"The doctors said he was very lucky," Caco told Charles in the corridor while Carlos and Y/n were inside the room talking.
"It was a terrible accident" Charles felt chills run down his spine again.
"He will have to do physiotherapy, but he's good"
"Of course, he has to recover properly" Charles said as he felt his mobile phone vibrate inside his pocket. He looked at the screen "Mattia Binotto". His heart rose in his throat and he immediately turned away from Caco and the Sainz family.
Again, the conversation took place in Italian.
"Hello?"
"Hi Charles, do you have a moment?"
"Yes, I'm at the hospital for Carlos."
"Great, I will call him later"
"But that wasn't what you wanted to talk to me about, right?" Charles hoped with all his heart that that call had been made to tell him that everything was back to normal, that Mattia had managed to convince the Scuderia executives that Y/n wasn't a spy or something on behalf of her father.
"Listen, I've spoken to whoever's in charge," he took a deep breath, "but..."
Charles' heart shattered. He began to think of all the problems Y/n would have to face from now on, trials, lawyers, anything to defend herself. He thought he would do everything he could to help her, to try to convince everyone of her innocence.
"You are making a huge mistake" were the only words Charles managed to utter.
"We have no intention of pressing charges or getting her into trouble, I have spoken up for myself so that we do not go ahead with legal action. But she will no longer be able to work for us or be seen around. They were clear about that. They also said that you and Carlos should not have any more dealings with Y/n either, but I know that you have formed a solid relationship. That is why you will have to be very careful not to be seen around her anymore. Our media team is already trying to delete all the pics of Y/n and Max together, they've been working for days, hoping this story will be forgotten as soon as possible."
The Ferrari team principal's words came like a missile at Charles. Certainly, the problem of the trial no longer arose, but the conditions were still terrible.
Charles ended the call and leaned heavily against a wall, brought his head back and closed his eyes. He felt responsible. He had been the one who had pushed her to go and talk to Max. They could have called each other, they could have clarified by sms, instead he had convinced her to go to him to talk. He could have called her when he thought about it, when he was in the bathroom. If he had called her, she would have asked him to pick her up and the paparazzi would have seen only him and her together, there would have been nothing strange. But no.
Now Y/n would lose her job, she would be fired and he would no longer be able to see her in public. He felt short of air, so he quickly walked out of the waiting room where he was and looked out from a nearby balcony. The air entered his nostrils and Charles took deep breaths. What the fuck had he done?
Suddenly his mobile phone rang again and, hoping it was Mattia with some positive news, he quickly picked it up. It was Charlotte.
They spoke briefly, Charles' answers were all cold, dry, he didn't talk to her about what was going on, he didn't feel like it. It would have made him feel even more guilty.
Besides, lately, things with Charlotte weren't exactly going as well as they used to. He felt her distant from him, he himself felt distant from her. Their calls were reduced to a mere list of each other's appointments and they could see each other very little lately. But the thing that scared Charles the most was that he did not miss her. He hung up the call with Charlotte and, looking at the screen, realised that it had lasted barely three minutes. He looked at the minutes on his mobile phone and thought that it had been too long since things had been like this, even though he felt so much affection and esteem for Charlotte. About this he was more than sure.
Yeah, but is that how love should be?
*Y/N POV*
"I know it's not the most romantic place to say this, but I couldn't have waited any longer" Carlos's huge eyes shone and the wounds on his face made him even more handsome. Y/n turned all red and didn't know what to say. She felt embarrassed for the team radio, she felt guilty for what had happened with Max, and she felt like shit thinking that Carlos, sooner or later, would find out about those pictures, losing him forever. She felt short of air but felt she had to answer Carlos as soon as possible. The silence in that room was becoming unbearable.
"No, it's...it's perfect like this," she smiled and a tear fell. He wiped it away with his thumb and smiled at her again, the most beautiful smile he had ever given her.
Carlos moved to one side of the bed, making room for her to lie beside him. Y/n felt herself being pulled along by the current, at the mercy of events, unable to stop it. She lay down beside him and as soon as she was more settled, he put his arm around her neck and looked at her more closely. Her eyes were shining and Carlos thought they were because of what he had told her. If only they had both known what was going on outside that hospital room...Carlos moved closer to her, took her face gently with his other hand and gave her a kiss, his heartbeat quickened, they both heard that thing beeping faster. They pulled away and both smiled.
"Sorry, I'm happy," Carlos said looking at her lips, he gave her another kiss, sweet, soft, full of love for her.
She smiled but couldn't keep it all in her head. She had to tell him or it would be too late to explain.
"Carlos I..."
There was a knock at the door and two doctors entered, approaching Carlos's bed. Immediately Y/n got off the bed a little embarrassed, the same could not be said for Carlos, who watched her slip away, in fact he smiled.
"Sorry, but Smooth Operator needs to do his physioterapy," said one of the two doctors, smiling.
"I'll text you as soon as I can, okay?" said Carlos smiling at her again.
"Sure" Y/n hurried out of the room and looked for Charles among the faces of the Sainz family, to no avail.
Caco approached her and pointed to Charles, outside the balcony, a few metres ahead. She thanked him and approached Charles, who, in the meantime, had just ended a call, his face was shocked.
"Are you okay?" asked Y/n
"Yeah...I mean no. I need to tell you something Y/n"
"Oh my god what happened?""Not here, let's go back to the hotel, it's better"
Y/n and Charles said goodbye to the Sainz's, Charles waved from a distance to Carlos who had just started physiotherapy and they both left the hospital to return to the hotel.
