lemon and mint | Charles Leclerc

~ quaranta ~

Monza, September 2019

It was the evening before Italian Grand Prix. Pia and Charles were in their hotel room in Monza. She could sense that her fiancé was tensed. Charles would start tomorrow's race from the pole position, but with that came anxiety and stress. Usually, he was pretty good at ignoring those emotions, but for some reason, he just couldn't ignore them that day.

She could see it in his eyes. He didn't admit it, but he didn't have to. Pia knew him better than anyone. She got to see him when he was scared, maybe even terrified when he was about to drive his kart in the wet conditions. She saw him when he got behind the wheel for the first time after what happened to Jules. She got to see the mixture of fear and braveness. Charles was a fighter. He always chose bravery and didn't show his fear to almost anyone.

Pia could remember just one moment he really showed her fear when it came to racing. It was in Silverstone in 2015. It was his first race in Formula 3, but it was also the first race after Jules' crash. The Italian could remember how cold he was during that whole weekend. Cold and utterly focused. He was trying to keep everything cool until his mask broke, and he broke down the evening before the first race.

Pia remembered holding the shaking body of the Monegasque tightly. She was listening to his loud sobs while caressing his back. He was so fragile and vulnerable at that moment. The next thing the Italian could recall was how Charles whispered quietly: "I'm scared. I'm just so scared, P."

When it came to calming Charles down, sometimes it was easy, and sometimes it was a fight. Pia was always ready for both. But when she looked into his eyes tonight, she knew it was one of those times when it wouldn't be that hard.

"What's on your mind? The race?" The Italian asked her fiancé.

"Well, that too," the Ferrari driver said quietly. He was really muted.

"Too? What else is wrong?" Pia asked again as she caressed his cheek. Oh, God, he was a piece of art. She didn't know how she got that lucky to have him. God was too nice to her.

"I saw some pictures from yesterday morning," Charles said and waited for Pia's reaction, but she didn't react to his words at all. She was still calm. So, either she had no clue what she was talking about, or she wanted to play it cool. "Pictures of you and Lando."

"What?" She exclaimed and quickly looked for her phone. She typed 'Lando Norris and Pia Vettel' into the browser and waited for the results. Her fiancée was right. There were a couple of pictures of her and the Briton. Luckily for the McLaren driver, his face wasn't visible in either of those shots. Pia was glad it wasn't. She didn't want anyone else to see Lando in such a vulnerable moment. "Fucking press. They can't give us a break," she growled. She was so mad that someone was rude enough to take pictures of them during a clearly private conversation.

Charles just watched his fiancée. He was surprised to see her react like this. Yes, she was passionate Italian with boiling blood beneath her skin, but the press rarely ever upset her. She always said she couldn't care less what they wrote because it was all just letters on paper and nothing else.

"The question is why were you with Lando in the first place." The Ferrari driver asked her.

"I just wanted to apologise. He deserved an apology for what I did to him," Pia whispered. She could sense Charles wasn't mad. He just wanted to know what was going on.

"And how did it go?" He asked his fiancée before placing a kiss on her forehead. He knew how much she struggled with hurting the Briton.

"I don't know. Not good, I would say. He said he can't forgive me, and I can't really blame him, can I?" Pia whispered as she rested her head on Charles' shoulder.