TILLY MARIE NEARLY loses faith in her passion as she refuses to listen to everyone who told her to quit. Everyone but one. And it's the man she met years ago at a racing event she didn't want to attend. Who would have thought that her father's parti...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
❛it was only 2006. but it felt like i've known him for a lifetime. ❜
i. what a beautiful sight that was.
It was the year 2006. The 21-year-old me did not want to attend on behalf of my father's role to whatever this business was he was handling. I remember being extremely confident about walking up the stage to get my master's.
I had always been told to be an intelligent girl. One that utilizes her skills in any way possible. Everyone praised me, and my maternal grandparents encouraged me to continue my education. My paternal grandparents expressed their admiration with a pat on the head and a kiss. My mother hugged me tightly and hung nearly every certificate I had captured. My father, however... he couldn't get over the fact that he never had a son—one who would run the company someday and perhaps become a world champion.
He lacked boys for his fatherhood experience, so he turned to me and set a list of expectations he had of me. He was still as healthy as ever. He could bench if he felt like it. But he still wanted to instill some responsibility in his companies and passed it on to me.
But I earned my master's in Journalism and was halfway through my Bachelor's in Marketing. What did I know about motorsport?
This didn't mean anything to my father. He wanted me to handle the business and pass it off to the next person if needed. He just wanted his surname to remain known in the industry and public. He trusted me to handle particular areas that he thought I could do.
But it was 2006, and I wasn't given the responsibilities until years after. I was simply in Dubai to watch and entertain myself while cameras tried to get a glimpse of me—the Heiress. I was the next to become a shareholder in the businesses my father and grandfather (and his father) had put their money on. I was an eye candy—the strong woman of the Hearth family. And I was just in Dubai to watch men race lap after lap while they stayed there for hours, like mad men.
And my father didn't even tell me anything. I've only been exposed to observation. But my brain wasn't made to be awake for a day, and my eyes preferred a piece of entertainment from my research paper.
But my mind gave me a little nudge and turned my head to look at the man who'll have me thinking for years. His helmet was on his side, his fingers tapping to keep him focused. He was tall. He was tall and handsome—a deadly combination.
The combination was too deadly as he caught me looking. I hadn't turned my head quite fast enough as I continued to examine and annotate my anecdotal record, pretending that my face wasn't blushing.
It turned out he was just as intrigued as he was handsome. Fucking great. He sat across the chaise lounge I stiffly sat on, his smile I could barely see from my peripheral vision.
Knowing he probably wouldn't leave, I stopped pretending I was studying and looked up only to see his lips spread in amusement. His smile. Oh god. Couldn't this man be the perfect man to have existed?
"You're not here to study," he chuckled softly, "Because you'd be in the wrong place otherwise."
Of course, I hadn't passed up the chance to roll my eyes jokingly.
The conversation lasted forever, and not once did he gloss over the screens to see how his team was doing at the track. He listened to me as I complained about the research I had to do for book publications. He wondered how I'd gotten through my master's at 21. Then he decided to guess while I provided my answer too.
"You're gifted."
"Generational wealth."
Then silence filled the atmosphere as if we could only hear the people talk in the background. My laughter after the pause made his mouth grin as he silently laughed. One of us was more biassed than the other, I thought to myself. My success at school came from the high 90s that I achieved. My family's money made it easier for me to get in without any trouble with tuition.
But the conversation didn't last as long as I thought it would have, as someone who wore the same racing suit came barging at the door. The man frantically gestured for my company to follow him.
He looked at me, his eyes keeping me in one place as I shifted. He could only say, "It was nice talking to you."
And all I could offer him was a stutter of, "Y- yeah, a pleasure to meet you. Y- your name is..."
But his teammate beat him to it before he could utter his name. "Torger!"
Then he looked at me again with a brief nod as he walked out of the room.
He was a lovely man. There's nothing nicer than an equally attractive and genuine man. I liked every single second that I spent with him. And I've only known him for fifteen minutes.
And that remained as that. We've only known each other for fifteen minutes. When they announced the race winners, I was already on my flight back to England. I was already reporting to my father about what I saw.
I told him about what I saw and experienced. But never once did I say to him about a driver of the winning team and how I've practically fallen for him. Because I haven't fallen, he was just lovely.