Arriving at the hotel, Charles recounted the call with Binotto. Y/n looked impassive. She had run out of tears in those days and that news had only frozen her blood. She did not know what to say, she felt overwhelmed by the events, again, she was unable to react. She didn't know what to do, she didn't know how to act. She didn't have many cards to her advantage to convince Mattia otherwise, except for Charles' good word, which evidently hadn't been enough to change his mind.For the umpteenth time, she had been wrong, but this time more people were going to pay the consequences. Carlos, who once he found out what was going on, would disappear from her life. Charles, who would be forced to give up his best friend, the mutual support they could give each other, his track engineer. How much work fucked up over bullshit like that
.Charles also told her that he was thinking about going back to Monaco, that he needed to clear his head a bit. Y/n wasn't entirely sure she understood what he was referring to, but the idea that Charles would leave like that without warning was yet another blow.
Y/n took her leave of Charles and went back to her room. Everything around her seemed muffled, she didn't quite understand where she was. She felt trapped in an endless nightmare with no way out. She felt like crying and cried all afternoon until she fell asleep. She woke up an hour later with a throbbing headache. She took out her mobile phone and found two messages.
Chili: They told me I can get out of the hospital. Do you want to meet up?
Charlie: I'm not going anywhere. I'm here if you want.
At that moment, reading those two messages full of attention towards her, she realised all that she would very soon no longer have in her life.A boy in love with her and a best friend who would do anything to make her feel good.It was a matter of days before all this would be just a memory.
She decided to go to Charles' room and told him that in two days she was going back to Maranello to meet Carlos and tell him everything that had happened with Max and to let him in on what was going to happen at Ferrari, hoping that he would understand and not be angry with her. But she had to hurry up and do it, the more time passed, the more likely it was that Carlos would see her photos with Max. Charles also agreed, although he seemed reluctant. He was afraid of giving her bad advice again.Charles decided to follow her to Italy, to Monaco he would go later, as Charlotte would be busy all weekend before the Silverstone race and they would not have a chance to see each other. Charles was beginning to resent this distance.
Once they landed in Bologna, they both went to Maranello and on the way Y/n received a phone call, the phone call they had been waiting for. Mattia Binotto.
"Hello?"
"Hello Y/n, how are you?"
"Fine, thanks. I'm on my way to Maranello"
"Listen Y/n...I need to summon you tomorrow to HQ, we need to talk about something very important..."
"Sure...then I'll see you tomorrow morning"
The two hung up the phone call, Y/n looked at Charles who was driving. He turned to her for a moment, smiled and squeezed her hand. "It'll be fine, I'm here."
The next morning, Y/n went to the factory in Maranello. She took a look at it from outside, slowly entered the building and admired everything around her. She remembered very well the feeling of the first time she had crossed that threshold, how excited and honoured she was to be part of the most beautiful team in the world. And now it was all coming to an end. She saw Charles coming towards her with a little run and accompanied her to Mattia's office.
"Can't you come in with me?" asked Y/n in front of Binotto's still closed door.
"I really want to, but I can't. I'm here waiting for you."
"I'm supposed to see Carlos this afternoon..."
"Think about one thing at a time."He gave her a kiss on the forehead and watched her enter and disappear once the door to that office was closed. He sat in an armchair nearby and waited more than an hour for her to come out of there.
"Hello Y/n," Mattia said as he sat down at his desk. Behind him was a wall full of photos of old racing Ferraris and even a few photos of his family. "Have a seat" his tone of voice was calm.
Y/n sat down opposite him, she was shaking, her hands were sweating and she couldn't wait to get back to Charles. At least it meant it was all over.
"I have to be honest with you, Y/n. I had some suspicions about you and your father. I feared you were up to something and I pointed out this suspicion of mine to Charles, who, however, swore to me that there was absolutely nothing behind it. And I believed him. However, our world sucks, you know. I had to report everything to the management and after the photos of you and Max that circulated on the internet, I couldn't do anything else, so you can no longer be part of our team..."
Y/n had not looked up at Mattia even for a second, she felt guilty as if indeed she had done something wrong. She had grown up too insecure to rebel or argue with a team principal.
"You're one of the best engineers we've ever had here at Ferrari and I'm really, really sorry. I'm sure you'll find another team ready to take you on, but we can't any more."
Y/n nodded, trying to hold back her tears as much as possible in front of Mattia, she couldn't wait to get out of there. She got up from her chair as Mattia walked around the desk and approached her. Y/n held out her hand but Mattia hugged her. He knew what they were loosing.
Y/n quickly walked out of Mattia's office and saw Charles sitting in an armchair waiting for her, he was looking at his mobile phone. As soon as he saw her leave, he looked up and got out of the armchair and walked towards her.Y/n's eyes were full of tears and she just nodded as if to say "it happened, he fired me".Charles hugged her tightly without saying a word. "Let's get out of here, I don't want others to see you like this".
*CHARLES' POV*
Sitting in that armchair, time seemed never to pass. He was agitated, he would have liked to come in and defend Y/n, because he was sure she would do nothing and suffer this injustice without objecting. So he got up and sat down again and again.Then he received a message, it was from Carlos. In the message there was also a photo attached. Charles swallowed as he looked at the preview. What should not have happened had happened.
Did you know about this?
The attached photo was obviously of Y/n and Max in his car, while Y/n was wearing one of his sweatshirts.
Y/n would have told you about it, it's not what it looks like anyway.
It seems very clear to me instead, Charles. Thanks for the heads up, you're a friend.
The last part was clearly ironic. Charles looked out the window, the sun was high in Italy, yet there was a storm going on in that building. He no longer knew how to handle everything. He punched the chair.When Y/n came out of Mattia's office, he saw her heartbroken, tired, disappointed. He took her to the bathroom where he waited for her outside and once she came out he looked her in the eyes and said:
"Carlos has seen the photos".