LILY

Because I've managed to make it an hour without checking the tabloid websites, I feel I deserve a medal.

Or at least a cookie. It's three p.m., and I just finished okaying a round of expenditures for the New York race coming up. That's the way it is for team owners, always planning for the next race, barely able to concentrate on what's at hand.

This kind of work I can handle, though. I stretch, and feel a little sleepy, probably because all the adrenaline from earlier has ebbed from my body. Time for a coffee and that cookie. Probably I can go down the hall to the lobby of our headquarters and grab something from the espresso bar.

As I grab my purse, several things happen at once. My cell rings, the desk phone rings, and someone shouts my name. The door flings open, and it's Tanya.

"You need to come, now," she shouts. The sounds of other people yelling echo through the flimsy offices.

My immediate thought is that there's an attack of some sort, a person with a gun, a bomb, a knife. But, no, this is Canada, not America.

"What's going on?" I ask Tanya, whose face is pale. Her eyes are wide and wild, and even her normally sleek bob is disheveled.

"It's Max. He crashed during practice. It's bad."

There are moments in life where you'll always remember where you were. You remember the internal tingles, the sudden coldness that hits your core, the disorientation that something has just rocked your world, and not in a good way.

Unfortunately, those are usually the worst times, the ones you'd rather forget. A couple of weeks ago, it was news of my father's heart attack.

Today, it's this. Max.

My hand flies to my throat. "How bad?"

"The medics are taking him off the track now. On a stretcher." She wrings her hands. "Come with me to the control room."

I nod and tighten my grip on my purse strap. "Let's go."

We march in silence, past people who are murmuring in clusters in the coffee lounge. Outside, there are a handful of press people, and they jump on us the minute we push open the door. It's raining again, really pouring now. Was that why Max crashed? The thought cuts through the haze in my brain.

"Lily, Lily, over here," one reporter shouts. "Is Max Becker in critical condition?

The questions come in rapid fire. What happened to Max? Did you see the crash? Where's he going?

Tanya plows through while bellowing "no comment," but I take a deep breath and stop.

"I'm going to find out more information now. We'll let you know about his condition as soon as we know. Thank you."

Tanya grabs my arm and pulls me through the scrum. While photographers click away, we dash through the rain to the garage. It's not easy because I'm wearing a long skirt and flats, and every time my legs brush against the fabric, they itch anew. But I don't care because Max is hurt and I need to find out what's going on...

My gorgeous, loving Max.

By the time I get to the Team Onassis control center, my glasses are streaked with raindrops, and I have to pause to wipe them off with the hem of my blouse. When I slide them back on my face, Jack's at Tanya's side.

"Practice has been stopped for all the teams," Jack says.

I don't care about all the teams, I care about Max. "How is he? Where is he?" I demand.

"He's been taken to the track ER. Come."

That's not good, not good at all. If it was merely a small crash, he'd climb out of the car and walk back to the pits for evaluation. The track emergency center is a temporary triage unit, staffed with more than a hundred healthcare workers. They can do everything from X-rays to IVs in there.

I follow Jack through the control center, which is thick with the heavy hush of tragedy. I know this silence, felt it once when I was a teen and hanging out with Dad's team when one of his drivers crashed. I've never forgotten the driver's girlfriend, stunned and shell-shocked in her glamorous outfit.

Now it's my turn to look shell-shocked. These are the moments no one in racing publicly acknowledges. It's as if speaking aloud the potential danger will court it, somehow. It's easier to dwell on the technical, the competition, the winning.

We make our way over to a bank of monitors, and gasp when I see that every one is tuned to an image of an ambulance, with flashing lights, near a mangled, wrecked Formula World car.

"Max was in that?" I whisper in horror.

My heart feels like it's grown fifty sizes and is threatening to beat right out of my chest. While practice is supposed to be a time when the drivers get to know how their car performs on a track, it's not without danger — like everything else in Formula World. There have been drivers who have been seriously injured or died during practice like...

"He definitely has a concussion," Jack says. Would you like to see the crash?"

"Not now," I cry. "I want to see him. I need to be with him."

Funny how I've dropped every pretense that we're not dating. Right now, I don't care who knows our relationship status. All I want is to know he's okay.

Jack rakes in a breath. "Okay. Calm down. Let me get the latest."

He slides on a headset. "What's the situation? We've got Lily Onassis here."

A pause.

"Oh, shit. Okay. Okay. Right. We'll follow along."

I gape in horror as Jack stands. His mouth is in a hard, grim line, sending shockwaves of cold panic through my body.

"He's not good. They're going to airlift him to Montreal General. We're going to meet him there."

# # #

I listen, mute with fear, to Jack describe the crash on our drive to the hospital.

"He went into the hairpin, collided with the curb, lost his front wing, and then somehow the nose of his car went airborne. It all happened in a fucking instant, Lily, I swear. Then he flipped and crashed into the wall. When they took him out of the car he was asking for you."

A whimper starts in my throat but I swallow it down. "The concrete wall? How fast was he going?"

"About a hundred-forty two."

One hundred forty two miles per hour. He hit the wall going that speed.

"Here. Auto Week has a clip on Twitter." Tanya hands us her phone.

