𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹 | 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗰

Chapter 41

"If I win this race, I want to see you at the front. I want you to be in front of all my engineers, ma cherí" Charles said as we sat on his bed on the morning of the Monaco race, ten minutes before we needed to be setting off to arrive to the track.

"I'll be at the front either way, but it's not if you win, you will win" I told him.

The smile that appeared on his face showed me that what I said was the right thing. I could tell he was nervous because he was twiddling his thumbs and not making eye contact with me but I also knew that he knew how to deal with those feelings. Me on the other hand, I was nervous for him because I knew how much he wanted to win at home and I would be nervous until he crossed that line in first place.

Minutes felt like milliseconds as the ten minutes past swiftly and we were exiting his house, on the way to the car. I had stayed at Charles' last night because once we had drank our tea and watched a movie m it was quite late plus, he practically begged me to stay with him and I couldn't say no, especially when he was looking straight into my eyes when he asked. I couldn't say no to those green eyes.

We didn't have music on in the car ride to the track but we did speak for most of it. More actions showed his nerves as he was continuously tapping the cars steering wheel and biting the inside of his cheek. I had put my hand on his leg, which seemed to take an effect on him as he stopped tapping as much after that but you could still see the tension in his posture.

Pulling up outside the gates was as busy as usual as the fans were crowded round and when they spotted Charles car the screaming started. When we got out, Charles passed his keys to a man who looked like he had been waiting specifically for Charles to arrive and then he turned to me. At one moment, I saw him reach his hand out but then he hesitated and pulled it back and that was because he had learnt from the mistake of holding my hand in front of people already. Instead he nodded his head in the direction we were going as if to say 'let's go', therefore I began to walk towards the gate with him following closely behind.

When we entered the paddocks, someone in a Ferrari uniform joined me and Charles walking and began speaking to Charles about stuff that I did not understand. I guess they were conversing about the race due to some of the words the person was using but I didn't understand the context to it so I just walked beside them staying in silence, not wanting to interrupt.

"Alena, have you met Andrea yet?" Charles asked me and I shook my head in response. "Well Andrea this is Alena, a very good friend and Alena this is Andrea my trainer"

"Nice to meet you" I smiled at the person Charles had now introduced to me as Andrea.

"You too, I've heard a lot about you" He said, looking at Charles as he spoke. Charles didn't say anything but he did give Andrea a look as he furrowed his eyebrows at him.

While we were walking through the paddocks, towards the garage, I spotted Isa waving me over as she stood in the pit lane. Carlos was stood beside her with another person in a Ferrari uniform and he seemed just as deep in a conversation as Charles was with Andrea again. We were making our way over to them anyway so it wasn't out of my way to head towards her.

Charles and Andrea's conversation interlinked with Carlos' once we got to them and me and Isa both stood quietly for a moment, listening in as they were speaking about the plan for today. It didn't take us long before we left the boys altogether as we didn't want to be stood around whilst they were needing to concentrate. Before we left we told them both we would see them before the race and then we headed back towards where all the food was.

There were quite a few interviewers in the paddocks already as they were all stood speaking to their own cameras, probably talking about the day ahead of the drivers. As usual there were also fans walking around who had acquired and bought paddock passes themselves and all of them had excitement in their faces as they pointed to different sections of the paddocks. One of them pointed behind us and started whispering to her friend whilst jumping up and down. When we turned around, we saw Lewis had just exited Mercedes' garage alongside Toto and George. They looked to be deep in a conversation but as Lewis noticed us he gave us a wave and both Toto and George lifted their heads to see where the wave was aimed.