Here With Me - A Formula 1 Story

This Love

Lydia POV

I stare at Charles wrist, at the Cartier love bracelet he's currently fussing with. He looks down at it and then back to me, his expression one that makes me heart beat faster. It's written across his face how much he loves me and I don't know how I missed it before. Perhaps the time apart made it more obvious but if I truly think about it, he's always looked at me this way.

"You're wearing my bracelet." I whisper as I lean forward and touch it on his wrist. He stops fussing with it and stares at me.

"I needed a piece of you close to me and this was all I had." He whispers back and my heart aches at his sad words. A part of me feels guilty for leaving him, even with everything that happened. Maybe if I was a little bit more patient things would have been fine between us. No, I'm not going down that road. Everything happens for a reason, and even if I had waited for him to figure his shit out, there's no guarantee that he would have. If I had stayed, he wouldn't have fired his PR team, he would have gone along with whatever they wanted because his career was...is more important than our relationship.

"Can I ask you a question?" I ask and Charles nods his head indicating I can.

"Will you explain to me why one minute you were fine with us going public and then the next you were telling me we needed to break up. And I need to hear the actual truth even if it hurts me."

Charles takes a deep breath and then pulls my hands into his before answering my question. We stare at each other as he responds.

"It was a number of reasons. The morning after the photos of us came out, the comments you were getting were awful and I hated that my fans were treating you that way. All I wanted to do was protect you, protect our relationship. Those comments made me question if we made the right choice by going public. Then people found out who you were and the things people were commenting got even worse. It was so awful, and my team was so focused on fixing my public image that I let them convince me the best thing for you was to keep you out of the spotlight and the best way to do that was to take a step back from our relationship. But they were only concerned about me and how it would affect my career by being with you. They were worried brands were going to drop me and that I was going to lose out on a lot of opportunities because of our relationship." He tells me and although this isn't new information and I'm not surprised to hear it, it still hurts to know that he basically chose his career over me. And I don't blame him for that at all. I'm sad over the fact that he didn't once come to talk to me about it, and that he agreed that going public was okay. If I would have known his concerns before hand I would have been fine staying hidden.

"What I don't understand is why you agreed to go public in the first place when you had to have had these reservations to begin with. I mean you're career is always going to be your number one priority. You had to have known I was going to be a problem for you if and when you went public, what with me being a nobody and also being a teen mom. I just don't get it." I say as tears fill my eyes. One drop escapes from my eye and Charles is quick to wipe it away gently. His finger lingering on my cheek as he stares at me with sadness.

"I knew that there would be some backlash but I wasn't expecting as much as there was. If I had known it was my own team who was feeding the drama I would have done things differently." He tells me and I furrow my brows in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"They were angry with me that I didn't warn them we were wanting to go public and when those photos of us in the car came out they were not happy. In their scheme of manipulating me to do what they wanted me to do, they fed the media the information about you and your past." He confesses and my mouth drops open in shock. How could his team do that to him just because they were angry he had a personal life, and that it wasn't good for their idea for his image? More tears fall from my eyes as I realize that Charles was treated so badly by his team and he had no idea.