I hadn’t slept the night before. Or the one before that.

For weeks, I’d rehearsed this moment in the mirror. I thought I’d feel strong walking in here. Controlled. I even put on makeup like I could hide the way my world had turned inside out.

But now, standing just beyond the ropes of the paddock, watching him through the crowd, I felt like a thread unraveling.

There he was — Lewis Hamilton.

Laughing with someone from the team, still in his race suit with the top half hanging around his waist, sweat-damp curls pushed back under a cap. Sunglasses on. Calm. Effortless. Like he had no idea how close his life was to changing forever.

Mine already had.

I watched him move — the way he carried himself, the tiny signs of fatigue in his posture, the way he reached for his water bottle without thinking. He looked… tired. Like he’d been holding something in for a long time.

I’d never meant for this to happen.

One night. That was all it was meant to be.

But now I was nearly three months in, and I couldn’t keep pretending this was just my story to carry.

He deserved to know.

Even if he hated me for showing up.

Even if he looked at me like I was just another woman trying to trap him in something real.

I clutched the edge of my coat tighter around me. My stomach wasn’t showing yet — not really — but I felt every inch of the change happening in my body. The nausea. The dizziness. The quiet moments at night when I rested a hand over my belly and whispered things I hadn’t said out loud yet.

He turned.

And for a second, his eyes met mine.

I froze.

He blinked like he wasn’t sure if I was real — and for a split second, neither was I.

Then I stepped forward. One breath. Then another.