The Surname Devlin
To be precise, it wasn’t any memory tangled up with Harold himself. It was the memory of his surname.
Devlin. Right—there had been someone with that name, hadn’t there?
Devlin was the surname of the chairman of the world’s largest luxury-goods conglomerate. Through aggressive takeovers of rival houses, the family empire had reinvented itself as a prestige consumer-goods powerhouse aimed squarely at the ultra-wealthy—high-end watches, jewelry, fashion, spirits, the works. And the youngest son of that very house had been one of my competitors ever since the go-kart days.
Of course he had never been a real match for me, but he had still been one of the names on the grid.
The moment the memory surfaced, I let my face twist into an open scowl.
And this year he’s a five-time World Champion?
I had always remembered the drivers who shared the track with me not by their faces but by the feel of their driving—the raw skill I sensed while racing them.
How the hell did Devlin pull that off?
The apple never falls far from the tree. Just like his businessman father, he drove with a ferocious, take-no-prisoners aggression that refused to leave room for rivals. That aggression routinely spilled past strategy into outright recklessness. He sent other cars spinning out of contention more often than not, and just as often wrecked his own race in the process. I had always suspected more than a few of those collisions were deliberate.
Well, color me surprised. Did the talent pool shrink that badly after I retired?
In every way that mattered, his racing had been dirty enough that I had fully expected him to plateau as a mediocre pay driver. Yet here he was, the reigning World Champion. The world truly was full of mysteries.
So what was he doing here? Rehab? Outwardly he didn’t look like anything was wrong with him.
Then maybe he had come to the institute for sports-conditioning work?
But why call for me?
I had confidence in my own ability, yet I still wasn’t ready to take on an F1 World Champion. And I had no idea why Harold was acting as if we were old friends.
I stood by the door, arms folded, silently watching the two of them.
“Sit.”
Harold spoke like he was issuing an order and pointed to the seat beside him—the multi-person sofa right next to his single armchair.
“Let’s talk.”
“Angela, client consultations aren’t my job. I have a booking in ten minutes.”
They both answered at once.
“The schedule’s fine. I already adjusted it. Sit down. Mr. Devlin says he has something to discuss with you, Ms. Hanna—about personal fitness.”
“I asked Angela myself. I want to talk to you directly.”
What exactly do you think you have to say to me?
Something about the whole setup felt off, but after they had gone that far I couldn’t very well keep standing there. Reluctantly I sat. The instant I did, Angela rose from her own chair.
“I’ll leave you two to talk, then.”
Angela?
And just like that I was left alone with Harold.
What the hell?
I stared at the closed door in pure disbelief before shifting my gaze to him. He smiled faintly.
Why are you smiling?
“Want some tea?”
“I’m fine.”
This was the land of tea, but I had quit after the accident. All I could ever taste anymore was temperature.
That wasn’t the point, though. I simply had no idea how to treat this stranger who had suddenly appeared at my workplace after years of absence, so I just looked at him. We had shared the same tracks for a few seasons as drivers—nothing more. No friendship, not even a single remembered conversation.
And now he shows up out of nowhere acting like he knows me?
Suspicious didn’t even begin to cover it.
“How have you been all this time?”
“Were we ever close?”
“Well, I figure we can start being close from now on.”
That was as far as Harold got before a knock came at the door and Angela re-entered, carrying a Wedgwood teapot and cups that looked reserved for special clients only.
Harold openly scowled at the interruption.
Once Angela set the cups in front of us and left again, we were alone once more. I hated the idea of the conversation dragging on, so I spoke first.
“Can we just get to the point? I’m busy.”
“You really haven’t changed a bit.”
Harold, lifting his teacup, spoke again as if he knew me. The familiar tone was so natural it almost made me wonder whether I had amnesia from the crash and simply didn’t remember him.
“Got a boyfriend?”
Is he insane?
I shook my head hard and started to stand, ready to walk straight out.
“Wait—I’m not joking. I actually need to know.”
Harold gestured for me to sit back down.
“I need a personal physical therapist. Someone who’ll travel the whole world with me through the season. I want that someone to be you. But if you’ve got a boyfriend, it’s impossible. You know this industry—you know what I mean.”
F1 drivers spent an entire year circling the globe, contesting roughly twenty rounds. Points from every finishing position stacked up until, at year’s end, the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Champions were decided.
Aside from one short midsummer break, they never stayed put long enough to put down roots, so personal staff had to be packed up and hauled along like luggage.
Still, something in Harold’s explanation didn’t add up. I scowled openly.
“But your team already has specialists, doesn’t it?”
“Sure. But they take weekends off. I need my own personal staff who’ll work day and night—weekends, weekdays, whenever I want, whatever service I want. You know how much the body’s condition affects a race. I don’t care how much it costs. When I climb into that car I want to be at absolute peak condition.”
In a sport where the tiniest difference in performance decided victory or defeat, wanting a personal trainer-slash-physio on constant call made sense on its own.
The question that remained was still the same: why me?
“I don’t have that many years of experience, and I don’t even have a master’s. You’re fine handing your body over to a rookie like me?”
“I’m not worried about that part. Among physical therapists, who else knows an F1 driver’s body as well as you do?”
“……”
“That’s why I came looking for you. Because you know that world. Because you understand me.”
It was meant as a compliment, but the words settled heavily in my chest.
That doesn’t sound like a good thing at all.
I was going to refuse anyway; I already felt I had wasted too much time. Ever since starting my second life I had refused to hear a single scrap of news about F1. Anything connected to it only caused me pain.
Honestly, the mere presence of Harold Devlin—F1 driver—sitting in front of me was wounding me in real time.
World Champion?
The man who had achieved the very thing I had desperately wanted and never reached.
How was I supposed to work alongside someone like that?
Is this what it feels like to come face-to-face with the person your ex married—the one you loved to madness and still can’t forget?
Jealousy twisted my insides so hard I wanted to bolt from the room that second.
“I’m turning the offer down. Traipsing around the world doesn’t appeal, and I like this job. What if I work for you and then get fired on one of your whims? How am I supposed to find another position this good?”
“That part’s already settled. If you want, you can stay on the institute’s payroll the whole time you’re working with me. When the personal-trainer gig ends, you just come back here.”
Even after I said no, Harold kept pushing.
He acts like he’s never been refused in his life.
He seemed incapable of understanding ordinary human speech, so I made my voice firm.
“I still don’t want to. There are plenty of specialists right here at the institute. If you want one, just post a—”
“A hundred thousand pounds.”
I stopped mid-sentence and stared at him.
“Not yearly. Monthly. Travel and lodging completely separate.”
Harold spoke with a perfectly serious face.
“Hanna. I already expected you’d refuse. You think I walked in here without a plan?”
I hated, with a passion, the mindset that tried to solve everything with money. If someone wanted to call it jealousy toward the rich, fine—they would be right.
In an industry where astronomical sums were the norm, most F1 hopefuls were rich kids, and I had spent my whole career envying them.
But a hundred thousand pounds.
The sum was too large to dismiss with a simple Money isn’t everything. I lost my words, covered my face with one hand, and closed my eyes.
Just hearing the figure made the old headache that had vanished years ago seem to stir again.
“That’s the base salary. Every time I win a Grand Prix I’ll also pay a victory bonus—ten thousand each.”
My current annual salary was around thirty thousand pounds. If I could stick out a full year with Harold, I would pocket the equivalent of forty years’ pay in one go.
And a victory bonus from last year’s World Champion? Ten thousand per race? One hard year of work and I could spend the rest of my life loafing on Tenerife.
Hearing that number, I thought:
Does he take people for complete fools?