chapter 12 | illicit affairs

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«And that's the thing about illicit affairs. And clandestine meetings and longing stares.»

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Spa was...well, it was surely a race.

Her lips tugged into a smile as she watched Carlos on the podium with both Red Bull drivers; it was not the ideal situation but she felt happy for Carlos, at the end of the day, every person involved in the sport worked hard to get there and a podium was always something nice no matter what. However, there was also Charles, and even when she had promised that whatever she had going on with him couldn't get into her perception of Ferrari and everything that came with the job, she always felt for him when he didn't have a proper race. It was hard, she had seen him and how much those frustrating races affected him, and as much as she wanted to feel happy because, well, points were points, Aurora itched to be with Charles.

It wouldn't be of much help beyond comforting words and light touches, she knew that, but as she had told him before, anything was better than being alone. The thing was, they were both there for a reason, and none of those reasons involved being a consolation solitude for someone who had a race that could've been better. If things kept moving the way they were moving, before summer break and now after the summer break, Aurora wondered how much of that joy and hope would be left in Charles by the end of the season.

She read social media, she managed social media. Aurora knew what people were saying. Maybe he should leave Ferrari. That longest Ferrari contract story doesn't seem as sweet now. Ferrari is its own enemy.

She was aware he read all that too.

"I thought you were going to be in the garage today." Valentina sat next to her, staring at the celebrations on the screen.

Aurora shook her head. "I'm on social media watch, I'll get some content from Carlos and Charles when they are back."

"Are you on Twitter?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Instagram." Aurora showed her the feed on the screen of her phone, showing all the updates. "I don't like to be on Twitter."

Valentina scoffed. Most updates were almost the same for both sides, but dealing with Twitter notifications was the closest thing to hell. "They are not very happy over there. I can't tell you how many jokes about the strategy I've read so far. Also apparently, we are a very toxic team, what a weekend."

Her brows furrowed. "Toxic? As in what?"

"You know what happens every weekend when there isn't a good result for both drivers. But I don't think this time is as bad as Silverstone, people just say things. Oh, they like a driver better than the other, blah blah blah." Valentina gestured with her hand. Aurora nodded in understanding.

"Well, Silvia has been dealing with that for years. And I mean, it's Twitter, not La Gazetta or something like that." She shrugged and Valentina grimaced.

"I rather a front page in La Gazetta than thousand of tweets saying how awful the team is, just saying. Although I'm pretty sure whatever happened with Hamilton and Alonso is going to be more worthy of some tweets than Ferrari, at least this time." Valentina smiled, not that anyone should feel happy about not being the laugh of the party for once. "You know they are saying Max is fucking the whole grid? How depressing." She snorted.

"Don't read that." Aurora's hand slapped her arm softly. "It's not good."

"Silvia wants sentiment analysis." Valentina rolled her eyes. "You want to know what the sentiment is? Depression, that's the sentiment." Aurora threw her a glare. "Don't look at me like that, I know you love this team and everything but the season has gone downhill and I don't know how many I still have hope our number one driver has left."

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