Chapter 3

The nanny froze for a second. “Ma’am, that’s the wedding photo...”

“Throw it away,” Quincy said again, her tone calm, like she was speaking about today’s weather.

That kind of calm made Cora more uneasy than any breakdown.

She gritted her teeth and left in her clicking high heels.

Quincy opened her clenched hands and leaned weakly against the chair, her whole body drained.

The cracked wedding photo felt like a knife cutting into her heart, hurting until she couldn’t breathe.

Some things, once broken, could only be thrown out.

Whether it was the wedding photo or this marriage that was already beyond repair.

Quincy didn’t know how long had passed before she finally came back to herself.

To make the race safe and sure, she created a strict rehabilitation plan.

The rehabilitation therapist couldn’t help advising her, “Mrs. Barnes, don’t push too hard. Take it step by step.”

Quincy gave no answer and calmly said, “From now on, please call me ‘Miss Coleman.’”

From the second she found out the truth, she stopped being “Mrs. Barnes.”

Soon after, a friend sent screenshots from Cora’s Instagram account.

Leonard and Cora sat close together in the race car, smiling toward the camera.

Caption: [I finally get to stay beside you openly and properly.]

Openly and properly.

A light pain suddenly pressed against Quincy’s chest, like small needles stabbing her.

Before the divorce was even done, Cora already hurried to announce it to everyone.

Friend: [Quincy, what happened? Why is Leonard together with Cora?]

Quincy explained the truth to her. Right when she planned to close WhatsApp, Diana’s icon suddenly appeared.

[Leonard has already signed. The divorce will officially be finalized in one month. I hope you remember your promise.]

Don’t worry, I won’t regret it, Quincy quietly told herself.

That young man who kissed her under the desert stars, that person who once said the passenger seat would always belong to her, that husband who stayed beside her through five dark years, had already become someone she couldn’t recognize anymore.

She only regretted falling for him in the first place.

That night, the second Leonard walked through the door, he noticed the wedding picture was missing.

He frowned, sounding slightly annoyed. “Cora’s only riding with me during the race. Do you really need to get this upset?”

Quincy only gave a bitter smile and stayed silent.

Seeing that, Leonard became even more irritated. “Quincy, I stayed with you for five whole years. Do you even know how I lived through those years? Now I only want to keep racing. Why can’t you understand me?”

Quincy became so angry that she laughed instead. “Then what about my five years? That car crash almost killed me!”

A broken leg, a ruined face, it almost completely ruined her life.

One graft surgery followed another, and one scar healed after another, hurting her until life felt more painful than death.

Cora was the person most responsible, while Leonard became her partner in it all.

Quincy’s stare was too cold, almost like she could uncover every hidden thing, making Leonard unable to answer.

No, he covered everything perfectly. She couldn’t possibly know the truth.

“Quincy.” He spoke with a rough voice. “No matter what happens, I won’t abandon you.”

Quincy only answered with a cold laugh.

The man she once used her life to protect was someone she could never trust anymore.

For the next half month, Leonard kept leaving early and coming home late, barely speaking to Quincy at all.

Sometimes her friend took screenshots of Cora’s Instagram and sent them to Quincy. Besides staying with Leonard during driving practice, they also ate together, watched movies together, and went shopping together.

Quincy’s heart slowly became calm, and she focused on recovering well.

That day, she went to the hospital for another checkup, and the doctor unexpectedly told her she had healed very well and could race again now.

Quincy became very excited and quickly contacted Rocco, agreeing to visit the training track tomorrow.

Just when she was about to drive off, two men stopped her.

One of the tattooed men was someone she knew, Russell Duncan, Leonard’s former rival.

Whenever Leonard entered a race, he was always stuck in second place.

Quincy’s chest suddenly felt tight, and she had a bad feeling.

Sure enough, after Russell noticed she was alone, he smiled coldly. “Hey, Mrs. Barnes, why are you by yourself? Didn’t your knight come with you?”

The bald man beside Russell spoke next. “Leonard is busy practicing driving. How could he have time for her?”

Quincy carefully stared at them and secretly moved her hand toward the phone in her bag.

Before she could react, Russell suddenly kicked her prosthetic leg, making her fall to the floor.

Chapter 4

The prosthetic leg dropped off, and the pain from her broken leg stabbed deep into her heart, but it still hurt less than the damage to her pride.

“You damn bitch!” Russell ground his teeth, his eyes cold. “You want to call Leonard for help, right? Good, I’ll call him myself. I’ve got something to settle with him anyway.”

