For five years, I was the secret girlfriend of Jace, a top-tier rally racing champion. He had just secured his third consecutive championship title. By tradition, the champion would draw a random fan from the audience to experience the thrill of the passenger seat—the exclusive co-driver’s spot. Every year, I prayed he would draw my name. But his "luck" was always terrible, and he would somehow always draw his navigator, Chloe. Until this year. The organizers changed the rules, allowing the champion to actively invite a guest. I finally couldn't hold back. "I've never sat in your passenger seat. This year... could you invite me?" "We're getting married soon. I want to stand beside you," I pleaded softly. Jace smiled and agreed. Right before the race, I sneaked into the paddock to cheer him on, only to overhear the other racers whispering to him. "Jace, are you seriously going to throw the race? It was one thing when you rigged the lottery to get Chloe, but are you really not going to invite your fiancée this time either?" Jace’s tone was completely indifferent. "This way, I can protect Chloe’s exclusive spot and keep Harper off my back. It’s a win-win. Besides, she doesn’t even understand racing. She doesn't deserve to sit in my passenger seat." "Aren't you afraid your fiancée will run off?" He scoffed. "She’s so desperate she’d pay me to marry her. Our wedding is right around the corner; she’s not going anywhere. Plus, if she left me, who else would want damaged goods like her?" A win-win. Damaged goods. Those words turned into sharp blades, stabbing ruthlessly into my chest. I covered my mouth tightly, letting the tears stream down my face. Since that's how it is, I don't want to wait for your passenger seat anymore. ...... Deafening cheers erupted across the track. The announcer’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers: "And the champion, still our reigning King of the Track, Jace!" I saw it clearly. Jace had intentionally made several mistakes mid-race. But he still couldn't lose. The jumbotron showed a close-up of him. He stepped out of his race car with a cold, focused expression. But when he walked around to open the door for Chloe and took her hand, his eyes softened completely. Two girls standing next to me suddenly squealed. "Ahhh, so sweet! Are they dating?" "Probably! Look at the way he looks at her, it could melt her right on the spot!" My eyes began to sting. We had been dating for five years, yet outside of our immediate friend group, no one knew about us. Meanwhile, Chloe had been his navigator for three years, and he had blatantly favored her in front of the world for just as long. If she said she didn't want to train alone, Jace would abandon our dates in a heartbeat to accompany her at the racing club. If she said she liked the comfort of his passenger seat, I was permanently banned from sitting there. Whenever I questioned it, he would offer the same careless excuse. "Recalibrating the co-driver's seat is a hassle. It delays my training." On the podium, the announcer’s voice grew mysterious. "Now, please invite your lucky guest to experience the champion's passenger seat!" The entire crowd held its breath. Jace lazily lifted his gaze, scanning the stands until his eyes locked onto mine. I clenched my fists. Despite everything, a fragile, trembling thread of hope rose in my chest. But then, with absolute nonchalance, he looked away and made a grand, inviting gesture toward Chloe. "My navigator. After you." Chloe looked shocked for a second. Her eyes grew red with emotion as she placed her hand in his. "It's my honor." My phone buzzed. A text from Jace: Let Chloe have it this time. Once we go public after the wedding, the seat is all yours. Always making me wait. Wait until his training is over, wait until he wins the championship, wait until after the wedding. I had waited for five years. Staring at the message on my screen, my throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton. It hurt to breathe. Amidst the roaring crowd, Jace escorted Chloe into the passenger seat, revved the engine, and sped off. Without a moment of hesitation, he drove the car straight to the end of the track. The stadium fell silent for a split second. Then, a massive wave of shrieks and cheers erupted. The end of the track was famously known as "Lover's Point." It was an unspoken tradition. If you drove the girl you liked to the finish line and confessed your love, you were destined to be together forever. Soon, the two stepped out of the car, and reporters swarmed them. "Jace, do you know this is Lover's Point?" "Chloe, are you and Jace officially dating?" "Can you give us