Race to the Top: Book one in the Racing to Find Love series (14 page)

Erik scanned around the garage but he couldn’t see her. He
wondered if she had decided not to come, and the thought made him desperately
sad. His parents were there, seated in their usual place, but the seat beside
them was empty. That was Anna’s seat, she should be sitting there, with her
silly banner, gasping every time he drove round a tight corner.

The race would be starting soon, and Erik tried to focus his
mind when Devlin walked up. The two had barely spoken since Belgium and the
crash, and Erik had no desire for this to end. He didn’t think Devlin did
either, and he was surprised when Devlin started talking.

‘So here we are,’ he said, looking at Erik intently.

Erik nodded.

‘Here we are,’ he agreed, wondering what Devlin’s game was.

Devlin paused for a second and then grinned, maliciously.

‘No sign of that little writer from the magazine yet?’ he
said, and Erik felt his whole body stiffen. He ignored Devlin, and busied
himself with fiddling with the straps on his helmet.

‘She’s probably exhausted after last night,’ Devlin said,
his voice cruel. Erik snapped his head up.

‘What did you say?’

‘I popped by her hotel room, just to see how she was and…well,
you know how it goes,’ Devlin flashed him a grin.

Erik felt sick. Surely not? But Devlin kept talking.

‘I feel a bit tired myself,’ he said, yawning theatrically.
‘I sure hope it doesn’t affect my race. Mind you, it would have been worth it.’

Erik felt the anger rise inside him. Had he pushed Anna
right into Devlin’s arms? Just then he noticed her enter the garage, looking
pale. She made eye contact with him and then looked away as she saw Devlin.
Erik strode over. He couldn’t race without knowing what had happened, and
hearing it from her mouth.

‘Is it true?’ he hissed, reaching her. She looked at him, a
look of confusion on her beautiful face.

‘Is what true?’ she asked.

‘You and Devlin,’ Erik said, trying to keep his voice low
and calm. He could see his parents were watching, and he didn’t want them to
see him lose his temper.

‘Excuse me?’ Anna said, starting to sound angry.

Erik gestured at Devlin, who was standing a way back,
grinning.

‘He says he went by your hotel room last night and stayed.
Is it true?’

Anna stared at him, and then stared at Devlin.

‘Are you kidding me?’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Please
tell me you are kidding.’

Erik shook his head, confused.

‘Oh Devlin came by my room last night,’ Anna said, pointing
at him, her finger trembling. ‘He came by my room drunk, pushed his way inside
and proceeded to try to stick his tongue down my throat. I had to knee him in
the crotch to get rid of him.’

Erik stared at her.

‘What?’

Anna nodded, angrily.

‘And what’s it to do with you anyway, Erik? You made your
choice and you were quite clear about it. You broke my heart, Erik, and you
have no right to stand there and demand answers from me.’

Erik’s mind was spinning.

‘Devlin assaulted you?’ he asked, his voice dangerously low.
His parents had sensed something and had left their seats, coming over to stand
beside Anna.

Anna sighed.

‘Yes I suppose he did,’ she said. ‘But Erik, I have spent
the last few months barely living. I can barely eat, sleep, I don’t leave the
house, I can’t turn on the TV because I don’t want to see the man I love with
another woman or getting on with his life without me. So please, just leave me
alone.’

Somewhere in Erik’s brain, the words ‘the man I love’ pinged
around, but all he could think of was Devlin. Devlin pushing his way into
Anna’s room. His Anna. Wrapping his arms around her, trying to force his tongue
in her mouth.

He reeled round and in one smooth movement, punched Devlin
clean in the face. He went down without a sound.

Anna squealed and suddenly there was pandemonium. Alfred
came rushing over to hold his son back as Erik tried to reach the prone Devlin.
Some of the mechanics, hearing the commotion, rushed over and helped. Erik was
a big guy and they were struggling to hold him.

‘I’ll kill you Devlin,’ Erik shouted, ‘I will kill you. How
dare you lay a hand on her?’

Devlin lay on the ground, blood pouring from his nose.

‘What the hell man?’ he shouted, angrily, hauling himself to
his feet. ‘You’re the one who let her go, she’s a free agent.’

‘She is not a free agent,’ Erik shouted, still struggling.

‘Come on, Erik,’ his dad said, panting.

Erik caught sight of Anna and his mother, standing side by
side, both looking stricken. He had to calm down.

At that moment, Gary entered the room. He took in the
gathering, and Devlin’s bloody nose.

‘Oh for god’s sake,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘The race is
about to begin and you’re fighting like schoolchildren. Devlin go and get
cleaned up and then get in your car.’

Devlin shot Erik a murderous look but did as Gary asked. Erik
stopped struggling as he left and his dad and the mechanics released their
grip.

