming his body, before I lean in and envelop him with my mouth.
Charles groaned, his hands burying themselves in my hair as I explored him, my tongue tracing patterns I knew he liked.
Running my tongue from the base of his cock to the top, I could already taste his precum. I took a deep breath and took his entire length into my mouth, feeling him in my throat.
We had done this before, but he didn't remember so this caught him by surprise. He gasped and I felt him twitch. I continued the movement, taking him all the way in.
"Amy," he groans, his voice hoarse and full of need, "I... I can't take much more."
I grab his hand that's in my hair, and squeeze it, silently asking him to hold on tight, which he does.
I start to swallow him faster, he understands this too, I was asking him to fuck my mouth and I don't need to ask twice, he applies pressure to the back of my neck and increases the pace.
He can't hold it any longer. His body tenses, and I feel his cum shoot straight into my throat. He holds me there for about 3 seconds before letting go. I swallow it all, and finish cleaning him with my tongue.
When I stood up, he pulled me to him, his lips seeking mine urgently. "Amy," he whispered against my mouth, "that was the hottest thing ever."
I smiled at him. "I know, you love it when I do that," I said.
He looked at me, his green eyes shining with a mixture of desire and emotion that made me feel a wave of heat rise through my body. He pulled me closer, his lips pressing against mine in a deep, passionate kiss. When we pulled apart, he looked at me, his eyes never leaving mine.
"Let's go to the bedroom, I need to fuck you," he said firmly and who was I to disagree?
He took me by the hand and began to guide me to the room at the end of the hallway.
We barely had time to enter the room and his lips were already meeting mine in a slow, deep kiss. His hands slid down my back, pulling me closer, while I intertwined my fingers in his hair, feeling the softness of the brown strands between my fingers.
"You're beautiful," he whispered between kisses, "I can't seem to get enough of you."
He guides me back a few steps until we reach the bed. Charles positioned himself on top of me, his lips going down my neck, leaving a trail of kisses that made my skin shiver. His hands explored every curve of my body, as if he wanted to remember every detail. I moaned softly, giving myself over to his touch, feeling the desire grow inside me.
He started to thrust into me, slowly, my hands gripping his arms tighter.
He kept the slow pace for a few seconds, making me feel every inch of him, while he spread kisses all over my neck and chest, I couldn't help the moans that escaped me.
"Let me up," I said, my voice breathless.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his eyes shining with desire.
"Yes," I said, gently pushing him down onto his back.
I positioned myself on top of him, feeling the weight of his body beneath me, the heat of his skin against mine. With my hands resting on his chest, I began to move, riding him. I needed to pick up the pace.
Charles watched, his green eyes fixed on me, as if hypnotized.
I increased the pace, bouncing on him, feeling the delicious friction that made me moan in pleasure.
His hands held my hips, guiding me, but I wanted to control, I wanted to dictate the pace.
“Faster,” he asked, his voice hoarse with desire.
I complied with his request, moving more intensely, feeling the sweat begin to run down my skin. The sound of our bodies colliding filled the room, mixing with our moans.
Charles was close, I could feel it, his breathing becoming more labored, his muscles tensing under my hands. But I wanted more, I wanted to take him to the limit.
“Don’t come yet,” I ordered, my voice firm despite the desire that consumed me.
He obeyed, holding on by a thread as I continued to move, feeling the pleasure build inside me.
But I was also close, so close I could barely think.
Our eyes met, and in that moment, I felt a connection that went beyond the physical.
It was as if we were communicating without words, understanding each other in a way only the two of us could comprehend.
"Switch with me again," he demanded, his voice almost a moan.
Without hesitation, I shifted, lying on my back and allowing him to take control.
Charles positioned himself on top of me, his hands gripping my hips tightly. He entered me again, this time with an urgency that made me gasp.
This time he didn't let my legs wrap around his waist. No. He lifted them higher, so that my ankles were around his neck, allowing him to go even deeper, each thrust taking me over the edge.
"Charles..." I moaned, feeling my orgasm approaching.
He didn’t respond, just kept moving, his face contorted with pleasure. I writhed beneath him, feeling every part of my body respond to his rhythm. And then it was too much.
The orgasm hit me like a wave, intense and overwhelming, making me scream his name. Charles was quick to follow, his body tensing as he came inside me, his name escaping my lips in a hoarse whisper.
We were still catching our breath, bodies heavy and tangled in the sheets. My heart was racing so fast
For a while, neither of us said anything. We just breathed.
