Love Always Wins

83

Sunday September 13th.

A pleasant chill ran down Chloe's spine and goosebumps made the fine hairs on her arm stand up as the F2004 came to stop. Although she hadn't been working for Michael when he'd driven that particular Ferrari F1 car in 2004, it was still magical to see it and hear it. Watching the young man as he emerged from the cockpit, anyone could have been mistaken in thinking that perhaps they'd travelled back in time and was now witnessing the great man himself. Certainly Chloe felt like that right now and his distinctive race helmet made it seem all the more real. But this wasn't 2004 and it wasn't Michael. Mick Schumacher had just completed a couple of laps in his father's championship winning Formula One car, a car that she knew that her husband would have loved the chance to drive himself. Who knows, if he'd that car this year instead of his current nightmare, the SF1000, he might have even been leading the championship and finishing his career at Ferrari on a high instead of the constant low he was stuck in right now. Maybe he'd have been treated better by Mattia as a result. Mesmerised by the beautiful, red F2004, she kept staring at it, taking in every little detail she could see from the distance she was at. She found herself wondering why Michael wasn't here, why it hadn't been him driving that car instead of Mick on Ferrari's 1000th Grand Prix weekend but then he'd scarcely been seen in public since the trial in Norway, since his wife had been in-prisoned. She knew that Mick was looking her way without her breaking her gaze on the car, she could feel his eyes boring holes into her skin with a glare that was still full of hate. Across the width of the track, she shifted her focus briefly to him and for a moment she felt like Michael was staring back at her until his face changed into the hostile glare of his son.

Then a strong pair of arms wrapped themselves around her front, literally appearing from nowhere, making her jump and swear with fright.

Seb chuckled, it always amused him when he startled her and he kissed her head twice by way of an apology. "I should've guessed you'd be out here."

She spun round in his embrace, feeling like he'd caught her doing something that she shouldn't be. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist the chance to see it. Please don't think that I'm out here because of Michael."

"It's fine liebe, really. It's a beautiful car, if I could I'd have one of those sitting in the garage back home."

"Why haven't you then?" She smiled as he toyed with her long hair, brushing it back behind shoulders to try and stop the breeze from blowing it across her face.

"Too expensive."

"Really?!" She found that very hard to believe, this was Sebastian Vettel, the man who could afford to buy anything his heart desired.

"Believe it or not, yes. There's not many of them around but there's a couple so I keep my eye on the prices."

"You should ask if you can race that instead of the Lada you've got to drive today."

"Hey there's nothing wrong with a Lada." He laughed at her disgusted expression.

"I hope you're joking." She replied, she knew he liked classic cars but that was scraping the bottom of the barrel.

"Of course I'm joking." He booped her nose with his finger through her mask before his expression turned more serious and he frowned at her. "You look tired, you didn't sleep much again last night did you."

"I just couldn't seem to drift off." She admitted with a yawn at the end, brought on by him reminding her how she tired she felt.

"You need to stop worrying about Viviana." He said as he took her hand and started to lead her back to the garage. In an instant a photographer was on them, photos of Seb with his wife were quite rare nowadays and this guy was snapping away, greedily trying to have his fill despite all the opportunities that the media had had on Thursday. Seb quickly got annoyed, his protective instinct towards his wife kicking in. "That's quite enough." He rose his voice to the man, his firm, clipped tone making his displeasure obvious. "So, as I was saying...." He continued once the man had scurried away, no doubt to sell his images to the highest bidder. "....you need to stop worrying about Viviana. She's not worth losing sleep over."