I’ve gotten good at pretending. At looking past her as if she were just another face in the crowd, when in reality every second my eyes are searching for her. Hospitality was crowded today—sponsors, VIPs, the usual chaos of people who only half-cared about racing but loved being seen around it. For me, it was a performance. Smile, shake hands, laugh at the right moments, answer questions from team members as though my mind wasn’t elsewhere.

But it always was.

She sat at a small table tucked into the corner, close enough for me to keep her in my peripheral vision, but far enough that no one would suspect. To everyone else she was just a guest, a pretty girl who somehow found her way into McLaren’s little bubble. To me, she was the only person in the room that mattered.

I felt that tug in my chest again—the pull that made me want to cross the room, drop the act, and let everyone know she was mine. But we weren’t ready for that. For now, we lived in this secret bubble where only close friends and family knew. The rest of the world couldn’t. Not yet.

I forced a nod as one of the engineers told me something about strategy for later, but my focus drifted when I noticed movement at her table. A guy—around my age, dressed like he belonged, one of those sponsor’s sons maybe—slid into the chair opposite her. He had the kind of grin that came too easy, the kind that thought it could charm its way into anything.

He set a coffee cup down in front of her.

My jaw tensed. She hadn’t even finished the one she already had, but he didn’t seem to care. He leaned forward, said something that made her smile politely. Too politely. I could see it from here—her smile wasn’t real, not the one she gave me when it was just us. This was the smile she wore when she didn’t want to be rude.

I shifted my weight, crossing my arms, but my eyes stayed locked on them. Every laugh from him made my chest burn hotter. He leaned in, as if he had the right to be in her space, and every fiber of me wanted to walk over there and remind him exactly where the line was.

But I couldn’t. Not here. Not with so many cameras, so many people ready to snap a picture and twist it into something it wasn’t. So I did the only thing I could.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket, thumb hovering over the screen for a second as I tried to keep my expression neutral. My heart was hammering, but my words came out sharper than I intended when I typed them.

That guy should stop drooling over you if he still wants to live a carefree life.

I hit send and leaned back, eyes flicking between my phone and her reaction, waiting for that spark of recognition only we shared.