Always Under Pressure - Charles Leclerc

Chapter 7

Diana had decided to take the train back home as she wasn't in the mood anymore for Pierre or any other man for that matter. It surprised her how much effect it had on her finding out that Charles's soon-to-be fiancé was cheating on him. 

It was still a two-hour ride from Milan to Bologna and she had arrived at her apartment drained. She had been considering moving to another place closer to the factory for some time already but hadn't told her friends just yet. They wouldn't be amused, but Diana wasn't one to care much about anyone else's opinion. Her parents could afford for her to have an apartment on her own until she finished the internship at Ferrari and started making some money of her own. 

She opened the sliding doors that led to the garden and let some fresh air in. It was already dark outside but Diana enjoyed a bit of a breeze whenever she needed to gather her thoughts. Did she want to be a total bitch and just wreck Charles's relationship or did she want to use that precious information to her advantage? Perhaps she could make Charles trust her again and she would finally get what she always wanted from him. 

"Aren't you freezing there?" Elena asked suddenly arriving in the living room while suited with a warm coat and crossed arms. Diana raised an eyebrow. 

"It's literally 26 degrees out there. Are you getting sick or something?" She got up and touched her friend's forehead with the back of her hand.

"I'm fine." 

"You're burning up! Let's get you to bed. I'll make you a cup of tea." Diana said with a bossy tone. 

"Aw, turns out you are capable of being a sweet human being." Elena said as she made her way to her bedroom. Diana smiled behind her friend. 

"Don't push your luck... it wouldn't be the first time I poison someone, would it?" 

"I guess if you wanted me dead you would have done it a long time ago." Elena replied as she jumped in bed. 

"Where is your sister anyway? I haven't seen her in ages!" 

"She's pretty much staying at her boyfriend's house 24/7... Guess it's just the two of us now." 

"Yeah..." Diana replied with a sigh as she adjusted Elena's blanket. Telling her friend she wanted to move out wouldn't be an easy conversation to have but one she would have to wait until Elena was feeling better. 

As she walked back to the living room, removing her phone from her back pocket, she wondered how to resolve the conundrum she was in. Diana decided to text Carlos asking if Charles had already proposed to his girlfriend. The answer came shortly after. A resounding yes and a suspicious Carlos about Diana's intentions. 

She decided to dig deep into social media. There would be no way that she was going to tell Charles about the affair without any evidence. It was clear that one of his best mates wasn't going to tell him the truth and Charles would never believe a word coming out of her mouth. 

She set up camp in the living room sofa with her MacBook sitting comfortably on her lap and it wasn't the first time Diana had to do some hacking. People like Charlene were easy targets. They were too eager to snap photos of everything and too dumb to protect their accounts properly. 

"Bingo!" Diana exclaimed as she found a very incriminating photo of Charlene and Guillermo in her recently deleted photos folder. She sent the photo to herself and quickly deleted any trace that could possibly lead to her. It was the perks of being a Data Analyst. She was that good with a computer. 

***** 

"Why did you ask me about Charles the other day?" Carlos asked with both hands placed firmly on his hips. 

"Nothing, I was just curious." Diana was taking her seat by the pit wall as Free Practice would be starting shortly. 

"You two are acting off with each other for months now... don't tell me I'm wrong."

"No me molestes, Carlos." Diana replied in Spanish which Carlos hated when they were together with other people. 

"Ay ay ay, you are looking for trouble. I know you are." 

Diana shrugged her shoulders and turned to the screen in front of her. She placed her headset on and tried to ignore Carlos who was now standing behind her with crossed arms still waiting for an answer. 

"We will find out soon if there's a problem or not..." She heard Carlos mumble. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Charles arriving already suited up. He simply gave a head nod towards Diana after fist-bumping everyone else in the area. 

"I knew it... what the hell happened between you two?" Carlos insisted as he observed the whole interaction closely.

"What do you mean?" Charles pretended to be confused. His troubled gaze came back to Diana's face, pacing from her eyes to her lips. Her face still made him feel weak and he tried to avoid staring at her for too long. 

"Carlos has a weird theory that something happened between us." Diana interjected as she turned around in her chair to face the two guys. Thankfully the engineers were still too busy to pay any attention to what they were chatting about. She coughed covering her mouth with her arm. 

"Are you getting sick?" Charles asked with a worried expression.

"Why? Why do you care?" 

"I don't care, I just don't want to be sick too." He said in a defensive tone. 

"Get away from me then." Diana replied as she held in a sneeze. 

"Happily..." Charles replied as he turned his back on her. 

"Yeah, go back to your cheating fiancé and leave me the fuck alone." Diana retorted immediately regretting blurting out those words.

"What did you say?" 

"Diana, that's out of order." Carlos warned her as Charles grabbed her arm to get her attention. 

"I thought you didn't want to be sick... touching me is doing the opposite of that." She said as she stood up once again and sniffed near his face and shook his hand away at the same time.

"Do you think that's funny?" 

"No... you heard what I said. Go and ask your trained puppy about it. She will tell you about how she and your mate Guillermo sailed by the sunset while you were away." 

"Fuck off, Diana. I hope you don't make it Ferrari." Charles replied with disdain as he walked towards his car. 

"What is happening here?" They heard Xavi ask as he took his seat. 

Carlos simply shook his head as Diana stood next to him as she looked on pretending her watering eyes were simply due to the cold. Somehow Charles had managed to be the first man to even bring her close to tears. 

*****

As the practice session progressed, they noticed several mistakes from Charles. Xavi wasn't too happy with his driving and Diana could hear the tension every time he spoke on the team radio. 

"Pit for softs. We will try a clean lap this time." 

They watched attentively the pit stop which was done quickly and Charles drove off. As they looked back at their screen they heard the loud bang and watched the debris of the Ferrari all over the track, just on the corner right after the pitlane exit. 

"Are you okay? Are you okay?" Xavi repeated. 

Diana stood up immediately when she didn't hear Charles replying back. All they could hear was static.

"Where do you think you're going?" Xavi asked. "You can't go out on the track!" 

She took a step back and obeyed the race engineer's orders as she stared at the screen waiting to see Charles come out of the car. Deep down she knew she was the reason why he had just crashed.