Love Always Wins

87

Saturday September 26th. Sochi, Russia.

Having arrived late to Sochi, Viviana scanned her pass at the security gate to gain entrance to the F1 paddock. She was little apprehensive of seeing her colleagues as the last time she'd seen them they'd all been completely and utterly drunk, well all of them except herself and Seb maybe. She was ready to face the German today, ready to feel his wrath for what she did that night, she still didn't regret trying to kiss him, she only regretted that it hadn't happened.

"Good afternoon Viviana, how are you?" asked Mark, a photographer she'd got to know a little as the season had gone on, he snapped away at her with his camera as she walked.

Treating the paddock like her very own catwalk, she added a little extra sway to her hips and smiled, tilting her RayBans just enough to peek at him over the top of them. "Hi Mark, very well thank you! I hope you are too!"

Getting closer to Ferrari's area, Mark left her alone and she walked straight into the secure offices to get rid of her bag and to get her camera ready to grab some shots of the cars and the drivers.

"Hi Viviana." Silvia chimed as she walked in.

"Hi Silvia."

"How did the night with the guys go? It must have been pretty wild because so far of everyone I've asked, not one person can remember much of the night except for being very hungover the next day."

Viviana looked up from the camera, no one had remembered anything? "Really? They were all that drunk?"

"It seems that way, don't tell me you can't you remember too. Honestly those men are such a bad influence! Heikki said that Seb was sick that night and felt awful the next day."

"I can remember some of it, we were all drinking beers and vodka shots, Gio made some daft speech and said he hoped that Ferrari could at least win one race out of the next one thousand, I was glad that Mattia wasn't there to hear it."

"Well at least you can remember the night because even Seb couldn't, it's very rare he gets that drunk."

Viviana tried to hide her surprise. "Oh, Seb couldn't remember the night either?"

"That's what I've heard, that he couldn't remember anything beyond you buying a round of shots and offering one to him. Maybe you'll have to fill him in on the blank parts."

She wasn't sure if she was disappointed or relieved that Seb had forgotten her trying to kiss him, at least now she could tell him what she liked and he'd believe it. She could have a little fun with this if she wanted to, maybe toy with him a bit, see how far she could take it.

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She headed straight into Seb's garage and straight over to Gio to check on what he remembered from that night. Nothing much at all as it turned out, he could barely remember anything beyond leaving his hotel room, having pretty much drunk everything that was alcoholic in his minibar fridge. The more members of Seb's crew that she spoke to, the more it dawned on her that no one seemed to remember her making a pass at their married driver.

Having had a fairly decent Friday with the car, Seb was feeling slightly more optimistic as he warmed up with Heikki. The new updates to the car had only given small results like everyone back at the factory had expected but there was definitely some improvement.

Heikki stood back, with his stop watch in his hand, watching Seb using a skipping rope. His driver seemed more motivated today and looked like a completely different man to the hungover guy he'd seen in Italy, it was clear that his little trip away with his young family last weekend had done him so much good. Thinking of their night in the bar, Seb hadn't said much about it ever since. "You know there's loads of the guys who can't remember much of the post race drinks we attended, can you?"