Redline

I think i’m falling in love

“I need to dance before I have to listen to another conversation about cryptocurrency investments,” she finally muttered, finishing her champagne far too quickly.

Olivia immediately burst out laughing.

“Thank God. I was seconds away from throwing myself into the ocean.”

Adrian solemnly raised his glass toward them.

“If you disappear, I’ll assume you murdered a tech billionaire, and honestly, I’ll support you.”

“How lovely to have such understanding friends,” Valentina replied before taking Olivia’s hand.

The dance floor was completely packed by the time they reached the center. Purple lights cut through the artificial smoke while the music literally made the floor vibrate beneath their boots and heels. People dancing far too close to one another, waiters trying to survive their way through the crowd, and occasional flashes from the upper balconies completed the scene, turning the place into an elegant, dangerously expensive kind of chaos.

Olivia started dancing first, completely carefree, moving with the natural confidence of someone who had grown up constantly being watched. Valentina ended up laughing just a few seconds later and followed her, finally letting the music clear her head for the first time in days.

And honestly, it felt good.

For weeks, everything had been tension, rumors, paranoia, and constant arguments. For the first time since she had entered Formula 1, she wasn’t thinking about journalists, accidents, or threatening messages.

Just music, lights, and Olivia yelling something incomprehensible about men being incapable of processing emotions.

Several people started looking at them almost immediately. It was inevitable. Olivia looked like she had stepped straight out of the pages of British Vogue, and Valentina was wearing exactly the kind of black dress that made heads turn even in a room full of professional models.

A group of men tried to approach them as soon as the next song ended. Young, obviously rich, far too heavily perfumed, and probably convinced that an expensive watch counted as a personality.

“Oh my God,” Valentina murmured as one of them smiled, showing far too many perfect teeth. “They smell like black cards and daddy issues.”

Olivia nearly choked laughing.

“Behave.”

“I’m trying.”

One of the men finally gathered enough courage to approach.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Valentina studied him for barely a second.

“Anything besides an existential crisis, or does that come included?”

The man blinked, completely confused, while Olivia doubled over laughing.

“I think I fell a little in love,” he finally said.

“That says a lot about your standards.”

Olivia eventually steered him away before the poor guy could psychologically collapse in the middle of the dance floor.

“You’re cruel.”

“No, I’m just tired. There’s a difference.”

Another man approached Olivia seconds later, and she agreed to dance with him for a few minutes, amused rather than genuinely interested. Valentina watched the scene with a smile as she took another glass of champagne from a nearby tray and swayed her hips slightly to the music.

The constant attention didn’t bother her anymore. She had grown up with it. The looks, the photographers, the rumors, and the men approaching her simply because they recognized her last name.

You learned quickly how to tell who was genuinely interested in you and who just wanted to be able to say they had been close to you.

“Don’t look now,” Olivia said as she reappeared beside her, “but literally half the club is watching you.”

Valentina rolled her eyes.

“That sounds exhausting.”

“Especially because Dante just noticed too.”

Her chest tightened slightly.

“Olivia.”

“I’m just telling the truth.”

And of course, she made the mistake of looking.

Across the terrace, leaning against the bar, Dante was looking directly at her. He wasn’t talking to the other drivers anymore, nor did he seem to be listening to anything happening around him.

He was just watching her.

His gaze dropped briefly over the black dress before slowly returning to her eyes, and something in Dante’s expression changed so subtly that probably no one else would have noticed.

But Valentina did.

Because over the past few weeks, she had learned to read him even when he tried to hide it.

“Oh, that was intense,” Olivia murmured, delighted.

“Shut up.”

“I think he just remembered you’re a woman.”

“I’m going to push you into the ocean.”

Olivia was still laughing when it happened.

A blonde woman appeared beside Dante. Tall, absurdly beautiful, and wearing a tiny gold dress that looked painted onto her body. She leaned toward him to speak close to his ear over the music and rested a hand on his arm with far too much familiarity.

Valentina’s smile faded just slightly, and Olivia noticed immediately.

“Look at her,” Olivia murmured, amused.

Valentina took another sip of champagne.

“Well, clearly he has a type.”

“Valentina,” Olivia said slowly, “you just sounded like an annoyed girlfriend.”

“I’m not annoyed.”

“Sure.”

Valentina took another sip of champagne, suddenly feeling nervous.

“Well,” Adrian said slowly, “there’s the jealousy.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Valentina,” Olivia said, “you just emptied half your glass like a Victorian widow.”

“I’m just impressed by how quickly those women appear.”

“Those women?” Adrian repeated, amused. “Oh, this is getting serious.”

“Besides, she looks like she walked straight out of Instagram.”

Olivia stared at her in horror.

“You literally worked in fashion.”

“Yes, but I look like a person. She looks like she was rendered by a computer.”

Adrian nearly choked laughing.

Across the terrace, Dante lifted his gaze slightly and caught her watching him.

The contact lasted barely a second, but something immediately changed in his expression. His calm didn’t exactly disappear. It was more like that dangerous attentiveness surfaced—the kind he seemed to reserve exclusively for her.

Then the model said something else. Dante didn’t even react. He was still looking at Valentina.

Dante briefly excused himself from the model before starting to walk directly toward them.

“No,” Valentina whispered.

“Yes,” Olivia replied, delighted.

“I hate you both so much.”

“And yet we’re still your favorites.”

Dante reached the table seconds later and, to Valentina’s absolute surprise, instead of standing there intimidating people from the shadows, he picked up the glass of whiskey from the table and dropped into the seat beside Adrian with an almost dangerously casual ease.

He was relaxed. Genuinely relaxed.

“Novak,” he said as he rested one arm along the back of the couch.

“Moreau.”

The two men studied each other for barely a second before Dante shifted his gaze toward Olivia and Valentina.

And again, it happened.

That brief, involuntary pause, as if even he needed an extra second to process how they looked that night.