And then, quietly, his voice cracked the silence.
“Are you okay?”
His tone was rough, almost cautious. Like he wasn’t sure what the answer would be.
I nodded slowly, the movement small against his shoulder. “Yeah. Just… trying to remember how to function as a human again.”
That earned me a breathless laugh from him — one that rumbled through his chest. He shifted slightly, just enough to press his lips against the top of my head.
Then: “Was it always like this?”
I lifted my head a little to look at him. His expression was soft, open, still flushed from the heat of what we’d just done.
“Like what?” I asked.
“This,” he said, gesturing vaguely with his free hand. “Us. That… whatever that was. Was it always like this? I mean, I feel like my soul just left my body.”
I couldn’t help the small, tired laugh that escaped me. “Yeah,” I said, settling back against him. “It was always like that.”
He turned to look at me more fully, eyes searching mine. “Seriously?”
I nodded. “It was kind of our thing.”
There was a long pause. I watched his face shift through half a dozen emotions before he finally whispered, “I didn’t even know what you liked. And somehow, I just… did.”
I lifted my fingers to his jaw, tracing the line of stubble there. “That’s what surprised me the most,” I admitted. “I thought… I thought you’d be different. That maybe I’d have to guide you again. Show you what worked, what didn’t.”
He didn’t say anything. His gaze never left mine.
“But you didn’t need any of that,” I went on. “You just knew. Every kiss. Every touch. Every second.” I swallowed.
Charles let out a breathy laugh — part disbelief, part satisfaction. His arm tightened slightly around my waist, pulling me just a bit closer.
“I knew it would be good,” he murmured, voice low and still slightly wrecked. “I mean, look at you..."
He smiled, slow and crooked, that boyish charm slipping through the cracks of exhaustion. “But fuck, Amy… I didn’t know it would be this good.”
His words made something flutter deep in my stomach.
“So you’re saying I exceeded expectations?”
He grinned. “Completely shattered them.”
I rolled my eyes playfully, but I couldn’t hide the way my lips curled. “That’s a dangerous thing to say to someone with an ego like mine.”
“I’ll risk it,” he said, brushing a piece of hair from my face. “Honestly? I think I’d risk just about anything for that again.”
My chest tightened — not in a bad way, but in a way that felt like it mattered.
I didn’t say anything. I just kissed him again.
-------
Race week had officially begun.
We were already at the paddock, the energy buzzing in that particular way only a Grand Prix weekend could create. I’d arrived with Charles that morning — though we barely spoke once inside. There was just too much to do. Sim data to review, last-minute tweaks to strategy, setup variables I still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with.
At one point I realized I hadn’t had coffee. Or breakfast.
So by lunchtime, I was running purely on spite, mental math, and three sips of an energy drink I found in the engineers’ fridge.
I sat at one of the long tables in the Ferrari hospitality tent with a tray of food I wasn’t sure I had the energy to eat. My shoulders ached, my head was buzzing, and I was about five seconds away from curling up under the table and calling it a day.
Then Charles dropped into the seat beside me.
He didn’t say anything at first — just nudged my tray toward me when he noticed I hadn’t touched it.
“Eat,” he muttered under his breath, eyes still on his phone.
“I am eating,” I said, stabbing a cucumber slice aggressively.
Around us, the table was full. A few engineers discussing tire temps. Our aero guy, two PR staffers, someone from logistics. Just enough ambient noise to let me pretend I was alone. Charles sat close, his thigh resting against mine under the table. A tiny point of heat in a sea of exhaustion.
I’d just taken my second bite when someone cleared their throat right in front of me.
“Um… Amy?”
I looked up. It was one of the newer interns. Andre. Fresh-faced, maybe twenty at most, still looking overwhelmed by the paddock and everything that came with it. He was holding a thick stack of papers in one hand and a pen in the other, shifting his weight nervously.
“I know this is probably the worst time ever,” he started, voice cracking a little, “but I have this assignment for uni — it's due tomorrow — and I really didn’t know who else to ask…”
I blinked at him.
“I already tried asking a few people here,” he added quickly, like he could see the refusal forming in my eyes. “No one could figure it out. Not even Luca.”
That made a few heads turn.
At the other end of the table, Luca looked up from his plate and shrugged. “It’s brutal. I gave up after the second equation.”