He crouched down and tightly grabbed Quincy’s chin. “His little childhood sweetheart signed him up for the RPC race. Help me tell him to back out.”

“I can’t do that.” Quincy gritted her teeth and endured the pain while putting the prosthetic leg back on, but Russell kicked it off once more.

“I’m not the type to go soft on women. If you refuse to help, then don’t blame me for treating you badly.”

Once he finished speaking, he snatched Quincy’s phone and called Leonard.

A soft sound rang out before the call connected, and Cora’s voice came from the other side. “Leonard is taking a bath. Why are you looking for him?”

Quincy’s heart sank all at once, yet she still held onto a little hope. “Pass the phone to him!”

“I won’t!” Cora hung up right after speaking.

Russell instantly understood and sneered with disgust. “Seems Leonard not only switched navigators, but he also wants to switch wives too, Mrs. Barnes!”

The bald man smacked his lips. “She’s disabled, and even her face is damaged. If I were Leonard, I’d choose the childhood sweetheart too!”

Russell gave the bald man a look.

The bald man instantly got the message and walked closer to Quincy with a dirty smile, tearing her dress apart piece by piece.

She tried her best to resist, but she was no match for him.

Soon, every inch of Quincy’s body was exposed.

Russell pointed his phone at her and took photo after photo without stopping.

“If Leonard refuses to quit the race next month, these pictures will spread across Phoenix’s hottest searches!”

After speaking, Russell harshly kicked her twice, then left together with the bald-headed man.

Quincy pulled the ripped clothes over herself and struggled to crawl toward her prosthetic leg.

However, before she could put it on again, she lost consciousness from the pain.

When Quincy finally woke up, she realized she was already in a hospital room.

“Thank goodness,” Leonard said beside her bed, his voice rough and exhausted. “You finally woke up.”

The terrifying memories before she fainted rushed back into her mind. Quincy instinctively grabbed his hand.

“Can you withdraw from the race?”

Quincy could not let those photos be revealed. She did not want to become a topic of gossip for others to laugh about.

Yet Leonard completely misunderstood her intentions. He stared at her with a deep frown, his eyes filled with disgust.

“Quincy, in order to stop me from racing, you actually used this kind of trick?”

Quincy’s heart tightened painfully as she quickly tried to explain.

“No, Leonard, you misunderstood me…”

But Leonard did not allow her to continue speaking.

“Quincy, this competition means everything to me. Regardless of what happens, I will never cancel it.”

His words instantly destroyed the last bit of hope in her heart.

Leonard mercilessly removed her hand from his and coldly said, “I’m going to call the doctor.”

After saying that, he walked away without turning back.

Quincy’s blood seemed to freeze in an instant, and all color drained from her face.

Suddenly, her phone vibrated. A WhatsApp message from the private detective appeared on the screen.

[Five years ago, Cora secretly entered the room where the route book was stored on the day of the competition. The surveillance recordings were deliberately erased, but I tracked down the surveillance manager from that time. He admitted Leonard paid him to delete the footage.]

[In addition, only three months after the car accident, Leonard started an affair with Cora. During these past five years, they have secretly stayed together behind your back. I already sent the evidence to your email. Please take a look.]

Although Quincy had already learned about Leonard’s betrayal, her body still shivered from the cold truth.

Back then, only three months after the accident, she had just undergone her first skin graft surgery. The pain was so unbearable that she could not sleep at night.

Meanwhile, Leonard had secretly been with the woman who caused the accident…

For five entire years, they had hidden everything from her while pretending nothing happened.

Quincy cried uncontrollably. Her heart felt as though it had been stabbed by a sharp knife, hurting so badly that she struggled to breathe.

She remembered the promises Leonard made beneath the stars and all the beautiful moments they once shared.

She remembered how, before the accident, she rushed toward him without a second thought, with only one idea in her mind.

Even if she lost her own life, she still had to protect Leonard from harm.

Now, everything felt painfully laughable.

After wiping away her tears, Quincy contacted the police and requested a new investigation into the car accident from five years ago.

Soon after ending the call, Rocco called her through a voice call.

The moment she answered, his calm and attractive voice sounded from the other end.

“I already took care of the situation. Recover properly first. There’s no need to hurry with training, so just think of this competition as practice.”

Quincy froze for a second, her breathing stopping briefly.

“How do you know about that?”

