The world blurred at the edges of Lando’s visor—grandstands erupting, orange flares staining the sky, his engineers shouting fragmented words that scarcely reached him. All he truly heard was his heartbeat. A strange, luminous quiet lived under the roar of the engine, the kind that only visits a driver when he is living a moment he’s replayed in the dark hundreds of times.

He hit the final apex as though guided by instinct older than memory. The car held steady beneath him, skimming the line between obedience and wild, muscular force. And then, almost before he could breathe, the checkered flag swept across his vision.

His world championship.

His first.

Static burst through the radio, followed by voices cracking under the weight of disbelief. But Lando didn’t cheer, didn’t shout. His throat tightened until it hurt, everything inside him churning with a depth he hadn’t prepared for.

Because the moment he crossed that line, he thought of her.

She would be somewhere in the paddock, probably near the back of the garage, tucked away from the cameras. She always preferred it there—quiet, out of sight, as though watching him required a kind of reverence she could only give from the shadows. Three years together, and she still flinched when someone recognized her. She wasn’t built for spotlight. She was built for libraries and late-night studying and scribbled annotations in the margins of books. She was built for gentleness.

And yet she’d loved him—him, with his speed and noise and nomadic life. Loved him with a steadiness that felt like gravity.

When he climbed out of the car, the sound hit him all at once—fans screaming, his team flooding toward him, cameras flashing like a storm. Hands pulled at him, arms wrapped around him, someone shoved a cap on his head. He smiled because he couldn’t not, but none of it truly landed.

Not until he saw her.

She was standing at the edge of the scrum, half behind one of the engineers, as though trying not to intrude on history. Her hands were pressed together, knuckles white, eyes already shining before he even reached her.

He pushed through everyone, ignoring whatever the broadcasters were saying, ignoring the hands tugging him back. He only saw the way she exhaled when he stopped in front of her—like she’d been holding her breath for the entire race.

For a moment he didn’t speak. He just looked at her. The disbelief in her face. The pride fighting through her shyness. The softness that had undone him the very first time she smiled at him across a café table, three years and several lifetimes ago.

She reached up first, fingers brushing his cheek with the kind of tenderness that made his knees feel wrong, too unsteady for a man who had just conquered the world.

“You did it,” she whispered, voice trembling. “Lando, you really—”

He didn’t let her finish. He pulled her into him so fiercely he felt her breath leave her body. She was small against his suit, but she held him with the certainty of someone who knew exactly how much of him was held together by her.

“I wanted you here for this,” he murmured into her hair. “More than anyone.”