Marcus chimed in too, shaking his head. “It’s a trick problem. One of those designed to make you think it’s solvable until you hit the wall.”
Andre gave me a pleading look. “But you might see something the rest of us missed. Please?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes, already reaching for the pages in his hand.
“Let me see it.”
He handed over the thick printout, and I started scanning the first page — dense calculations, messy hand-written notes in the margins, a full paragraph just explaining the parameters of the theoretical setup. It wasn’t just physics. It was motorsport physics, applied to track conditions and cornering under variable load.
Andre, still standing awkwardly, added, “I actually have the final answer, what I need is to present the full calculation chain”
Charles, next to me, raised an eyebrow. “What’s the answer supposed to be, then?”
Andre opened his notebook and started flipping through it, papers fluttering as he searched.
Before he could find the page, I spoke without looking up.
“Assuming negligible lift at high velocity and constant ρ at sea level,” I said slowly, eyes narrowing while I look at the page in my hand " the acceleration should approximate to 3.872 m/s² — considering a Cd of 0.82 and a frontal area of 1.5 m² past 220 km/h.”
Silence.
I lifted my eyes from the paper to find everyone staring at me.
Andre’s mouth opened, then closed. “That’s… that’s exactly it. That’s the final answer"
"Well, please tell you professor to recheck this Cd values on the exercise” I added, finally looking up. “They feel underestimated. Your actual drag might be closer to 0.87 on this setup if you're factoring turbulent airflow off a DRS-open wing.”
His jaw literally dropped. I could hear Charles muttering something under his breath beside me in French — something like “putain de génie” — and then feel his gaze burning into the side of my face.
“That was,” he said low and hoarse near my ear, “unreasonably sexy.”
Before I could even react, Luca nearly dropped his fork. “I’m sorry, what just happened?”
Marcus leaned back in his chair, pointing dramatically at me. “Did she just casually derive the entire solution in under sixty seconds and correct the kid’s drag coefficient on the fly?”
I shrugged, already pulling the papers from Andre’s hand. “The numbers were just sitting there, waiting to be solved.”
“Waiting to be solved?” Marcus repeated, like he was personally offended. “Amy, I stared at that thing for forty minutes yesterday and almost cried.”
Luca crossed his arms. “I ran it through three separate sim engines and none of them converged.”
I was already flipping to a clean page, writing out the full derivation with practiced ease — integrating the drag force, isolating acceleration, sketching a clean graph at the bottom with velocity curves mapped over aerodynamic stability points.
“You’re doing a graph now?” Marcus said, hands in the air.
“She’s doing a graph,” Luca echoed, flabbergasted.
Andre was hovering like I was a goddess who descended from an engineering heaven. “Can I… can I turn this in like that? With the graph and everything?”
"Yeah Yeah, here you go" I said, capping the pen and sliding the paper back.
He took it like it was a sacred relic.
Charles was still frozen beside me. “Who are you?” he asked, half-laughing, half-incredulous, like I’d just performed actual magic.
I grinned, turning slightly toward him. “You’re impressed.”
“I’m terrified,” he said, though the way his eyes crinkled gave him away.
I leaned a little closer, lowering my voice just enough for only him to hear. “It’s kind of fun watching you get impressed by me all over again.”
His smile faltered just for a second, something softer settling in behind his eyes.
“Technically,” I went on, tapping a finger to his chest, “you already knew I could do things like this. But now you get to rediscover it. In real time.”
He blinked, then gave this quiet, breathy laugh, rubbing a hand down his jaw like he couldn’t believe what was happening.
“I don’t know how I lived with you without falling in love ten times a day.”
I tilted my head, trying to hide the slight tremble in my breath. “Exactly the same way you’re doing it now,” I said softly.
He looked at me then, really looked—eyes a little wide, like something in him had just clicked into place.
“And who said I’m not falling in love with you ten times a day?” he replied, voice lower now, thick with something almost reverent.
My smile wavered for just a second before it curved again, slower this time, quieter. I looked down at my half-eaten food, cheeks warm, heart thudding far too loud for the silence between us.
I didn’t say it out loud, but in that moment, it felt like the version of him who forgot me… was starting to remember in all the ways that mattered.
---------
It felt surreal, watching him like this.
From the pit wall, my fingers hovered over the tablet screen, eyes flicking between telemetry graphs and live track footage. His number glowed in green on the monitor, but the data pouring in told a story I didn’t like. His lines were wrong. His braking points were off. His confidence—missing.
