Trackside Temptation

Chapter Eleven

FRANCESCA

I spent the next few days trying to figure out Matthias' own personal race strategy. What did he do when he crashed? Was he working for himself or for the team? I needed to identify a pattern because there was bound to be one that explained his mindset.

His engineer was an absolute dear and compiled all of Matt's race crashes into one video for me to analyse. Just because my client was injured didn't mean I could relax.

I sat in the motorhome hospitality room with my laptop on the table and my wired headphones dangling around it.

I pressed play on the video and listened in to Matthias' radio.

"Fucking hell this man just pushed me off the track."

I rolled my eyes. He clearly had enough room if he just held back.

Another crash appeared on my screen, and I flinched. It wasn't easy to watch from the onboard camera. The sound of metal scraping against the wall reminded me of the crash last weekend.

"What just happened? Lambert clipped my edge and sent me onto the gravel. That fucking bastard!"

I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Romain and Theo.

"Ah, what's the enemy doing in here?" I said, making eye contact with the cute Santoro boy.

"I can't see Matthias anywhere, so I don't know what you're talking about," Romain teased.

I giggled. "Don't tell him I laughed at that. I may get ghosted in person for a week." The pair laughed as they took a seat in the two spare chairs.

"We're off for dinner tonight if you are interested?" Theo asked.

I glanced over at Matthias who had just entered the room. I knew he wasn't fit enough to go out on the town like this, especially since his cast hadn't been removed yet. It would've been unfair for me to leave him behind and go out tonight, no matter how much I wanted to. 

"I would love to but I—" I signalled for Matt to come over. "I have a very rigorous plan for Matthias and me tonight. The doctor says we need to be more diligent with our physio exercises, so we'll be spending the late afternoon doing that. We'll probably just get dinner around here."

Roman and Theo looked at Matthias for a reaction, who obviously gave them nothing.

"Suit yourself. But next time there's an outing, you're coming with us," Theo said.

"I won't miss it," I said, smiling back at him.

Once they'd left, Matthias sat down in the spare chair. "That was the first I'd heard about it. Why'd you lie?"

I laughed nervously. "I didn't lie, we do have to do some shit this afternoon...after I've watched you crash a thousand times."

Matthias leaned over to see what was on my computer screen, closing the distance between his body and mine once again.

"Oh that crash wasn't even my fault," he groaned.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, you said that the first time on your radio. I got it."

Matthias laughed as he looked down and up again. Fuck that was a new expression from him, and one I could get used to. The way his eyes nervously shifted away but then quickly returned as if he couldn't look away any longer. Why was I being delusional? Oh my gosh, Francesca, you're being delusional.

"Now get lost so I can analyse your behaviour and grill you later for it," I muttered.

Matt looked around the motorhome. "Spare office at three?" He winked. I nodded, and then he disappeared up the staircase.