The gamble of love

16

Jo's POV

After a busy and emotional last two days, I am beyond exhausted. It is currently 1am in the morning, and me, Carlos and Rebecca are on our way to the airport for our flight to Bahrain. It feels crazy to be up at this time in the morning for a flight. I am definitely not used to the lifestyle like them, but I'll get there, I guess. Luckily we are taking a private plane so I can sleep there and then also get ready on it before we land. I am super excited to Charles, I have been missing him like crazy. Soon after take off I fell asleep.

After a few hours I feel someone shaking me. My eyes fluttered open and I see Carlos infront of me. "Hey sis, you need to wake up, plane lands in an hour." He says. I groan and force myself to get up. After having a cup of coffee, I got up to go to the bathroom to get changed and do my make up and hair. Soon after I finished the plane landed and we were driving to the hotel to book in. The schedule is crazy. We need to book into the hotel and then Ferrari wants to meet with me, Charles and Carlos. Which is weird, Carlos also does not know what is going on. After that I have a meeting with Redbull team to meet them and then finally McLaren. I am already exhausted just thinking about all the meetings. After the hotel we arrive at the Ferrari garage and Carlos shows me to their dressing room where I can quickly say hallo to Charles before the meeting. I squeal running into his arms. "Heyy Char!" I yelled happily and he laughed. "Hey baby, i missed you so much!" He says as he kisses me. We chat for a while and then we are all called into the meeting.

"Josephine, it is really nice to meet you." a man says while I am entering the room. "I am Fred." He finished his sentence. "You can call me Jo, and it is really nice to meet you too." I tell him giving him a warm smile. After a while two women walked into the room, one a bit older and the other one around my age. They sit down. "Guys, this is Alexandra." The older woman - Lisa - introduced her to us, we all greeted her. "Charles, I understand that you and Josephine are an item, which is why the team took it upon themselves to arrange a PR girlfriend for you. We don't want anyone getting suspicious about you two, especially as she is working with our closest rivals. Alex will be your girlfriend infront of the camera from now on." Lisa said with a straight face and I feel like throwing up. What the actual fuck. I was not at all expecting this and I can see that Charles and Carlos are just as surprised as me. Lisa and Fred then leave the room and Alex got up to introduce herself properly to Charles, I can see him looking at her up and down, and who can blame him, she is gorgeous. I feel instant jealousy fill my body. They are talking and she is giggling like a teenager around him, basically drooling over him. "I am going to my next meeting." I tell Carlos beyond irritated with this entire situation. Carlos can clearly sense it but before he could say anything I got up and walked away.

After getting lost for a moment I finally spot the Redbull garage. I hear a message come through on my phone, I open it.

- I swear I didn't know they were going to do this, I'm so sorry sis. Xx Carlos

I just ignored it putting my phone away and walking over to Christian, the team principal for Redbull. I introduced myself to him and he seems really nice. He walked me over to the drivers Max and Sergio.
"It's nice to meet you both." I tell them and they give me warm smiles. They showed me around for a bit and then it was time for the McLaren meeting. I have been dreading this moment.

I got to the McLaren garage where I was welcomed by Zak. "It's great to finally meet you, Josephine." He says. "Good to meet you too, and please call me Jo." I say smiling at him. We talked for a bit and then he told me to follow him to meet the drivers, uhggg little does he know...
"Oscar, Lando, I would like for you to meet Jo. She will be reporting for the team, doing interviews with you guys before and after races. Please make her feel welcome." Zak says and I see Oscar standing up walking over to me, "Hey, I'm Oscar, it's nice to meet you, I have heard so much about you." He says winking at me. Ah shit, what is that supposed to mean. "All good things I hope." I reply to him awkwardly laughing trying to change the subject. Then Lando appeared from behind him. "Hi" is all he says to me. "Hey Lan." I reply which made him look me directly in the eyes. Gosh I missed him. He quickly changed his attitude and came over to give me a hug. I hug him back tightly. Zak looked at us confused. Lando started laughing, "this is Carlos' sister, we go way back." He tells Zak. "Oh, I didn't know you guys knew each other but it makes sense, Carlos is your best mate." Zak said and soon after excused himself from the room as he had other meetings to attend to. Lando gave Oscar a look and he quickly caught on and told us that he needed to call his girlfriend, I just roll my eyes, Lando clearly wanting to speak to me privately.
"So how have you been?" I ask him. "Uh- I'm doing alright. How about you?" He asked. "Not great at the moment but really happy to be here." I tell him and he looks confused. "Ferrari arranged a PR girlfriend for Charles as we are not allowed to be seen together. I just met her and she is gorgeous and all over him. I don't know how to compete with that." I blab out getting everything off my chest. "Jo, trust me, no girl can ever compare to your beauty." He says but I can see he instantly regretted it. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to come out like that, I just mean, you are absolutely beautiful inside and out. If Charles gives this girl attention he is probably the most stupid person I know." He says and I feel myself getting hot, I probably look like a tomato at this point. "Thank you Lando. I really missed you, by the way." I tell him. "I missed you too, but Charles does not want us being friends, so it's probably best to keep it professional infront of him, yeah? I don't want any bad blood." He says and I nod agreeing with him, I can't help but feel hurt. Professional? Is that his way of saying that he doesn't want anything to do with me outside of work. I sigh and try to shake the thoughts away as I greet them and leave for the hotel.