His first session back.
And the first time driving this car since the accident. Since the memory loss.
The last car he remembered driving was the a twitchy, temperamental monster. A machine you had to tame every lap.
But this car—this car was a completely different beast. Tighter. Smarter.
“Why’s he braking so early?” Luca muttered beside me, leaning toward the screen.
“He’s anticipating understeer,” I murmured, barely audible through my headset. “He’s driving like the car’s going to betray him.”
Sector 2 flashed red again.
I exhaled through my nose, steadying my breath.
“Charles, brake delta’s early by 18 meters into Turn 8. You’re safe to trust the front. Downforce is holding.”
A pause.
“It doesn’t feel safe,” he replied, clipped. “The front end’s too eager. It’s pulling me in before I’m ready.”
I closed my eyes. He wasn’t wrong. He was just out of sync.
“Copy. You’re overcorrecting because you’re expecting the rear to snap. It won’t. Trust the aero. Brake like you mean it.”
Next lap. He tried. But Turn 5 still bit him. A small lock-up, a trip through the runoff. My stomach tightened.
“Box, box. Let’s reset. I want you in here.”
“Understood,” he said, tone sharper now, laced with frustration. “Pitting.”
The moment he pulled in and stepped out of the car, I was already walking toward him. His gloves came off slow. The helmet even slower. And when his eyes met mine—still hazel, still familiar—I saw something behind the exhaustion.
Doubt.
I held the tablet between us, pointing at the braking data.
“You’re hesitating,” I said, voice even. “You’re still waiting for the car to fail you.”
“Because the last one did,” he snapped, then sighed, pushing a hand through his damp hair. “Every lap, I had to fight that damn thing. This one—it’s too… smooth. It feels like I’m waiting for the trap.”
“You’re not driving that car anymore, Charles,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to survive this one. You get to drive it.”
His jaw flexed. “Then show me how.”
I turned the tablet to him again, overlaying his current lap with a simulated perfect one.
“Your inputs are clean. But your timing’s off. You’re holding back. Brake like it’s going to hold. Turn in earlier. Let the downforce do its job. You’re waiting for a snap that won’t come.”
He stared at the screen, then back at me.
“I have to unlearn everything I knew.”
“No. You have to remember everything your body still knows.” I paused. “Let’s teach it again.”
He took a breath, gave a small nod, and turned back toward the car.
-‐------
Outlap
I watched the live feed, heart thudding as he crossed pit exit.
“Alright, Charles. Let’s build it. Brake hard into 1. Don’t feather. Let the front bite.”
“Copy.”
Turn 1. Clean. No hesitation. My lips curved.
“There you go. Now trust the grip at Turn 4. You’ve got a buffer.”
“That felt… stable.” A beat of disbelief in his voice.
“Told you. Let it work with you, not against you.”
Lap by lap, the green sectors started stacking. One, two, three.
He wasn’t perfect. But he wasn’t fighting it anymore.
He was flowing.
And suddenly, watching him again felt like watching him fall in love—with racing, with the machine, with the version of himself he didn’t remember but was slowly becoming again.
--------
He stepped out of the car and pulled off his helmet slowly, like the world hadn’t quite stopped spinning for him yet. Sweat clung to his curls, and his fireproofs were unzipped halfway, hanging around his waist. He looked... undone. In a good way.
He spotted me through the chaos. His gaze didn’t flicker, didn’t search the room. It went straight to me like it always used to.
“Hey,” he said, quiet and a little breathless. “Still standing?”
I nodded. “Barely.”
He handed his gloves to one of the mechanics and came closer, holding his helmet by the strap. His eyes were wide in that dazed, post-adrenaline way—like he’d just met someone he hadn’t seen in years and couldn’t decide how he felt about it.
“That car…” He let out a soft laugh, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to curse or kiss it. “It’s... insane.”
“Fast, too,” I said, watching the way he rubbed a hand over his face.
“I didn’t know a car could do that,” he murmured. “It feels like it knows things I don’t.”
My lips curved. “It does. But give it time, and you’ll start finishing each other’s sentences.”
He smiled then, small but real. “Like us?”
I blinked. That caught me off guard. “I—well… the car doesn’t steal the covers and eat cereal in the shower, so maybe not exactly like us.”
That made him laugh, really laugh, his head dropping as his shoulders shook. When he looked up again, there was something warm behind his eyes.
