Read Chapter 15: Compromising Photo

The paddock at Monaco was a circus even when nothing was happening, but with the FIA sniffing around Apollon like a bloodhound at a butcher shop, the atmosphere had turned claustrophobic. Elise had spent the morning sequestered in a spare office the size of a broom closet, reviewing telemetry she wasn't supposed to touch, while the official investigation churned through her credentials and her radio logs.

She needed air. Badly.

The rooftop terrace above the hospitality suites was technically off-limits to non-VIPs, but Elise had memorized the security rotation two visits ago. She slipped through the service door and let the Mediterranean breeze cut through the heat of her frustration. The view of the harbor was ridiculous—yachts stacked like silver dominoes, the famous fairground Ferris wheel turning lazily against a cloudless sky. Monaco in all its glittering absurdity.

She heard footsteps behind her and tensed, but it was Julien, still in his race suit with the top half tied around his waist. He looked like he'd just climbed out of the car, sweat still darkening the collar of his undershirt.

"You shouldn't be up here," she said.

"Neither should you." He leaned against the railing beside her, close enough that she caught the scent of fuel and leather and something clean underneath. "Okafor's briefing is in forty minutes. I came to prep."

"Your press conference isn't here."

"No. But you are." He said it simply, without inflection, and that made it worse.

Elise forced herself to look at the harbor instead of his profile. "We need to talk about the undercut for Sunday. If the track evolution holds—"

"Elise." His voice was soft. "We're alone. No cameras, no team, no Okafor. You can drop the script for two minutes."

She couldn't. That was the problem. If she dropped the script, she'd have to think about the way her pulse jumped when he came looking for her. She'd have to think about Makayla, his girlfriend, whose face was currently on a billboard visible from where they stood, advertising perfume with her neck arched and her lips parted.

"I'm not dropping anything," Elise said. "The FIA has my logs. If anyone hears me discussing strategy outside protocol, I lose my accreditation entirely."

"Fine. Then talk about the radio chatter from FP2. That's not strategy, that's survival." He was closer now, she realized. Not threateningly—he'd never been threatening—but the space between them had shrunk to a hand's width. "You called that tire failure three laps before it happened. How?"

She almost smiled despite herself. "The graining pattern on Leclerc's front left. It was cycling differently in the swimming pool section. The vibration frequency was off by about four hertz compared to the same tire age in FP1."

Julien stared at her. "You can hear that in the telemetry?"

"I can see it. The data tells you if you know how to listen." She glanced at him sideways. "Most engineers don't. They just look at lap times and wonder why their driver is complaining about grip."

"And you're not like most engineers."

"That's what I keep trying to tell everyone."

He laughed, a low, genuine sound that felt like it belonged somewhere private. "You know, I've been thinking about what you said in Spain. About reading the race like a story. You see things other people miss because you're looking for the plot twist."

Something shifted in her chest. A warning bell rang somewhere distant.

"It's not a gift, Julien. It's just—" She stopped. How did she explain that seeing patterns was how she'd learned to cope with chaos? That she'd catalogued every detail of her sister's accident so many times she could reconstruct it frame by frame in her sleep? "It's just how I'm built."

"Madeleine was lucky to have you."

The name hit her like a punch to the sternum. She hadn't told him—hadn't told anyone in the paddock except Marco, who'd weaponized it. She whirled to face him, anger flashing hot. "How do you know that name?"

Julien's eyes widened. "I—your file. Your original team's press release from three years ago. I looked you up after Spain. I wanted to understand who I was working with."

"You read about my sister?"

"I read about you." He held her gaze, unflinching. "You were a development engineer at Hartmann before you disappeared from the sport for three years. And then you resurfaced at Apollon with a spotless record and no explanation for the gap. I wanted to know what you were running from."

"Running from?" Her voice came out sharper than she intended.

"No. No, that's not what I meant." He scrubbed a hand through his sweat-damp hair. "I wanted to know what you were hiding, because you were hiding something. And hiding something means you've got something to protect. I understand that."

The anger drained out of her as quickly as it had come. He was trying. God help him, he was actually trying to meet her halfway, and she kept throwing up walls because she didn't know how to let anyone in without showing them the wreckage underneath.

"Madeleine was my sister," Elise said quietly. "She was testing a prototype at Hartmann when the brake line failed. The safety report cleared the part. I never believed it."

Julien's expression shifted—not pity, which she would have hated, but recognition. "So the gap in your resume—"

"I spent three years investigating what really happened. I found enough to know the report was a lie, but not enough to prove who signed off on it."

"Marco Tessaro," Julien said.

Elise's blood went cold. "How do you—"

"I recognize the pattern. You're not the only one who reads the data." He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Marco's been in this sport for fifteen years, and every safety scandal that's ever touched his teams has evaporated like morning fog. The man's got nine lives because he's got people who owe him favors and people who fear him."

"And you're only telling me this now?"

"I'm telling you because I trust you." He looked at her with an intensity that made her breath catch. "And because I need you to trust me back."

The click of a shutter was almost imperceptible. But Elise had trained herself to notice what others missed. She turned sharply toward the sound, heart hammering.

A photographer was already retreating down the service stairs, a long lens held low against his chest. He had what he needed.

"Julien." Her voice was flat. "We've been photographed."

He followed her gaze, but the man was already gone. "So what? Two colleagues talking on a terrace. Not a crime."

"You're buttoning up your suit. Your hair's a mess. And my face is flushed." She could feel the heat in her cheeks, betrayal blooming there. "From the angle he had, it's going to look like we're having a moment."

Julien's jaw tightened. "Let it look like whatever they want. I'll deny it. Makayla will understand."

"Will she?" Elise couldn't keep the edge from her voice. "Because from her perspective, her boyfriend just spent fifteen minutes alone with a woman under FIA investigation, and the photos are going to say exactly what the internet wants them to say."

"Then I'll handle it."

"You can't handle a narrative that's already writing itself." She turned away from him, gripping the railing until her knuckles went white. "I need to get back inside. You need to get to that briefing and convince everyone you're not compromised."

"Elise—"

"Don't." She held up a hand, not looking at him. "We're colleagues. I'm your engineer. That's all this is. That's all it can be."

She fled down the stairs before he could respond, heart pounding against her ribs like it was trying to escape. The photo was already circulating in her mind—their proximity, his intensity, the privacy of the setting. By the time she reached her broom-closet office, her phone was buzzing with a message from the team's press officer:

*Do you have a comment about the photograph of you and Julien Rousseau published by AutoSport?*

Elise closed her eyes and typed a response she knew was a lie.

*We were discussing race strategy. Nothing more.*