His photographer

magnets

Plenty of people were already on the yacht and instead of sticking to water, Marilla and Lucia had decided to take a few drinks. If they had to face Max later, they might as well do it not sober. Lucia wasn't sure how Max was going to react and she was scared. 

Would he go completely nuts? 

Would he be angry at her or Charles? 

Would he start screaming?

"Hey mate! Can I steal her from you for a second?"  Lando said to Charles.

Lucia was wrapped in Charles arms, her legs over his and they were smiling and giggling. They both looked up at Lando and for a second Lucia panicked, thinking her brother was going to pop out of a corner and drag her home. She knew that she was old enough to make her own decisions, but her brother still treated her like she was a little girl in that regard.

"Yeah sure. I'll be back"  Charles said, brushing his fingers through her long brown hair.

Lando sat down next to Lucia. She calmed down, after she realized Carlos wasn't going to show up.

"You need to get out of here. Like in the next 10 minutes"

Lucia looked at him confused. Lando was rarely this serious around her, so she figured it had something to do with Max.

"I know that he's coming but he has actually no right to be angry"  she replied.

Lando took a deep breath. She was very confused and didn't understand why suddenly, he was so interested in her relationship with the two drivers.

"He's trying you know. I know he can be a handful, but he's really trying."  He explained.

She was too stunned to speak. 

Trying? What exactly was he trying to do because she was getting more and more confused by every word that came out of Lando's mouth.

"Look I know I kissed him last night, but I was very drunk and so was he. It's always the same. He's super nice to me and a second later he treats me like crap. So whatever he's trying to do, it's not really working. Why are you suddenly all up in my business?"  Lucia said to Lando.

"Look he's my friend and he's not a guy who's really open about his feelings, but he hasn't stopped asking about you the whole day and he's a good friend of mine. I don't want him to get hurt, not after yesterday"

Lucia was shocked about all of this. She couldn't believe Lando was telling her this. What was she supposed to do with this information? It didn't change her feelings towards Charles, but Max hadn't been in a relationship for years and now one of her closest friends was telling her, he was truly interested in her? Especially now that Max had been so nice the evening before, she would ruin the possibility of having a nice work related relationship with him if she hurt him now. She knew the kiss would complicate a lot things between them, but she was convinced they could figure it out. 

Slowly she realized, the only way to avoid this whole mess was to leave. And she had told Charles so confidently, that she would stay.

She needed to convince Charles, that if she left right now, it had nothing to do with how she felt about him.

But was her relationship with Max really worth sacrificing this potential thing she could have with the Monegasque ?

"I know how he acts sometimes, but he's got a lot of problems and a lot going on. I tried to talk him out of coming here, but you know how stubborn he is. He's just not in a good place right now"  Lando said, glancing over at Charles.

"I'm not saying you should drop Charles or anything, I'm just asking you not to shove it into Max's face tonight."

He definitely was very persistent about this. Shit. Lucia was conflicted.

"Alright, alright I'll leave" Lucia said.

She took a deep breath. How the hell was she going to break this down to Charles? She really didn't want to leave his side. The two had been like magnets the whole day, constantly glued together.

"Also your brother is coming"

"Great, thanks"  Lucia said ironically.

She got up to find Marilla. She needed to tell her all about this. Then she saw how her best friend was dancing and having fun with Arthur and some other people, so she decided to skip that step. Charles was talking to Pierre in French and for a second Lucia just enjoyed hearing them talking in their native language. Then he noticed her standing there and pulled her closer to them.

"Everything alright?"  he asked, but when he looked into her eyes again he knew, something wasn't right.

"I need to leave. I know I said I would stay but I can't. Not tonight." Lucia explained.

He clenched his jaw as he looked at the horizon and then back at the brunette girl.

"I really believed you would stay"

His eyes were empty. Lucia didn't like the look. In fact she wanted to prevent ever seeing this look on his face ever again.

"But I told you I wanted to stay with you, and I know it's unfair to ask you to leave your own party but...I thought that maybe you'd want to leave with me? We could go the beach and do a night swim"  she asked him, stepping closer to him and looking up into his green eyes.

"Stop"

"With what?" she said, innocently looking up into his green eyes.

It was driving him crazy. He knew he should be mad that she didn't want Verstappen to see them, but with her looking up at him like this, it was impossible.

"Looking at me like..."

"like what?" she asked on purpose.

She knew exactly what he meant.

"Screw this let's go"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Hey guys! Sorry for the short chapter, I got a lot going on but no worries, I'll try to update on the next weekend!! (and i promise it's gonna be worth it, lots of dramaaaaa)