I'm not sure I want to watch, but I'm too stunned to protest. I watch the seven-second video, my jaw slack with shock. Seven seconds of pure torture. Max's sleek, black car with orange trim skids for several yards on its side, then comes to a stop in the gravel.

"I can try to pull up the in-car camera if you'd like," Jack says.

"No. Not now." Turning toward the window, away from Jack, Tanya and that devastating video that's now trending on Twitter, I shut my eyes and try to think positive thoughts. But the horrifying crash video runs in a loop through my brain all the way to the hospital.

"They're going to meet us at a side entrance," I hear Tanya say to Jack.

Once there, we jump out and are ushered into a private waiting room. It's clearly meant for children and families because there's a rainbow painted on one wall, and a kid-sized table and chairs in a corner, along with toys. The three of us wait for what seems like hours — but it's only twenty minutes, according to my phone. During that time, I call Dad and update him, then stare at the children's toys.

Finally, three doctors walk in. I leap from my seat. "How is he?"

They recognize that I'm practically breathless with worry, and tells me to sit.

"Calm down," one doctor, a man with a smooth bald head and a French accent, says.

That is never the thing to say to me when I'm worried, anxious, or upset. I fold my arms but don't take a chair.

"Max is relatively unscathed," another doctor, a woman, says. "Hi, I'm Dr. Sharon Cohen."

"What does that mean, relatively unscathed?" I can't help but raise my voice.

"He's now talking almost normally."

"Almost?" Now I am yelling. "What does that mean? Sentences? Words? Grunts? Does he know his name?"

"He broke his shoulder in three places. It's quite bad, and he'll need to go into surgery in the next day, but for now we're stabilizing that part of his body. He doesn't have any other internal injuries in his torso. But he did have a concussion. We're still evaluating how bad that is and will need to keep him here for a while. He knows his name but is a little fuzzy on other details."

The whimper that's been living in my throat finally escapes, and I sink onto a bench.

"You're Lily Onassis, right?" Dr. Cohen asks.

I nod weakly. It feels like an invisible force has my chest in a vice grip, and I can only breathe using the top third of my lungs.

"He's been asking for you. I told him he could see you after his brain CT scan."

# # #

Two interminable, excruciating hours later, Dr. Cohen walks me to the room where Max is recovering. His CT scan showed a mild concussion, but as she explains, any time the brain is injured, they like to monitor the situation for a few days to make sure brain bleeds don't erupt.

"It all sounds so scary." I sniffle.

"I guess this comes with his profession. But Max is not only extremely physically fit, but he's also quite lucky that he wasn't more severely injured. His neck strength and his safety gear saved his life. But don't be alarmed, he might have some temporary gaps in his memory. That's normal."

We're at the door to his room now, and I steel myself for what I'm about to see. The doctor turns the knob and allows me to walk in first.

"Hey, beautiful." Max is sitting up, a huge smile lighting up his face. He's wearing a mint green hospital gown and is only hooked to one IV. His right arm is in a sling-like contraption, and there's a bruise on his forehead.

Other than that, he looks incredible. Handsome. Healthy. Like the man I love.

I rush to him and collapse on his bed, on top of his legs. Of course, I'm ugly crying, snorting, and honking everywhere.

"Hey, hey, babe, I'm okay. Now that you're here, I'm all better."

He strokes my hair with his good hand, and I look up, through tear-stained lashes.

"How do you feel? Are you sure you're okay? They told me about your shoulder and your concussion."

He nods. "Yeah, the shoulder hurts like hell. What did your dad say? I'll bet he freaked out while watching in the pits."

"Uh, Max? Dad's in Miami." That's when it hits me that because of his concussion, he's probably forgotten about my dad's heart attack. This is also the third time I've been in a hospital this month, and my god, I hope it's the last. I'm becoming way too familiar with the sights and smells of emergency rooms.

"He is? Oh. Okay. I'm so glad you're here with me, Lily. So glad."

I trace his chin with my thumb. "I was so scared when I saw the video of the crash. I thought I'd lost you."

"I don't know what happened. I don't have any memory of it."

"It's okay. You don't need to." My sweet man, he's blocked out the terror of the crash.

"I'm not going to be able to drive this weekend, am I?"

I shake my head. "And maybe not next week. We'll have to see. You're going to be here for a while. I'll be here with you, though."

Depending on his shoulder, he might not be able to finish the season. But that's not important. He's alive, and that's the only true thing I need right now. Jack will have to take over the team. There's simply no way I can handle that.

"You will? You'll stay?" Max frowns, like he's confused.

"Yes, the doctors said they'll bring in a bed for me. I'm not going anywhere."

"Hmph." He strokes my arm. "The last thing I remember is us, swimming. Did we go swimming at some point recently? And kiss in the water?"

I'm crying again, fresh tears. "Yes, we did. We stayed in a cabin in the mountains of Quebec and we went swimming. It was wonderful."

"I told you I love you after we ate apple pancake. I haven't forgotten that." He beams, and I do, too.

I laugh, and cry, all at the same time, then brush my lips softly over his, making sure to avoid his injured shoulder.

"And I love you, Max. So much."