Hot off the Press | Charles Leclerc | F1

t w e n t y - o n e

Darkness pressed down on Fia as she followed Charles. When they were far enough from the party, he reached for her hand, and for once—maybe because she was slightly drunk or maybe just because she wanted to—she let him take it. They walked in silence to the far side of the cove, where the sheer cliff face kissed the sea. A few metres out, a large rock rose from the water, black and glistening against the fading sunset. Charles slipped his shoes off and waded in ankle-deep, gesturing for Fia to follow.

"Is it deep out there?" she asked, pointing to the rock.

He held his hand out. "Trust me."

The shoreline was littered with shrapnel discarded by the tide: severed ribbons of seaweed and limbs of driftwood, small shells with razor-sharp edges. Even though Fia felt at home on the beach, she'd never much liked going in the sea. Who knew what lay waiting in its depths? But she wasn't about to admit that. She ignored his hand and stepped into the water, which was warmer than she expected. It lapped against her shins, then her knees, as she followed Charles, trying not to be alarmed when she felt the slime of seaweed underfoot or the brush of something unidentifiable against her leg.

Charles pushed himself onto the rock, which was mostly flat on top, making a perfect seat. He made it look easy, his lean body rising out of the water, silhouetted black against blue. But Fia soon discovered that the edges of the rock were green with algae, too slippery for her wet fingers to find purchase. Her first attempt landed her back in the water—fortunately, it went no higher than her knees—and she only accepted help on the third try, by which point she was too embarrassed to risk failing again. It took a moment for her to catch her breath once she found a comfortable spot.

"This place is beautiful," she said, staring at the sky. It was studded with more stars than she'd ever seen. The moon was an impossibly thin crescent, yet the water somehow found enough light to glitter beneath it.

Charles made a noise of agreement. His eyes were fixed on a pinprick of light from a distant buoy. Half his face glowed orange, lit by the tiki lamps on the beach behind them. "I owe you an apology," he said.

Fia frowned, trying to catch the thread of his thoughts. "Why?"

"For how I treated you when you first got the job."

"You tried to get me fired, but I never understood what I'd done to make you hate me. I still don't understand."

He took her hand and placed it in his lap, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. In the darkness, so far away from everyone else, it was easy for her to let him. It felt as natural as breathing. "When I told you it wasn't personal, I meant it. I never hated you."

She remembered that day in the canteen when she confronted him about switching her alarms off and she'd felt resentment rolling off him in waves. "Then why..."

"You were one of them," he shrugged. "The media. Silvia, you, Sky Sports – whatever. I thought you were all the same."

"But you don't think that anymore?

"Not about you."

Those words fizzled like gold dust in her chest. She hoped it wasn't obvious how they affected her. "The PR team is here to protect you from the press," she said softly. "It's our job."

"Protect me?" He laughed without humour. "No. Silvia's priority is Ferrari. My opinions and preferences are secondary. The Charles Leclerc everybody sees online is made up and controlled by everyone but me. Can you imagine how that feels?"

Fia thought it sounded lonely. "But at least that gives you some privacy, doesn't it? The people who know the real you are the people who matter."

"I have no privacy." His voice was hard. "The press has made sure of that. And now you and Amélie—"