Love Always Wins

89

"You do realise that what Sebastian is accusing you of amounts to sexual harassment?" Mattia asked, getting the feeling that his media officer wasn't taking this as seriously as she should.

"The kiss in the bar, we were drunk...." She began.

"Sebastian claims there was no kiss but that you made a pass at him, leaning into him in a very intimidating, overtly sexual manner." Alessa cut in.

"We were drunk, everyone was and people can sometimes do stupid things when they're drunk. So I made a pass at him! I bet I'm not the first woman to do that!" She scoffed, leaning back in her seat and throwing Mattia a challenging look.

"And what about the incident where you let yourself into his motorhome at Silverstone and then refused to leave?"

"Bullshit!" She scoffed again. "Complete and utter bullshit! He held the door open for me!"

"He says he tried to get you to leave but you refused."

"He's a liar! I was cleaning up for him! Honestly, you should have seen the state of the place! He was obviously on a downer that day and was missing his wife, I just helped him out. We sat and drank beers together after I'd cleaned up!" She noticed Mattia's expression change, he hadn't known that Seb had been drinking alcohol the night before a race. Well he did now.

"He says he tried twice to get you to leave." Alessa insisted.

"Bull crap."

"Ok, so tell me about the little touches and the remarks. I quote: 'Viviana would say things like - if you were my husband or if you were mine. She'd always make a point of touching me on my arm or shoulder, she always got way too close to me and would especially do this if my wife was around. She'd make remarks about her sex life to me, telling me that she wasn't happy in her new relationship.' What do you say to that?"

"Like I said I'm friendly and tactile, it's the way I've been brought up. Maybe I'm an over-sharer, maybe I shouldn't have moaned to him about my sex life, I'll admit that was a mistake and a case of TMI but I can't change the way I am. Look, if you want me to apologise to him at the next race in Germany then that's what I'll do. The last thing I want is for him to find me intimidating. I'll even apologise to Chloe." She looked from Alessa to Mattia and back again as the two exchanged an uneasy look.

"Viviana, as Mattia has said, these allegations amount to sexual harassment and are extremely serious." Alessa looked to Mattia once more, they'd made their minds up.

"So basically I can apologise until I'm blue in the face, you've already decided that you want me out."

"You have to understand Viviana, if you were making these kinds of allegations about a male college then we'd have to treat this extremely seriously. We can't just ignore this and treat this any less seriously just because it's the other way around." Mattia explained. He didn't want Viviana to go, she was good at her job, really good.

She bit her tongue as she felt herself getting upset. To her, it was obvious what was coming next. Well they could go to hell! If they were going to fire her then she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction.

"We can't let this sort of behaviour be tolerated in a sport like ours. Formula One is a global sport, a global business and sexual harassment has no place here just like racism." He continued.

She stood up, shoving her chair back behind her. She could feel hot, angry tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She loved this job and she loved Ferrari and while she didn't think that Sebastian's complaints were that bad, they obviously did. "It's fine, you don't have to say another word, I know exactly where this conversation is going. I quit." She bent to pick up her bag and then stormed out of the room.