Rocco said he had not heard from Quincy for a long time and became worried that something might have happened to her, so he asked someone to investigate her whereabouts.

“Sorry, I didn’t intentionally look into your private matters.”

“It’s fine,” Quincy said sincerely. “Thank you for sending me to the hospital.”

She paused for a moment before continuing, “There’s nothing seriously wrong with my body. Training will continue normally.”

The man on the other side of the phone stayed silent for half a second.

“Are you certain you can do it?”

“Yes,” Quincy replied clearly, speaking word by word. “The competition is only half a month away. I can’t afford to waste any time.”

At that moment, Leonard suddenly stepped into the hospital room, his face filled with disbelief.

“Quincy, you want to join the competition?”

Chapter 5

Quincy quickly hung up and answered as if nothing had happened. “A friend is entering a design competition and has invited me to come along.”

After hearing that, Leonard seemed relieved. “I heard the investor of Centaurus is also joining the competition. I thought you were going to be his navigator...”

He paused and looked at her with soft affection. “Quincy, once you fully recover, come back and be my navigator again, alright?”

Quincy gave a faint mocking smile. Leonard was busy practicing with Cora and didn’t even know she had already completed her rehabilitation training.

“We can talk about it later,” she brushed him off.

There was nothing left for them in the future anymore.

Quincy’s leg wasn’t badly hurt, so she was discharged from the hospital that night.

Early the next day, she reached the training grounds on schedule and met Rocco.

He was much younger than she imagined, with a good figure and a face that was far too handsome.

Quincy greeted Rocco, then changed into a black racing suit and smoothly settled into the driver’s seat.

Rocco took the passenger seat and fastened his seat belt.

Quincy paused for a moment. “You’re my navigator?”

Rocco smiled as he handed her the helmet. “What, you don’t trust me?”

Quincy said nothing. She took the helmet, put it on, and started the engine.

The moment the racecar shot forward, Rocco instinctively grabbed the handrail.

A faint smile appeared on Quincy’s lips as she pressed hard on the accelerator.

She had not driven a race car in years, but the instincts carved into her bones had never faded.

She drifted cleanly through several sharp turns. The tires screeched against the ground, kicking up dust.

Rocco pressed his lips together slightly, his eyes darkening.

Not from fear, but from surprise.

“You’re far better than I expected,” he said.

The smile on Quincy’s lips deepened as she kept her eyes fixed ahead and sped toward the next turn.

After one lap, the race car came to a smooth stop at the finish line.

Rocco clapped his hands and smiled. “I take back my earlier words. You’re way better than I expected.”

Quincy took off her helmet, her long hair falling over her shoulders.

She was not treating this competition like a game.

She wanted the championship.

Rocco looked at her with a deep gaze as if he had already known her for a long time. “Why did you suddenly accept my invitation?”

After a short silence, Quincy calmly replied, “Because some things should belong to me again.”

If she had not discovered the truth behind the accident, maybe her greatest wish would have been staying by Leonard’s side as Mrs. Barnes and raising children with him.

But now, she only wanted to be herself.

During the next half month, Quincy went to the training ground every day without fail.

Rocco carefully worked with her during training, and over time, the two developed strong teamwork.

They understood each other without needing to speak. A single look or movement was enough.

After training that day, Rocco handed Quincy a bottle of water.

“The race is the day after tomorrow. Nervous?”

Quincy accepted it with a smile and shook her head. “No.”

She had waited a whole month for this day.

Rocco nodded softly before asking, “Quincy, have you ever thought about why I was so determined to sign you?”

Quincy looked at him quietly, waiting for him to continue.

But Rocco said nothing more. Something unreadable flashed through his eyes.

Quincy did not press him for an answer. She was not curious. All she needed to do was to do her job properly.

On the way back to the villa, she received a news notification.

[Former racing genius Leonard announces his comeback, appearing publicly at the track with a new navigator.]

Below the headline was a photo.

Leonard and Cora stood beside the race car, their fingers tightly intertwined as they smiled at the camera.

Quincy stared at the photo with a calm expression that was almost frightening.

They would not be smiling for much longer. The police had already informed her that they would arrest them as soon as possible.

The next day, Quincy went to the race track to collect her number plate and ran into Cora.

“What are you doing here?” Cora glanced at Quincy from head to toe, her eyes full of mockery. “You can’t still be dreaming of becoming Leonard’s navigator, right?”

Abandoned for His First Love, Returned as Racing Champion

Chapter 3
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