an answer? Everyone is dying to know!" Under the crowd's expectant gaze, Chloe lowered her head shyly, practically confirming the rumors. My breath caught in my throat as I stared fixedly at Jace on the massive screen. He just let out a low, careless chuckle. He didn't deny it. The atmosphere boiled over. The audience screamed in excitement, and people immediately started posting the clip online. "Oh my god! The ship I've been sailing for three years is finally real!" I lowered my eyes. The very last shred of love I had for him evaporated into the air, carried away by his laughter. I opened my phone and pulled up the booking for our wedding venue—a reservation I had waited an entire year to secure. A prompt popped up: Canceling this reservation requires forfeiting your deposit. Are you sure you want to cancel? I tapped Confirm. I looked up, took one last quiet look at them on the screen, and turned away. Walking out of the stadium, I tried to call a ride to the airport. Because the race had just ended, the area was swamped. I waited a long time, but no driver accepted my request. I decided to walk further down the road where it was quieter. Just as I took a step, a familiar voice called out from behind. I turned around. Jace walked up and casually ruffled my hair. "Why did you run off all the way out here? Everyone is waiting for us. The victory banquet is about to start. If we don't go now, we'll be late." His tone was completely normal, devoid of any guilt. It was as if he wasn't the man who had just invited another woman into his car and driven her to Lover's Point. "I'm not going," I said flatly. Jace paused. A flicker of impatience crossed his face as he grabbed my wrist to pull me along. "What kind of tantrum are you throwing now? Don't tell me it's because I didn't invite you. I already explained it. Once we go public after the wedding, you can sit there whenever you want." "I don't have the energy to coax you right now. The media, the team—I have a million things to deal with. Everyone else knows how to be considerate of me, but you only ever care about your own feelings." Everyone else. He meant Chloe. I didn't say a word, just let him drag me toward the restaurant. I figured it was better to make things crystal clear before I left for good. When he pushed open the door to the private dining room, the food was already served. Chloe was sitting right in the middle of the racers. Beside her were two empty seats. Jace naturally walked over and sat right next to her, casually draping his arm over the back of her chair. I had no choice but to take the remaining seat across the table. One of the racers across from me grinned cheekily. "Where did you run off to, Harper? Jace was looking everywhere for you. He was sweating bullets, thought something happened to you." My expression was blank. "Nowhere. Just went for a walk." Chloe's eyes instantly welled up with tears. She choked out a sob. "Harper, are you mad at me? I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have accepted Jace's invitation." Jace. The way her first name rolled off her tongue so intimately. I glanced at him. He was clearly entirely accustomed to her calling him that. Before I could speak, Chloe cut me off and made a show of standing up. "It's my fault for being an eyesore to you. I'll leave right now. From now on, aside from races, I won't go anywhere near Jace." Several racers immediately started panicking and tried to coax her to stay. Jace pressed his hand firmly on her shoulder to keep her seated. He turned to me, his voice lacing with a heavy warning. "Harper, be reasonable. Stop clinging to such a trivial issue." "Chloe is my navigator. We fight side-by-side in the trenches. It's perfectly normal for me to invite her to my passenger seat. If you keep giving everyone attitude, you're crossing the line." I found it almost laughable. I hadn't said a single word, yet in his eyes, I was already the unreasonable one. Sensing the tense atmosphere, one of the guys quickly changed the subject. "Alright, alright, let's drop it. Let's just eat." Jace placed a large piece of lobster on Chloe's plate and started cracking the shell for her. I watched quietly, not speaking up to stop him like I normally would have. Surprised by my calm reaction, Jace actually bothered to offer an explanation. "Chloe doesn't know how to shell lobster." "Okay," I replied, my voice completely serene. For some reason, my mind flashed back to the first time Jace visited my parents' house. He accidentally cut his finger on a sharp shell, but he insisted on shelling the shrimp for me so I wouldn't have to dirty my hands. As he peeled the shrimp, he