‘Erik, get in your car,’ Gary said and when Erik started to speak,
he shouted, ‘Now!’

Erik shot Anna an agonised look. He wanted to tell her that
he loved her too, that he was sorry, that he had made the worst mistake of his
life, that he would walk out of the building with her right now… But how could
he, in the middle of all these people? He climbed into his car, miserable and
still furious.

As he pulled away, he shot a last desperate glance at Anna.
She was scribbling something on a piece of paper and he squinted through his
visor. His heart leapt.

‘Go get ‘em. I’ll be waiting for you.’

Anna couldn’t believe what had just
happened. One minute she was entering the garage, stealthily as to avoid Erik,
and the next Erik was punching Devlin in the face and looking at her with sheer
agony on his face. She’d wanted to run right over to him and hold him. The
anger in his face when she had told him what Devlin had done had been like
nothing she had ever seen. Her calm, collected Erik was suddenly as furious as
a rabid Viking, and she thanked God that his dad and the mechanics had been
able to hold him back. She thought he would have done some serious damage to
Devlin if he could.

She had wanted to scribble ‘I love
you,’ on the banner, but she still wasn’t sure what Erik was thinking about
them. He obviously cared for her, that much was obvious by his display of
anger, and the way he looked at her before he got in his car. No one had ever
looked at her with so much longing and pain before, and it made her want to
weep just thinking about it.

After Erik had driven off, his
mother had hugged Anna, hard.

‘My son has been an idiot,’ she
said, and Anna couldn’t help but smile and nod. ‘But I know he loves you. I’ve
never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. And he’s been a mess the
last few months. He came to visit us and barely left the house, didn’t he
Alfred?’

Alfred nodded.

Anna sighed.

‘He broke my heart,’ she said,
sadly. ‘I don’t know how to start getting over that. And how to trust it won’t
happen again.’

Helena patted her on the shoulder.

‘You’ll find a way,’ she said. ‘You
both will.’

‘Come on,’ Alfred said, beckoning
them back to the seating area. ‘It’s about to start.’

***

The three of them sat, clutching
onto each other. Erik had started second, and hadn’t been able to overtake
Devlin off the start. He had been trailing him the whole race, and now they
were down to the last couple of laps.

Please, please, please, Anna
thought, crossing her fingers so tightly it hurt.

‘He’s going to try to get him here,’
Alfred said, his voice excited. Anna and Helena exchanged glances - Anna knew
they were both reliving that awful moment in Belgium.

‘YES,’ Alfred shouted, standing up
and punching the air as Erik nipped round the inside of Devlin and took the
lead. Anna and Helena screamed and jumped up too, and they all hugged each
other.

‘Now he just needs to hold it
together,’ Alfred said. ‘Just for two more laps.’

Anna thought those few minutes were
the longest of her life. Devlin clearly wasn’t ready to give up on his
championship dream, and he was pushing Erik, hard. But it wasn’t enough. As
Erik crossed the finishing line, the chequered flag waving, Anna felt herself
being picked up. She squealed and was amazed when she realised that it was
Gary, a look of absolute delight on his face.

Alfred and Helena were hugging onto
each other, and Anna saw both of them had tears streaming down their face. She
felt herself crying then too, with mingled joy and sadness. Gary set her down
and she ran over to the Jonassons, who included her in their hug.

‘He did it,’ Helena said, weeping.
‘He did it.’

‘Of course he did,’ Alfred choked.

‘Come on,’ Gary said, pulling at
Anna’s arm. ‘The three of you should be right at the front so he can see you.’

In a daze, Anna was pulled through
the hordes of cheering team members, the mechanics dancing around the garage.
Sergei, Erik’s race engineer, was in tears too, and she could hear him talking
to Erik on the team radio.

‘We did it, we fucking did it E.’

Gary led them to the front of the
crowd, shouting and elbowing people aside as he went. The cameras followed him
and Anna realised she was going to be on TV. She thought of Jules and Dan
sitting at home watching and stifled a laugh.

‘Here,’ Gary said, planting Anna and
the Jonassons right at the front, the massive podium stretching out above them.
‘You’ll get a good view here.’

Anna briefly wondered what was going
on backstage, and hoped Erik wasn’t punching the living daylights out of Devlin
again.

Felipe Gotteri strode out first,
smiling and waving. Devlin was next, he looked furious and the crowd booed to
see him being such a bad loser. Helena squeezed Anna’s arm.

‘Here he comes!’

The roars were deafening, and Anna
joined in, screaming as Erik came out of the tunnel. He was wearing a baseball
cap and the biggest grin she had ever seen. He climbed onto the top of the
podium and she noticed his eyes scanning the crowd.

‘He’s looking for you,’ Helena said,
nudging Anna.

