chapter 30 Aug 12, 2025 The text arrives while I'm hate-watching race highlights and eating room service pasta that costs more than a tire change. Charles's name on my screen makes me drop fusilli on thousand-thread-count sheets. Rooftop bar at the Burj Al Arab. Midnight. Please come. I read it five times. Check for signs of stroke. Nope, still says what I think it says. Charles Weinberg, emotional communication disaster, has sent an actual invitation. With a location. And a please. The apocalypse is clearly imminent. Three outfit changes later-because apparently I'm sixteen when it comes to him-I settle on black. Simple, classic, says 'I'm totally fine and not at all dying inside.' The dress from our first team dinner, when life was complicated but not yet detonated. Now, every step feels like a countdown. The Burj Al Arab elevator is all gold and judgment, lifting me toward either closure or cardiac arrest. Each floor ticks by like a countdown to emotional reckoning. By floor 40, I'm considering the emergency exit. By floor 50, I'm practicing breathing exercises Elio taught me. By the rooftop, I'm ready to vomit or fly. The doors open to Dubai's most expensive view and Charles Weinberg holding enough red roses to stock a funeral home. "Jesus," I breathe, because eloquence has left the building. He turns at my heel-click on marble, and the uncertainty on his face is devastating. Charles doesn't do uncertain. He does calculated, controlled, occasionally cruel. But this? This is new. "You came." Soft. Wondering. Like he expected disappointment. I approach slowly, partly for drama, mostly because my legs are negotiating their continued function. He extends the roses like an offering to an angry god. Which, fair. "These are…" Ridiculous. Excessive. Perfect. "Beautiful." The roses are heavy, thorns catching my fingers, perfume thick enough to taste. Charles steps closer, and suddenly I'm drowning in gray eyes that show everything-regret, hope, love he's never been good at expressing. "I need to thank you." His voice catches, actual human emotion breaking through. "Your work, your dedication-even when everything between us was chaos, you never let it affect my performance. That takes strength I didn't appreciate." Words tumble out-something about honor, privilege, his talent pushing everyone-but then his mouth is on mine and language becomes irrelevant. This kiss isn't garage desperation or storage room hunger. It's soft, deliberate, tasting like apology and promise and everything we should have been from the start. When we break apart, foreheads touching, I'm crying and he's breathing like he's just discovered oxygen. "It wasn't perfect without you," he murmurs against my lips. "Victory tastes like ash when you can't share it. Nothing feels complete anymore." "Charles-" "I love you." Simple. Direct. Everything he's never been with emotions. "Not Eva the mechanic. Not Daniella the scandal. You. The brilliant, infuriating woman who challenges everything I thought I knew about myself." The tears are ruining my makeup, but who cares when Charles Weinberg is declaring feelings with actual words? "I love you too, you emotionally constipated disaster." He laughs-real, unguarded-and pulls me close. "Only you would insult me during my grand romantic gesture." "Only you would need a grand romantic gesture after months of cryptic 'see you' texts." "Fair point." We stay on that rooftop until dawn, talking through everything. The lies, the hurt, the complicated tangle of our history. But also the future-possibilities that don't require secret meetings or false names. By sunrise, my voice is hoarse and his walls are rubble, and we're something new. Something real. Which makes what comes next feel even more surreal. The restaurant Papa chooses for lunch screams 'discrete wealth'-all water views and whispered conversations. He studies me across artisanal bread that probably has a pedigree. "You look different." His paternal radar is pinging. "Lighter. What are your plans now, stellina?" "Honestly? No idea." I shred fancy bread with nervous fingers. "My dream career is roadkill. My reputation is gossip fodder. My resume has a crater where Apex Nova used to be." "But?" Always a but with Lorenzo De Marco. "But I gained something else." Deep breath. Time for emotional honesty, the De Marco kryptonite. "Love. I'm in love, Papa." His eyebrows achieve a new altitude. Before he can launch into warnings about drivers or scandals or protecting what's left of my reputation, a familiar voice cuts through. "Sorry I'm late-fans at the hotel." Charles appears like destiny in designer casual, slightly breathless but smiling. "The championship leader apparently can't buy coffee without photos." My heart does its usual Charles-related acrobatics. I reach for his hand, threading our fingers together in full view of my father and the entire restaurant. "Papa, I'd like you to properly meet Charles Weinberg." The words taste like freedom. "My boyfriend. Officially. Publicly. No secrets, no lies, no storage rooms required." Lorenzo's face cycles through surprise, calculation, and lands on something I haven't seen in years-genuine happiness without footnotes. "Finally," he says, extending his hand to Charles. "A driver with enough courage to pursue what he wants off track as well." He pauses, smile turning sly. "Though if you hurt her, I'll ensure you never see another podium." "Understood, sir." Charles takes the threat with grace, probably because he's dealt with worse from me. "Papa," I warn, but I'm smiling too. Charles slides in beside me, hand never leaving mine, and something settles in my chest. The last piece clicking into place after months of chaos. I lost Eva Farnese, talented mechanic with a bright future. Lost my dream job, my carefully constructed independence, my place in the world I fought to join. But sitting here, Charles's thumb tracing circles on my palm while Papa interrogates him about his "intentions," I realize what I gained. Love that doesn't require darkness. Truth that doesn't demand perfection. A future built on something stronger than lies. "So," Papa says, signaling for champagne because De Marcos celebrate everything with bubbles, "what happens now?" Charles squeezes my hand. "Now we figure it out together. Publicly. Like normal people." "Normal," I laugh. "We're a Formula 1 driver, a disgraced mechanic, and an Italian team principal having lunch in Dubai. Nothing about this is normal." "Normal is overrated," Charles says, pressing a kiss to my temple right there in public daylight. "I prefer extraordinary." The champagne arrives, gold and effervescent like possibility. We toast-to new beginnings, to truth, to love that survives scandal and storage rooms and stubborn hearts. I'm unemployed, publicly shamed, and drinking champagne that costs more than most people's rent. But Charles is beside me, choosing me in daylight, and Papa is smiling like I've given him grandchildren, and maybe losing everything was the only way to find what actually mattered. "To Daniella De Marco," Charles raises his glass, eyes locked on mine. "The only mechanic who ever made me want to be more than fast." "To Charles Weinberg," I counter, "the only driver who made me want to be myself." We drink, we laugh, we plan futures that don't require lies. And for the first time since Budapest, since scandals and revelations and everything falling apart, I feel complete. Not perfect. Not fixed. But whole in the way that comes from being chosen, publicly and permanently, by someone who knows all your secrets and loves you anyway. Identity: Daniella De Marco. Occupation: Figuring it out. Relationship status: Visible from space. The poetry of it doesn't hurt anymore. It sings. THE END