Revived

“You mean, the podium on which I’ll be standing on first place.”

A grin spreads across Carrick’s face. “You know I totally let you win this one, right? I mean, it was the least I could do, with you retiring, and the fact that I had already won this year’s Prix on points.”

Laughing, I shake my head. “You’re a prick, you know that?”

“Yeah, Andressa tells me all the time.”

Andi slaps a hand to his stomach.

Jett comes over, standing beside me.

I drop my other arm over his shoulder. “You want to come up on the podium with me?” I ask Jett.

His face lights up bright with a smile. “For real?”

“For real.” I smile at him. “You might as well have a taste of what it’s like for when you are up there on your own one day, accepting your own trophy.”

His smile gets wider, and I feel India’s hand tighten on my waist. I remove my arm from Jett and turn my eyes to hers, seeing them filled with nothing but love and that watery look she gets in her eyes whenever I do something for Jett.

“I love you,” she whispers.

I cup her cheek, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. “Love you, too, babe.”

Releasing her, I take ahold of her hand and sling my arm back over Jett’s shoulders. “Come on then, son. Let me show you what it’s like to look down on Carrick Ryan.”

Carrick discreetly gives me the middle finger. I let out a laugh, and with India’s hand in mine and my arm around Jett, my family and I start the walk toward my last podium climb.

I’M STANDING IN THE TEAM GARAGE at Silverstone, watching Jett prepare for his first race. Leandro is with him.

My baby boy is seventeen and has signed with his first team, and he is debuting in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship. Leandro is his manager. They make quite the team.

“A little someone wanted you.”

Turning at the sound of Kit’s voice, I smile at the little girl wriggling in his arms.

“Mama!” Adriana holds her arm out to me.

“Hey, baby girl.” I take her from Kit.

Adriana has her father’s dark eyes and hair, and—of course, I’m biased—she’s the most beautiful little girl in the world. She’s just turned two. It took Leandro and me about a year to get pregnant, but we’d sure had fun trying.

“You okay with holding her?” Kit nods his chin at my pregnant belly.

I’m six months pregnant. We’re having a boy.

“I’m fine for a few minutes.” I press a kiss to Adriana’s soft hair. “She is getting heavy though.” I give her a gentle squeeze.

“She was getting fussy upstairs,” Kit tells me. “You know how she wants to be in the midst of the action.”

“Like her father, brother, and uncle.”

Kit chuckles at that.

“Petra here yet?” I ask Kit.

“She’s on her way.”

Kit is settled down and married now to Petra, Andi’s best friend. It took them a while to come together, and it was a messy long process, mostly because of my brother, but they got there in the end. They’re happy together now. I’m really glad because Petra is good for him.

I am so happy that he found his someone.

I’m just hoping they give me a niece or nephew soon.

Adriana starts to tug on the cute little pink headphones covering her delicate ears.

“No, leave those on, Addy,” I tell her.

“Did you ever think we’d be standing here, waiting for our boy to take his first step into the world of Formula racing?” Kit says from beside me.

I meet his eyes, smiling. “No. But I’m sure glad we are, if not a tad nervous.”

“Yeah, me, too—on both counts.” He exhales. “But he’s right where he was always meant to be. As are you.”

My life has changed beyond recognition since Leandro came into it. Not that it was bad before him because it wasn’t, but the moment he came into it, he brought more color into all our lives.

After Leandro retired from Formula 1, we took some time to settle into our lives together, finding our groove with each other. We lived separately in the beginning, but more and more, Leandro started staying over at my place until he was practically living there.

It was the smoothest way to do the transition for us all. After all, it had been just the three of us for so long, and I didn’t want Kit to feel pushed out in any way. I made sure to be careful of Kit’s feelings, but the house was definitely getting too small with the four of us living together.

Then, when Leandro took me to his restaurant, the place where we’d had our brief first date, and he asked me to marry him after us being officially together for six months. To say I was surprised would be putting it mildly, but I was elated. Of course I wanted to say yes right there and then, but I was concerned about Jett and Kit and how they would react. Getting married would be a big change. Then, when Leandro saw my hesitation, he told me that he’d gotten their blessing before asking me. Once I knew that, nothing could stop me from saying yes.

After we were married, Leandro had another surprise for me. He had bought us a house in Buckinghamshire, a few miles from where Carrick and Andi live. I’d gotten quite close to Andi, which is strange considering how I first met her, but now, she and Petra are my closest friends.

Jett had helped Leandro pick the house out. But I was worried about Kit and where he would live. I didn’t want him to think we were getting rid of him by getting married and moving into the new house. Because, to be honest, I wouldn’t know how to live my life and not have Kit close by.

But Leandro was way ahead of me. He already had it all covered. It was like he had thought of what all my concerns would be and covered them, ensuring I would be happy.

He had bought another house for Kit to live in, less than a five-minute walk from ours. Even though Leandro could afford to buy the house for Kit without a second thought, Kit being Kit wouldn’t accept it and said the only way he would live in the house was if he paid rent. Leandro reluctantly agreed.

Kit and Petra still live there now. And it finally became their house, when Leandro gave it to them as a wedding present. Leandro always gets his way in the end. I love that about him.

I am the luckiest girl in the world that I get to have the man I love and keep the family I love close to me, too.

So, I was a married woman, and Jett was thirteen and independent, hardly needing me for anything. I was starting to feel like a spare part. I had no job. My license, as expected, had been stripped from me at the hearing, which was held a few months after we’d gotten back from Leandro’s Italian race. Although I’d expected that to be the case, it didn’t make the knowledge hurt any less. I sold my practice to another therapist, hoping he would enjoy his time there as much as I had.

I was bereft, but I wasn’t alone. Leandro was in the same position as me.

There was, of course, Jett’s karting, which he had gotten really serious about at that point, to keep us busy-ish, but Leandro and I are workers. We’d both worked our whole lives, so we needed more.

Then, one day, after one of Jett’s races, Leandro came home with a great idea. He’d heard of some land going up for sale a few miles from where we lived. He suggested we buy it and turn it into a karting track and also a kind of youth center. A place for kids who have nowhere to go to race and have fun. I immediately loved the idea, as it meant I could be helping people—kids who were just like Kit and I had been—lost with no real place to go. And it would also be a place where Jett could train.