swore to my father that he would treat me like a queen for the rest of my life. Back then, he hated that he was just a rookie, promising that one day he would bring the championship trophy home just for me. Now, he was still shelling seafood. But the woman eating it was no longer me. I looked down and took a bite of the shrimp I had peeled myself, accidentally choking on a piece of spice. I coughed a few times. Jace frowned, patting my back while sliding a glass of lemonade toward me. "Always so clumsy. Eat slower, nobody is fighting you for it." I stared at the juice. It was Chloe's favorite drink. In five years of dating, he still didn't know I was highly allergic to lemons. In the past, I would always comfort myself, making excuses that he was too focused on his racing to remember the little things. But he remembered that Chloe loved lobster, and he remembered she loved lemonade. He only forgot about my allergy. I opened my mouth and stated, "I'm allergic to lemons." Jace's hand froze in mid-air. His eyes darted away guiltily for a second before his tone shifted back to defensive entitlement. "I've been too busy lately. I forgot." He didn't forget. He simply never bothered to remember. I was too tired to correct him. I lowered my head and kept eating. After dinner, someone suggested moving to the lounge next door to play cards. Realizing I hadn't found a proper moment to officially break up with him, I didn't object. At the poker table, Jace sat to Chloe's right, and I sat to his right. We were playing Rummy. Chloe pouted slightly, acting spoiled. "My hand is terrible. If only I had a Queen of Hearts!" I instinctively glanced at my own hand. I also needed a Queen of Hearts to complete my set. A second later, Jace discarded a Queen of Hearts. Chloe stuck her tongue out playfully. "I'll take that! I knew Jace was the best." A dull ache suddenly flared up in my stomach. I knew my chronic gastritis was acting up. Every time I ate a heavy meal, my stomach would hurt for a while. I pressed my hand against my abdomen. Seeing my movement, Jace reached over and began massaging my stomach. "Gastritis acting up again? You know your stomach is weak, yet you still ate so much." I forced down the urge to shove his hand away and just gave a soft hum. I didn't want to make an ugly scene in front of everyone. For the rest of the game, Jace practically spoon-fed Chloe winning cards. Everyone won multiple rounds, while he intentionally lost over and over. The other racers smirked. "Pay the piper, Jace. Draw a penalty card." He casually pulled a card from the deck and handed it to the guy running the game. "Kiss the person on your right. If you refuse, the person on your right has to down a whole glass of whiskey." The moment the words left his mouth, the room erupted in hoots and hollers. The person on Jace's right was Chloe. Everyone's eyes shot toward me. They all fully expected me to throw a massive, screaming fit like I used to. Instead, I just smiled indifferently and spoke in a calm voice. "It's just a game. Kiss if you want to. Don't worry about me." Hearing this, Jace looked stunned. His chest heaved sharply. Chloe's eyelashes fluttered, looking like she was struggling with a heavy decision. "Let's skip it, Jace. You've been under so much pressure from the race. I don't want Harper to throw a fit and stress you out when you get home." "I don't want to be a stumbling block in your relationship, and I don't want to put you in a tough spot. I'll just drink the whiskey. It'll just give me a rash, it's nothing compared to Harper's feelings." Chloe forced a tragically brave smile and reached for the shot glass. Without a second thought, Jace clamped his hand over hers. "No. You can't handle alcohol. It's just a penalty, I'll take my punishment like a man." Jace stood up, leaned down, tilted Chloe's chin up, and kissed her forcefully. Chloe subtly shot me a glance, a triumphant smile lingering on her lips. Watching them lock lips so passionately, I thought I would feel devastated. But I felt absolutely nothing. Nothing except a violent wave of physical disgust churning in my stomach. "Jace, let's break up." The raucous cheering in the room completely drowned out my voice. When the kiss finally ended, Jace turned to look at me, still looking somewhat flushed. "What did you just say?" Looking at this scene, I suddenly felt that the entire charade was incredibly boring. "Nothing. I said I'm a bit tired. I'm going home." Jace didn't overthink it. He smiled understandingly. "I forgot you always sleep early. You head back first, we're going to play a bit longer." Without sparing him another glance, I turned