Anna was just about to say she
doubted it, when Erik’s eyes met hers. She didn’t think his grin could get any
bigger but it did, and he pointed at her, mouthing something.

Anna shook her head.

‘I can’t hear what he’s saying,’ she
said.

Alfred turned, smiling to her.

‘He said “That one was for you.”’

Anna felt giddy.

After the presentation of the
winners’ trophies, the usual post-race interviews on the podium took place.
Felipe Gotteri made everyone gasp and laugh by accidentally swearing during
his. Devlin was surly and the boos drowned out his answers.

When Erik was handed the microphone,
he had to wait for a good 30 seconds for the cheering to die down.

‘I have wanted this since I was five
years’ old,’ he said, speaking loudly and clearly. ‘Since I saw the late, great
Ayrton Senna lift his championship trophy.

The crowd cheered, respectful and
appreciating this mention of the tragic legend.

‘And now I’m here,’ Erik continued,
smiling. ‘And it’s everything I ever hoped it would be.’ He paused for a
second, and Anna saw him look at her.

‘But it’s also made me realise
something,’ he said. ‘While I have wanted this trophy for more than 20 years,
there is something now that I want even more. Someone.’

The crowd went wild, and the cameras
panned around wildly, trying to find who this someone was.

‘I was an idiot,’ Erik continued.
‘And I almost lost something that means more to me than a trophy ever will.
Anna...’

Anna stared up at him, in shock,
Erik’s parents standing grinning beside her.

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘And I will
always love you.’

He patted his racing suit and smiled
sheepishly.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have it with
me,’ he said, ‘No pockets.’ And the crowd roared with laughter. Anna was
puzzled. Have what with him?

‘But what would make this day
utterly perfect, the best day of my life, would be,’ he said, stepping forward
slightly and looking intently at her. The cameras had found her now and were
trained on her face. ‘If you agreed to be my wife.’

The screams were deafening. Anna
felt like she was about to faint. She heard Helena gasp beside her.

She nodded mutely, and as the
realisation hit her, she started beaming, nodding increasingly
enthusiastically.

Suddenly she felt Gary’s hand on
hers.

‘Let’s get you up there,’ he said,
and pushed his way through the cordon, waving away the security guards. Anna
followed, in shock.

Erik reached down and took her hand,
helping her climb up to the podium.

‘Well?’ he said.

Anna stared up into his piercing
blue eyes. She took the microphone from him.

‘Yes,’ she said.

And the crowd went wild.

Anna stood, watching Erik coo over the newborn baby. Elena
lay in bed smiling indulgently, not looking at all like she had just given
birth.

‘I can’t believe you cut your honeymoon short to come and see
me,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘Hey,’ Erik said, rocking the baby in his arms. ‘It’s not
you we’ve come to see – it’s this little guy here.’

Jack was standing beside his wife’s bed, beaming with pride.

‘So, have you got a name yet?’ Anna asked.

They had been a week in to their luxury honeymoon in the
Caribbean when Erik had received a frantic phone-call from Jack to say Elena
had gone into labour a month early. There had been no discussion, Erik had got
on the phone to book a flight and Anna had started chucking their stuff into
their suitcases.

Elena and Jack exchanged a glance.

‘We were thinking,’ Elena said, looking at Erik. ‘Fabio Erik
Morello.’

Anna saw Erik beam with delight and she smiled too.

‘Really?’ Erik said, staring down at the bundle in his arms.

‘Really,’ Elena said, laughing.

She was starting to look tired, so Anna nudged Erik and he
reluctantly placed the baby back in its crib.

‘We’ll leave you to get some sleep,’ Erik said. ‘Our new
house should be ready by now so we  can stay there too.’

Jack nodded.

‘I checked in there the other day like you asked, it’s
looking great. Anna’s office was finished.’

Anna was glad. She had handed in her notice at the magazine,
and was looking forward to her career as a freelance writer. But, there was something
that might delay that a little…

She and Erik left the hospital, promising to return the next
day. Erik drove them to their new house, and Anna was overwhelmed by its size.
She had forgotten how big it was.

Erik unlocked the door and they stepped inside. Anna gazed
around.

‘Well?’ Erik asked, sounding uncertain.

‘It’s perfect,’ Anna cried, jumping on him. He hugged her
tightly.

They sat on the sofa together, and Anna snuggled into Erik.

‘You’ll be able to get started on your writing right away,’
Erik said.

Anna smiled up at him.

‘I might need to take a break from that,’ she said.

Erik looked at her, puzzled.

‘Why? You were so keen.’

Anna giggled and took Erik’s hand, placing it on her
stomach.

‘Because we’re going to have our own little Erik or Erikina.’

The look of utter joy on Erik’s face was one Anna knew she
would never forget.

THE END