I took the tablet from under my arm and shoved it against his chest. “Here. Your sector breakdown. Go shower. We’ll talk balance after debrief.”
He stepped in a bit closer, lowering his voice. “Thanks for not giving up on me.”
I hesitated a moment, then answered, just as softly, “You’re easy to believe in."
He hesitated for a moment—then stepped in and kissed me.
Not a quick kiss. Not one of those safe, polite gestures we sometimes allowed ourselves when no one was looking. This was deep. Lingering. His mouth found mine with purpose, tongue brushing against mine in a way that made my knees threaten betrayal.
It wasn’t desperate. It wasn’t wild.
It was deliberate.
And it was public.
I could hear the subtle, unmistakable click-click-click of cameras finding us, locking in. Someone gasped—quietly, behind me. I didn’t care. I don’t think he did either.
His hand stayed gentle on the side of my face, thumb stroking just below my ear as he kissed me.
When he pulled back, I knew I had that look on my face—nervous, wide-eyed, somewhere between flustered and floating.
“You okay?” he asked, eyes scanning mine like he was trying to read the sudden shift.
“Uh-huh,” I nodded quickly. “It’s just… we don’t usually do that here.”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t kiss me in the paddock." I said, still half-laughing.
His eyebrows lifted. “I don’t?”
He looked genuinely shocked, eyes flicking around like he was only now registering the small crowd that had definitely seen everything.
Then, a crooked smile tugged at his lips. “Well… guess I’m rewriting the rulebook.”
---------
The car was quiet as we drove through the winding roads of Imola, the town already dim under the early evening sky. The old stone buildings, tight streets, and the distant hum of motorhomes settling down made it feel like the track still breathed even after shutting down. Charles had one hand on the wheel, the other lazily draped between us, fingers occasionally brushing mine like muscle memory.
Then, out of nowhere, he asked, “What else?”
I turned slightly. “What else what?”
“What else don’t we do? Or do. Like, apparently I’m not allowed to kiss you in public,” he said, glancing at me with that faint grin that always meant trouble—or curiosity.
“You are allowed to kiss me in public,” I clarified, amused. “We just… don’t.”
Charles arched an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“Because,” I said, drawing the word out like it was obvious. “It’s complicated. It’s messy. Media is horrible to deal it "
He let out a soft huff. “So we’re together, but pretending not to be?”
“No. We’re just not… broadcasting it.”
“That sounds like pretending,” he argued, giving me a look.
I shook my head, half smiling.
His eyes flicked back to the road, then to me again. “So no kissing, no stories, no coupley things during race weekends…”
“We post stuff sometimes,” I offered. “Like birthdays. Maybe if you win. Holidays sometimes"
There was a short pause. Then his voice, laced with suspicion and amusement:
“Whose idea was that?”
I stayed quiet. Too quiet.
He glanced over at me, already smiling. “It was mine, wasn’t it?”
I exhaled through a laugh, trying—and failing—not to smile.
“You said something like, ‘If they don’t know, they can’t ruin it.’”
He didn’t laugh with me.
Instead, his grip on the steering wheel tightened, jaw working like he was chewing on something bitter.
“I hate that,” he said quietly. “That sentence. That idea.”
I turned to look at him, surprised by the shift in his voice.
He kept his eyes on the road but I could feel the weight of what he was about to say before he even said it.
“I get it, I do,” he continued. “Privacy. Protecting what matters. But it sounds like we were hiding."
I opened my mouth, but he didn’t let me speak yet.
“And I’m not saying it’s wrong. Maybe it made sense at the time. But I don’t want to live like that—unless you do.”
His eyes flicked toward me, searching.
“I don’t want to love you like it’s a secret,” he added. “I want to hold your hand when we walk into the paddock. Kiss you in the middle of the day just because I feel like it. Post a photo that says, look, this is who I’m choosing every day.”
My heart skipped, tripped over itself. The silence sat warm between us for a moment.
He glanced at me again. “But if you still want it quiet... I’ll follow your lead.”
“Really?” I asked, barely recognizing my own voice.
I didn’t notice the tears until one slid down my cheek. I wasn’t trying to cry. I wasn’t even thinking about crying. But something about the way he said it—so certain, so willing—unlocked something soft and sore in me I didn’t even realize I was still protecting.
“Hey,” he whispered, “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“You didn’t.” I gave a wet laugh, shaking my head, wiping at my face with the sleeve of my hoodie. “I’m just not used to this version of you yet.”
