SAVANNAH
FIVE YEARS LATER

My three-inch Louboutin heels clicked on the marble floor of the conference room at Annunziata Auto near Rome. I was wearing a sharp black sheath dress—even though I still preferred my coveralls.

I paused before I entered the room, looking to my husband.

"You ready?"

"Of course, amore mio," he said, brushing my lips with his.

Our one-year-old daughter, Gabriella, was in his arms and reached for my hair. I couldn't help but grin when I heard Dante correct Gabby in Italian. "No, baby. Don't mess with Mama's hair today, okay?"

The three of us walked in and stood near a lectern where Tanya, our old PR expert during our racing days, addressed the media as Annunziata Auto's media relations liaison.

"And here is Savannah Jenkins-Annunziata to make today's announcement," Tanya said.

I stood at the lectern and smiled. "I'm thrilled today to tell you that our company will be sponsoring a Formula World team next season. And I'm even more ecstatic to announce that one of the drivers will be a promising young woman who is already a star in open-wheel racing in North America."

Murmurs rose amongst the reporters and cameras fired rapidly. I continued, explaining my plan to recruit more women onto the new team.

"As one of the team principals, my job will be to bring more women into the sport. I'd like to open the floor up for questions now. Yes?" I pointed at a woman in heavy black glasses, someone I recognized from La Gazetta dello Sport in Milan.

"I've heard that since Team Eagle shut down due to a lack of money, you are hiring many of their engineers and crew members. Is that true, and do you have anything to say to your old team owner, Brock Bronson?"

I nodded and grinned. How sweet it had been to make offers to our former, talented teammates and rub it in Bronson's face that we were entering the field just as he was exiting it due to mismanagement. "Dante's winning season was the first and last for Team Eagle, and we're thrilled to welcome some of their best and brightest to our racing stable. Next?"

I pointed at a reporter from the Daily Mail.

"How will you juggle the demands of being a mother and a team principal?" the man asked.

Dante stepped to the lectern, still holding Gabriella. "I'll answer this. My wife is capable of anything. Unlike me, she's an expert at multitasking. We've also decided that I will be the primary caregiver of our daughter while Savannah manages the team. But all three of us will be traveling with the team during the season, and I'll be lending my expertise to the drivers."

Another reporter shouted a question. "Dante, you once famously said you didn't want women on the teams. What's changed? Was it Savannah?"

He'd changed so much since we met. And I had too. Never did I imagine that I'd trust anyone, or love anyone, as much as I did him.

"It was three women who changed me," Dante said. "First, it was my sister. She was a pioneer in motorsports. Then, Savannah. She showed me that I was, how do you say, a Neanderthal in my views on women and sport. She's opened my eyes to a lot of things. That's why I married her, because I adore her, and love her more than life itself."

"Who's the third woman, Dante?" another reporter called out.

Dante laughed and bounced Gabriella on his hip. My little girl, who wore a white Annunziata Auto T-shirt and a pink tutu with pink sparkly shoes, wrapped her arms around her father's neck and buried her face in his shoulder.

"This one. I named her after my sister and want her to be anything she wants to be. No barriers for her."

"Even if she wants to be a driver?" a reporter shouted.

Dante beamed. "Even if she wants to be a driver."

I couldn't help the tears pricking at my eyelids. My husband had come so far since I'd met him.

"That will be all the questions for today," I said into the microphone.

The three of us walked out of the news conference and paused in the privacy of the hallway.

"Never thought you'd hear that coming out of my mouth, did you?" Dante murmured, leaning to kiss me. Our daughter giggled, which she always did when we were affectionate in front of her.

"Oh, I knew you'd evolve someday." I laughed softly.

"How could I not, with you on my team?"

I gently placed my hands on his face. "I love you."

"And I love you. Kiss me again, Savannah."

I leaned in and grinned against his lips. I'd never get enough of his kisses, or his adoration. We were a team, a strong and unbreakable one, a family of three without judgment or shame. A family filled with love and respect.

I'd gotten everything I'd wanted, and more.