sanfransicohoe
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- Parts 19
He was a world champion.
She was a problem no one warned him about.
Max Verstappen's life runs on routine: race, win, repeat. No attachments. No family dinners. No room for anything that might slow him down. A fractured childhood and a brutal Formula One schedule taught him one thing-feelings are distractions.
So when his father and team insist that adopting a child would be *good for his image*, Max agrees for all the wrong reasons.
Enter **Aria Russo**-closed off, sharp-tongued, and carrying a past soaked in secrets, sirens, and survival. The daughter of imprisoned Mafia royalty, she doesn't want saving, and she definitely doesn't want *him*. Monaco feels like another cage. Max feels like another man trying to control her life.
He doesn't know how to be a father.
She doesn't know how to trust.
Thrown together by obligation rather than choice, they clash, spiral, and slowly unravel each other's defenses-one tense dinner, one argument, one quiet moment at a time.
Because sometimes the hardest race isn't on the track.
It's learning how to love someone who never asked to be yours.