The Photographer

(3) First race disaster

"I'm so nervous of being around him before the race," Iris confessed as she paced one way and then the other in the small office, "they want me to get photos in the garage and on the grid but I'm scared that he'll think I'm in his way. He won't be in the best of moods starting from seventeenth, he won't want me shoving a lens in his face."

"I'm sure he'll be fine, he'll have had all night to deal with his frustration and he doesn't strike me as the kind of person to take it out on other people," Ben tried to calm her down, Iris was a bag of nerves after a bad qualifying session yesterday that had seen both cars at the back of the grid with Seb in seventeenth and Lance in twentieth.

"Lance wouldn't even look my way when he came in earlier, didn't even acknowledge me," she complained.

"Well I didn't want to say anything before but he does strike me as a bit of a moody one, probably too spoilt by daddy Stroll."

"I just don't want to annoy them both on my first ever race weekend, I don't want them dreading seeing me with my camera," she stopped and looked at her camera where it sat on the desk. For the first time she found herself wishing that she was back home, that she was spending her Sunday with her husband instead of being thousands of miles away with people who she was probably going to irritate before the race had even started. "I miss you," she said, wishing that Ben was here to give her one of his reassuring hugs.

"I miss you too, even though you've woken me up in the early hours of the morning."

"Yeah, sorry about that, I'm just so anxious that I forgot about the time difference," she blushed and then turned to face the door, suddenly struck by the feeling that she wasn't alone anymore.

To her complete and utter surprise she found herself face to face with Seb.

"Good job I love you so much Iris Anderson," came Ben's voice over the loudspeaker on her phone.

Seb could tell by her expression that she was shocked to see him and if he was honest he was kind of shocked himself. He'd seen Iris come up here, knew that she was alone and he just couldn't keep away from her. He had to see her, had to steal a couple of minutes in her company.

He held her gaze, wanting to dive head first into the warm pools of her eyes, wanting a few precious seconds to get lost in their dark depths. When she softly uttered, "I love you too," back to her husband it felt almost as if she was saying to himself as she looked into his eyes without even blinking.

"I have to go Ben, I'm being called," she lied and said her goodbyes quickly, promising him that she'd call again later.

"Iris Anderson, I thought your last name was Evans," Seb uttered quietly, not even realising that he was saying his thoughts out loud.

Iris was frozen to the spot, her heart going crazy in her chest. Whatever this connection was that kept happening every time they looked each other's way, it hummed like an electrical current, making every nerve ending beneath her skin feel ten times as sensitive and goosebumps erupt from head to toe.

He couldn't stop staring at her, taking in her petite frame, her pretty face and those warm, brown eyes. Her hair looked soft and lustrous, like it would slip through his fingers like silk; her chin was the perfect size to gently grasp with his fingers so that he could lean in and kiss those tempting pink lips and she had the most perfect, pretty nose that he'd love to nuzzle his own against.

How the hell was he having all these thoughts about a married woman? What the hell was he even thinking being in this room with her? He'd just heard her telling her husband that she loved him, he had no chance of making her his and it would be wrong of him to even try.