He smiled at that, a little crooked. “I hope that’s not a bad thing.”
“It’s not,” I said quickly. “It’s just… you used to feel everything so quietly. Now it’s like—it’s all on the surface.”
He shrugged. “Maybe losing the past makes you want to hold the present harder.”
“I’m just happy...” I wiped the tears away, smiling despite myself. “That you want this—so open, so exposed. I’ve always wanted those silly stories, the tagged photos.” I laughed softly. “I know it sounds childish.”
He went quiet for a beat. I could feel his eyes on me, studying my face like he was trying to solve an equation without all the variables. Then, barely above a whisper, he asked:
“What kind of boyfriend was I to you?”
I looked at him, confused.
“I mean it,” he said, voice tightening. “You’re crying because I want to post a photo. Because I said I want to kiss you in public. That’s... so simple. So basic. And if that’s making you this happy now, what the hell was I doing before?”
I blinked, the weight of his words settling deep. His hands tightened slightly on the wheel.
“I must’ve failed you in a hundred small ways I didn’t even notice,” he went on, quieter now. “And you still loved me.”
“You didn’t fail me, Charles,” I said softly, fingers curling around his. “You never hid our relationship. I actually showed up in several of your lives in the most ridiculous situations.”
He huffed a tiny laugh, the kind that barely made it past his lips, but it was there.
“I always knew that being with you came with… restrictions,” I continued, squeezing his hand gently. “Not because you didn’t care. But because you were protecting what we had. Protecting me.”
His thumb brushed the top of my hand, slow and thoughtful.
“I want to do it differently this time,” he said. “Whatever we were before—it mattered, of course it did. But I didn’t see all of it. I didn’t do everything I could have. And now that I have this... second chance? I don’t want to waste it trying to repeat what we had. I want better."
“Better?” I echoed, barely above a whisper.
He nodded, eyes meeting mine. “I want to be more present. More open. More you and me, not just behind the scenes, but out there too."
I smiled, a little overwhelmed, a little breathless. “At this moment, I’d say I love you.”
He tilted his head, a playful glint flickering in his eyes. “Then why don’t you?”
“Because it would be weird now. I’d sound desperate.” I laughed, half embarrassed, half honest.
He laughed too, then leaned closer with a softness that caught me off guard. “Mon amour, tu peux me dire que tu m’aimes, et je peux te le dire aussi.” (My love, you can tell me you love me, and I can tell you too.)
I paused—just a second—and looked up at him. “Tu ne peux pas,” I replied gently, switching to his language, the words clumsy but clear. “Parce que tu ne ressens pas encore ça pour moi. Et quand tu le diras… si tu le dis… je veux que ce soit vrai.” (You can't. Because you don't feel that way about me yet. And when you say it... if you say it... I want it to be true.)
His eyes widened, surprised. Maybe by the words, maybe by the fact I spoke them in French at all.
“You speak French?” he asked, a little stunned.
I looked at him, smiling softly. “I forget sometimes… that you don’t remember so many things.”
He tilted his head slightly, still holding my gaze. “Then when you say it—when you say you love me… will you say it in my language?”
I felt my breath catch just a little.
He wasn’t teasing. Not really. There was something softer in the way he asked it. Something almost reverent.
I smiled slowly, letting the moment stretch, then leaned just slightly closer.
“Bien sûr que je peux, ma vie,” I said, letting my voice drop into something deliberately soft ( Of course I can, my life) —deliberately warm. “Je peux dire je t'aime en français." (I can say I love you in French)
He exhaled sharply, the sound closer to a laugh caught in his throat, and shook his head.
“Tu vas me tuer,” he muttered, voice low and unsteady. (You’re going to kill me.)
I grinned, proud of myself, and didn’t even try to pretend otherwise.
The car slowed in front of the hotel. Charles got out first and came around to my side, opening the door like it was second nature. When I stepped out, his hand slid into mine—simple, firm, and warm.
“Tu sais ce que j’aime aussi ? Un dîner. Qu’est-ce que t’en dis ?” (You know what I like too? Dinner. What do you think?)
That pulled a groan out of him, half-laugh, half-defeat.
“You saying je t’aime like that should be illegal,” he said, his hand finding my waist as we started walking toward the elevator. “But yes. Dinner sounds perfect.”
Then he leaned in, brushing his lips close to my ear.
“Just… don’t say je t’aime again until we’re somewhere I can properly react to it.”