Before you

17.

I woke up way before Lando. I couldn't really sleep, kept tossing and turning.

So it was actually only 4 am when I decided to get up and walk to the balcony.

I sat down, looked at the stars and sighed.

I got a call from the PR manager of my dad's company yesterday. She said two girls want to release a statement about my dad's actions.

As I already expected, that day I caught him wasn't an exception. Quite the opposite.

He lied to young women, makes them believe they would get a promotion, a raise or whatever.

He fucked them, used them and they never got a promotion or a raise because I was the one handling that part of the business.

And how could he explain or convince me to give them a promotion?

'Hey I fucked these girls, who are probably around your age, now give them a promotion please?'

Yeah that wasn't happening.

He probably never even worried about that, thought he was untouchable.

Well, he was dead wrong.

Two girls were gonna release a statement and it would be all over the news. His face, his company.

And where there were two, there were a lot more.

Sawyer, the PR manager and my friend, asked me what she had to do, what I wanted her to do to stop this. What I wanted to do to keep this out of the press.

She probably thought I wouldn't believe it, that I would laugh it off.
But I did believe it, because I saw it with my own eyes.

So I was gonna do nothing to prevent it. Those girls were right and my dad was a complete asshole.
I wasn't gonna defend him.

Not now, not ever.

"Can't sleep?" Lando asked as he walked on the balcony with a blanket. "Not really" I answered.

He grabbed another chair, put it next to mine and put the blanket on both of us.

"Thank you" I smiled.

"What's the matter?" He asked.

He was being sweet again, but I already knew that was gonna change in only a couple of minutes. He always turned cold again.

I don't know why, maybe because he didn't want to open up to me?

"So there's something I didn't tell you yet" I said as I looked at him. "My dad is the CEO of Dell"

He didn't look surprised at all. He just nodded. This fucker already knew who my dad was and still thought I wanted his money?

"You knew?"

"Zak told me, just today. Dell sponsors Mclaren you know" he explained. "And I guess he is an asshole?"

I chuckled. "Yeah he definitely is"

"Did you know that he gave his paddock pass away to someone in Monaco and he couldn't get in himself after that?" Lando said, turned his face to me with a smile.

"Really? Was it a girl?"

Lando cleared his throat. "Uh-yeah it was"

It didn't surprise me. I wanted to go to that race, but he told me he definitely needed me to stay in London and that he would go instead.

He obviously wanted to get away from my mom and try to seduce younger girls again.

Guess that didn't work out.

"That doesn't surprise me one bit" I snorted. "I caught him once while he was fucking a girl, she was my age."

Lando's head snapped back to me.

"Two girls are gonna release a statement about him, their stories or whatever. It's gonna ruin him, it's gonna be his downfall" I explained.

I looked up at the sky, it was a cloudy night, so there were no stars.

"I just don't think I want to save him"

Lando didn't say a thing. He let his hand brush against my arm and put his hand into mine.

I looked at our hands and back at him. Why was he holding my hand right now? No one could see us?

Lando noticed how confused I was so he just shrugged. "You have nice hands"

It made me chuckle.

"But hey" he said as he rubbed his thumb against the palm of my hand. "You don't need to save him, sometimes you just need to get away from the toxic people in your life"

I looked at him for a while and nodded. "Yeah you're right"

"Let's go back to bed?" He squeezed my hand and got up.

And for once, it wasn't an invitation to sex. We didn't go to bed to fuck.
We actually went to sleep next to each other.

This time, our backs weren't turned to each other.