Chapter 3 The Legend and the Printer from Hell
I’m not sure who said sea air heals everything.
Clearly, that person never sat on the edge of a Monaco dock, spiraling in quiet panic, with nothing but yacht lights and nausea for company.
The night breeze carried salt, sharp and slightly fishy. Honestly? More honest than the Italian bastard who would be arriving in two days wearing my new team’s uniform, with a face far too handsome to be forgiven.
I sat on the edge of the harbor, still in my favorite black hoodie (the one with the mysterious hole near the wrist), knees pulled up, eyes fixed on the rippling water. Somehow the world felt calmer when viewed in mute mode.
Farther out, the yachts lined up like shameless monuments to wealth. One of them even had neon-blue underwater lights that turned the sea into a luxury aquarium. I hated how pretty it looked.
I drew in a long, slow breath, then blew it out fast like I could expel the chaos rattling inside my head.
Spoiler: it didn’t work.
Rafael De Luca.
Three words. Eleven letters. One emotional nuke.
I bit my bottom lip. I was going to see him again. At work. In a professional setting. With contracts. With cameras. With HR protocols.
God help me.
I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready to see him after eight years. After that night in Milan. After he left without a word, without a text, without anything except a Grand Canyon–sized scar and a tabloid spread a week later: Rafael feeding cake to a Victoria’s Secret model in Paris.
Yeah. I still remember the photo.
I tapped my sneaker against the concrete dock, steady and rhythmic, like a panic beat I couldn’t turn off.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered. “I’m not eighteen anymore. I’m an adult. Educated. Qualified. Gainfully employed. I’ve presented in front of CEOs. I can handle one driver.”
Unless that driver is RAFAEL FREAKING DE LUCA.
The guy who once kissed me on a boarding school balcony like I was the only girl on the planet, then vanished like some Formula 1 ghost. And now he was back. Not just back.. but .. working with me.
Hilarious. Truly. God has a killer sense of humor.
I rested my head on my knees, eyes shut. I could already picture him two days from now at the paddock: hair still dark, maybe longer. Body stronger, obviously. His voice? God, that voice could make a sane person do something stupid. And his smile… damn it, that smile still lived rent-free in the corners of my brain, sneaky as a thief.
I imagined him walking into a media briefing. I snorted softly. “If he says ‘You look different now,’ I’m throwing the mic at his face.”
A bitter laugh slipped out anyway. I hated that I could still picture him. I hated more that some small, treacherous part of me was still curious. Still angry. Still… raw.
The harbor lights wavered across the water. Footsteps echoed somewhere behind me, but I stayed put, the idiot trying to negotiate with a past that refused to stay buried.
I knew I couldn’t dodge it. The contract was signed. The job was real. The team had agreed. The world had moved on.
But my heart? My heart was still stuck in that damn park in Milan. On a cold wooden bench. On a night that was supposed to be a celebration but turned into a loss.
I took another breath. This one heavier.
Two days. Two days until I faced Rafael De Luca.
God, let him trip and fall coming out of the car. Just enough of a bruise to dent the ego, not the face. A tiny down payment for the damage he left behind.
And God, please… don’t let me stare too long.
:::
This printer.
THIS PRINTER.
Was a machine straight from hell.
I’d been crouched under the desk for eight minutes, trying to rescue a sheet of paper lodged in its smug, overheated Swiss-made guts. The internal meeting started in fifteen minutes. Media photoshoot in two hours. And the man who torched the remnants of my self-esteem eight years ago could walk through the door at any second with his expensive smile and blade-sharp eyes.
Naturally, today was the day this glossy white bastard decided to die.
“If you don’t want to live, printer,” I muttered, half-threat, “at least die with dignity. Don’t drag innocent A4s down with you.”
My sneakers squeaked against the marble floor of Bandini GP’s headquarters as my right hand reached deeper into the printer’s overheated guts. Sweat trickled down my temple. My black hoodie had to be covered in dust by now. Perfect look for the new head of PR.
“I remember you always fought with machines.”
The voice hit me.
Male. Low. Smooth.
Like espresso. Or poison.
My hand froze inside the printer.
One second. Two. Three.
I slowly lifted my head, nearly bumping my forehead against the edge of the desk.
And there he was.
Standing across the room, framed in the half-open glass door.
Rafael De Luca.
I had never wanted to curse oxygen this badly.