and walked out. Behind me, Jace was gently wiping a smudge of lipstick from Chloe's mouth. When I got home, I immediately started packing. Clothes, mugs, slippers, toothbrushes... All the matching couple items Jace had bought when we first moved in together. For the last few years, I was the only one using them. I left all of them exactly where they were. I only packed the things that solely belonged to me into my suitcase. It only took half an hour to finish packing. I unlocked my phone. Chloe had just updated her Instagram. One photo was of this year's championship trophy. The second photo showed the three trophies from the previous years. Four trophies in total. Every single championship Jace had ever won. The caption read: What if I don't know how to drive a race car? It doesn't matter. He will always win the championship for me. The comment section was a wall of blessings, flooded with fans gushing about the "perfect couple." I didn't scroll any further. I swiped over to the wedding venue cancellation page. I was the one who picked the venue. But he was the one who had stayed up multiple nights to finalize every single detail. He used to say I was his princess, and a princess's wedding could never be anything less than perfect. My queue number was up. Without hesitation, I tapped Confirm Cancellation. Just as I put my phone down, the front door slammed open with a deafening crash. Jace's face was livid. He didn't even notice the missing items in the apartment. Holding Chloe's hand, he stormed toward me in a blind rage and, without a single word of warning, slapped me hard across the face. "Harper! What the hell did Chloe ever do to you?! You actually framed her for using performance-enhancing drugs before the race?!" "Do you have any idea that this could destroy a navigator's entire career?!" My head snapped to the side from the force of the blow. My ears were ringing. Tears streamed down Chloe's face as she choked out, "Jace, please don't blame Harper. It's all my fault. I overstepped my boundaries and made her angry." Then, she fell to her knees with a loud thud and started desperately bowing to me. "Harper, I'm so sorry! I shouldn't be Jace's navigator, I shouldn't go on the track with him. I know I was wrong!" "Please, I'm begging you, stop falsely reporting me for doping! Being suspended or cursed at by fans is nothing, but if this drags Jace's name through the mud, I'd rather die!" Chloe's voice grew increasingly hysterical, and she knocked her head against the floorboards harder with every word. Before she could continue, Jace frantically pulled her up, his eyes full of heartbreak as he rubbed her forehead. The rapid-fire accusations hit me like a truck. My mind went entirely blank. I opened my mouth, instinctively denying it. "I didn't..." "Shut up!" Jace cut me off coldly, looking at me with pure disgust. "Still lying? It's already the number one trending topic online!" I opened my phone. The top headline was an official statement from the Racing Association: We will be conducting a secondary sample test on Co-driver Chloe. The comments underneath were incredibly toxic. "I heard a crazy bitch named Harper intentionally framed our Chloe!" "She's the homewrecker trying to get between Jace and Chloe! Why doesn't the mistress just go die!" My chest heaved with fury. I stepped forward, desperate to defend myself. "You are going to record a video right now," Jace commanded. "You will tell the public that you had a moment of insanity and maliciously filed a false report." My head snapped up. I stared at him in utter disbelief. "And you will issue a sincere, public apology to Chloe and the fans. Otherwise, don't blame me for disregarding the years we've spent together!" Jace shoved me violently backward. His eyes were cold and threatening. I stumbled, lost my footing, and crashed heavily onto the floor, my elbow slamming into the sharp edge of the coffee table. Searing pain shot from my arm through my entire body. Feeling the agonizing throb, I let out a mocking, hollow laugh. Jace frowned at me. For a fleeting second, a flicker of inexplicable panic and unease flashed in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but Chloe's phone suddenly rang. "Co-driver Chloe, regarding the doping allegations, we need you to come to the medical center immediately for a secondary sample test." Chloe visibly trembled and shrank against Jace. He lowered his voice to comfort her, promising he would go with her. Jace's phone vibrated. He glanced down at the screen. The next second, his fingers went rigid, and his pupils contracted violently.
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