Drive to Survive

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Dylan ran the brush through her hair one last time before placing it down and looking at herself in the mirror.

They'd landed in Italy two days ago and the team had been given some free time to acclimate and explore. On her first day, she'd explored the Imola town with Mike, Tom and Jacob from the pit crew, as well as Hunter. They'd had a really nice meal together in the evening and gone on to a few cocktail bars. Watching the boys stumble around in broken Italian and try and flirt with the local girls had been endlessly entertaining.

The next day, Lando had arrived with the McLaren team and he'd dragged her to a beach near a town called Ravenna with Daniel and some of their friends. She'd had a great time messing around in the water, getting to read her book, and dozing off in the warm sun. Spending time with Daniel and his never-ending energy was good for her; him and Lando together were definitely an uplifting pair.

She'd been worried that she would have to stop hanging out with them after her meeting with Christian but his advice had just been to not post photos with them on social media. She was glad to still be able to freely spend time with her friends but she'd developed a new awareness for any paparazzi cameras lurking in bushes.

This evening, Carlos and Charles were due to touch down with Ferrari and she was meant to meet them for drinks with Max in tow.

She'd briefly spoken to her cousin about the media rumours after he'd called, worried about the fact her name was splattered across the headlines. He'd also very bluntly asked if she were secretly dating any of his friends to which she'd had to spend about ten minutes reassuring him she was not sneaking around with Charles, Pierre, Mick or even Lando behind his back.

She told him about Christian's plan to handle it and warning him not to say anything linked to her. Red Bull had put out their statement, explaining briefly who Dylan was, in what capacity she worked for them, and firmly maintaining that she was not in a romantic relationship with any drivers.

Dylan had echoed these sentiments on her own personal account, which had been an insane experience in itself. When she'd finally had the guts to open her Instagram, she'd been met with a flood of comments asking who she was dating. It was a mix of positive and negative tones but the overall vibe just seemed to be confusion. People didn't know who she was, where she had come from, or who she was secretly in love with.

She'd decided on an Instagram Live to straighten everything out. To her amazement, it had attracted 320 thousand viewers and when she looked back at the footage that had circulated afterwards, she just cringed at how terrified she looked. Regardless, she'd answered the most common questions in her comments and reaffirmed that she was single and planned to remain that way as she focused on her work. On the positive side, her recent photos had done incredibly well in terms of statistics. There was a silver lining to the media storm.

So it was out there and people knew who she was, even if they didn't know all the exact details. She'd still noticed comments that queried how she was so close with drivers considering she was just a Netflix/Red Bull employee but she pretended not to notice them and waited for the attention to die down.

Greg had assured her that it was just curiosity and now people had an answer - even if it wasn't the one they wanted - they would move on to the next story. She desperately hoped this was the case, but she was worried that tonight's drinks would attract some attention.

Max, unsurprisingly, hadn't said a word to her. She'd seen him fleetingly as they'd all boarded the plane but as it was a night flight she wasn't required to film him and she'd been sat a few rows back with Hunter. She didn't know how much Christian had divulged to him about her friendships with the other drivers or her relation to Carlos. She assumed he'd seen the stories on Twitter but if he had, he certainly didn't say anything to her about it and it didn't change his behaviour towards her.