*One Night in London

The London Grand Prix afterparty was always a glittering, dangerous thing—champagne flowing like rivers, music loud enough to drown out reason, and egos bigger than the trophies still sitting on display. Isabella had only been an intern at Mercedes for four miserable months. Twenty-three, sharp-eyed, always dressed one shade too conservatively because she was terrified of being seen as “that girl.” She called him Mr. Wolff in every email, every hallway greeting. He called her Guest just Guest, like her full name was a formality he enjoyed enforcing.

That night she wore black. Simple, high-neck, long-sleeved, the kind of dress that screamed “I’m here to work, not to be noticed.” But liquor and low lighting have a way of rewriting dress codes.

Toto Wolff didn’t dance. Everyone knew that. He stood at the edge of the VIP section like a dark pillar, drink in hand, watching the room the way he watched a qualifying session: calculating, detached, faintly amused. Until she walked past him carrying two flutes of champagne she clearly hadn’t been sent to fetch. One for her, one she’d been told to deliver to someone who’d already disappeared.

Their eyes met for half a second longer than protocol allowed.

“You’re not supposed to be drinking that,” he said, voice low, Austrian accent wrapping around the words like smoke.

“I’m not supposed to be here at all after midnight,” Guest replied, bolder than she felt. “But rules seem… flexible tonight.”

He took the second glass from her fingers without asking. Their knuckles brushed. Just that. Nothing more. Yet something cracked open in the air between them.

Three hours later the party had thinned to the reckless and the truly drunk. The hotel suite someone had booked for “team bonding” was half-lit, bottles everywhere, music still thumping through the walls. Isabella had kicked off her heels somewhere near the lift. Toto had lost his tie, sleeves rolled to the elbows, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. Neither of them could quite remember how they’d ended up alone on the balcony.

The city glittered below like spilled diamonds. The Thames looked black and endless.

He kissed her first.

Not gentle. Not tentative. Hungry, like a man who’d spent months pretending he didn’t notice the way her pencil skirts hugged her hips, the way she bit her lip when she was nervous during debriefs, the way she smelled faintly of jasmine and fresh paper even after twelve-hour days.

She kissed him back like she was drowning and he was air.

They stumbled inside. Clothes came off in pieces—her dress pooling at her feet, his shirt torn at a button, belt clattering to the floor. No words. Just breath, skin, heat. The kind of sex that happens when both people know this is a mistake they’re going to make anyway.

Morning came too fast. Hangover light, awkward silence, clothes pulled back on with hands that still remembered each other. She left first. He let her.

But he couldn’t forget.