Forever Yours

Chapter 13

Charles POV

I never knew someone could mean so much to me until I saw Jules.

And I can't fuck this up. Not more than I already have. I have to get my shit together for him, and Florence. For both of them.

What Florence told me last night has been playing on repeat in my head all morning.

"You're just some random stranger," she said to me. His father. I'm his father and all he sees me as is a stranger.

It hurt hearing her say that. To think that Jules sees me as a stranger really made me realize how much I have to change my attitude if I want to have a relationship with him.

And she was right, I haven't tried at all to get to know him. Even the first time we met all he saw was me being angry and violent. Then back at their house when Florence and I got into our argument, god, the look of terror on his face absolutely broke my heart.

Having Florence in my life again really set me into this spiral of anger, sadness, and relief. I had spent years dreaming of having her back in my life and now that she was, well, lets just say it wasn't how I had imagined it.

I knew that I fucked up that night she asked me if I had ever imagined a future with her. I wanted to say yes, scream it at the top of my lungs. She was my dream, the love of my life. But I was blinded by the thought of my career. I knew about the deal I had to make to get my seat in F1 and I knew what that meant for Florence and me.

I wasn't going to do it though. I had gotten on that plane with all the intention to tell them to go fuck themselves. But then I got there and they offered me everything. I couldn't say no. They offered me money, cars, and luxuries that I had never even imagined. I figured that if I accepted, I could play it off for a couple of months and once the season started I would break it off with Charlotte and I would be able to give Florence the life we had always dreamed of. I thought that we would be so well off that she would never have to work again and we could just enjoy each other and what I did with Charlotte would be long in the past.

It sounded so perfect in my head. I had the whole thing planned out.

Until I didn't.

When I walked into her empty apartment I felt my heart constrict in a way I had never felt in my life. No amount of G-force I have endured in my career could compare to the pain and desperation I felt rush throughout my body as I tore that whole apartment up searching for her, praying that it was just some cruel joke she was playing to get back at me for what happened that night. But she was gone. Absolutely everything that belonged to her was gone. And all that was left were the memories of her.

I had searched everywhere for her. I had gone to the track she worked at but the owner had sold the track and I had no clue where he went. My mum said she hadn't seen her. And my brothers we just as clueless. I had even called the Bianchi family but they said they hadn't spoken to her for months. It was as if she had disappeared from the face of the earth.

I had called and called and texted every day but no answer. After a week or two when I would call her the voice machine would say that the number had been disconnected. I felt hopeless. I would spend endless nights racking my brain as to what I could have done to lead her to leave me without so much as a goodbye.

The pain I was feeling was so strong that I had vowed to never let myself experience that ever again. I had decided to stay with Charlotte for the public but our relationship would never get more serious than that.

It wasn't hard to lie to Charlotte though. A couple of months into our relationship was when I discovered that she was sleeping around with other people anyways so at least I knew where we stood.