Alex had decided to leave them to it. Having agreed for Seb to speak to his wife as well, she didn't want to be in the room while he told them, she couldn't bear the pitying looks she'd have got. Instead she'd gone outside to spend a little time walking around his large back garden. The space and quietness gave her time to reflect on what had just happened today. She'd told Seb almost everything. He now knew that Soren had hit her, knew that he'd beaten and kicked her, causing her to miscarry their first child and knew that Soren could be as gentle and loving as he was abusive and evil. That was all he needed to know. He'd be up in his office right now, persuading Britta and Gisela to let her stay. He was up there supporting her and fighting her corner for her. He'd chipped away at her armour and chiselled away at the icy exterior of her heart. He was getting under her skin and starting to mean something to her. Destroying his marriage and walking away to leave him with a broken home was starting to feel more and more wrong. Seb was different.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He sat up his desk observing the two women sat in the chairs in front of him. In the end he'd told them more than he'd originally wanted to, including Alex's own parents disowning her, and re-telling it had been as difficult for him as it was for Britta and Gisela to hear it.
Gisela had given a sad shake of her head. Having children of her own with Seb, she could only imagine the heartache and grief that Alex had endured with her miscarriages and knowing that Soren had caused one of them made her feel sick and hold Xiomar even tighter. The kids and her husband now felt even more precious to her, this had been a wake up call and a reminder of just how fortunate she was. She had a completely different view of Alex now. Knowing the abuse that she'd suffered over the period of six years, Gisela now thought Alex was a warrior and not a threat. Everything made sense; from her distant and offhand demeanour to the day she'd met the kids and couldn't get out of the house quick enough. She felt awful about the way she'd been with Alex just lately, the woman needed friends and not enemies.
Britta too felt awful. She felt so ashamed. Like Gisela; everything about Alex now made sense. Alex had learnt to build up this shield around her; Soren was the reason why she kept her life so compartmentalised, why she'd never let Seb become a friend and why she had never gelled as part of a team like Heikki and Antti before her. Alex had been unable to trust anyone, even her own family, and the man who had claimed to love her had beaten her, killed her baby and ground her down. No woman should ever have to deal with the things that Alex had, no one deserved to be physically and emotionally abused and Britta found Alex's tale hard to stomach and very upsetting. She wiped away her tears; it wasn't often that Seb saw her cry but she just couldn't stop herself, she just felt so much for Alex. But she told herself that things would change now; Alex had finally let Seb get closer to her, she'd let him become a friend, one who would support her and look out for her and Britta intended on getting closer to Alex too. They could be a team now and that could only be a huge benefit to Seb as well as Alex as the season progressed.
"So you both get why she's staying on, yeah?" Seb asked as he looked at the two emotional women in front of him. "She's still the best PT for me, I'm sure of it but also I'm not prepared to send her away to fall back into his clutch. If he gets to her again, he'll kill her."
Britta glanced at a silent Gisela, noticing the way she was clutching tightly onto Xiomar, it made her want to cry even more. She nodded tearfully to Seb, Alex had her backing from now on.
He slipped off of the desk and bent to put a hand on Britta's shoulder to comfort her. "Hey, come on, don't get upset. She'll be back in a minute and she's already insisted that she doesn't want anyone's pity. You're to act normal with her, ok?"
"I just feel so awful." She sniffed, tightening her grip on the notepad that was sitting in her lap.
"You weren't to know what she's been through, none of us did. We all just thought that that's how Alex is but she's strong, she's a fighter, she'll be ok."
"She's staying here with us, she's not to go back her place until she's one hundred percent ready." Gisela stated. Feeling guilty, she wanted to do what she could to help and if Alex felt better staying in their home, then that's where she had to be.
Seb smiled proudly at his wife and then winced with pain as his hurt lip reminded him that smiling was pretty difficult right now. "Thank you, I'm proud of you."
"We've never been through a miscarriage, I can't even begin to imagine how that would feel. To deal with that on top of being with a man like that......" She trailed off and instead pressed her lips to Xiomar's head for comfort.
The door creaked open and Alex quietly tapped on it before walking in. One look at Britta and Gisela's faces said it all, Seb had told them and now they were looking at her in that way she hated, with pity.
Britta was the first to speak, quickly brushing away her tears with her hand and springing up from her chair. "Come and sit here, we'll start your statement."
"It's fine, I don't need to sit down." She replied, giving Seb a curious look as she wondered exactly how much he'd told them.
"It's ok, you can have my chair." Gisela stood up too.
"Guys, I'm not ill or injured, I can stand." Alex found herself fighting the urge to run from the room. This was what she'd feared. She just wanted to be known as Aleksandra, the ball busting PT but right now all they saw was poor Alex - the victim of domestic abuse. And that was all Soren's fault. She'd never be rid of him.
"I've got to put Xiomar down for his afternoon nap so I'm going anyway." Gisela explained as she walked towards Alex. "You might as well have my seat."
"Thank you." Alex gave her a polite smile. This felt weird as well as uncomfortable, she wasn't used to Gisela being so nice.
"Oh and I've told Seb that you're to stay here for as long as you need." Gisela added, briefly stopping at the door.
Alex felt as though she could faint, it was like Gisela had just had a personality transplant. "Thank you, I'm sure I'll be ok back at my own place tonight though. You and Seb need your own space, you don't need me cluttering up the place."
"Well the offers there if you need it." She smiled before leaving them all to it.
"You're staying here for now." Seb pointed to the vacant chair. "Take a seat, let's get this statement done and then get back to normal, huh?"
"Yeah, sure." She smiled, appreciating his mention of getting back to normal, she needed that a lot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"This view never gets old." Seb panted, a little out of breath as he stopped his mountain bike at the height of the trail.
"It's so peaceful and so vast, it's beautiful." Alex agreed, looking around her and admiring how the landscape had changed over the last couple visits they'd had up here. She well remembered her first visit to the top of this hill, it had been in the winter and everywhere had looked bare and almost colourless but it had still taken her breath away. Now it was a patchwork of lush green fields and a myriad of green shades splattered with the pinks and whites of blossom thanks to the trees and bushes that had sprung into life.
"How do you feel now things are out in the open?" He asked, picking at a dried on bit of dirt on the handlebar of his bike.
She thought about it before she answered, how did she feel now that three people knew some of her secrets? How did it feel coming out as a victim of domestic abuse? No scrap that, she wasn't a victim, not anymore. Now she was a survivor. "I don't know really. How do you feel knowing what you know about me?"
He looked at her, wondering if she looked any different. Wearing her usual sportswear, she didn't look different at all. He'd wondered if she'd look as though some of the weight had been lifted from her shoulders but she didn't. "I admire you." He admitted.
"Me?!" She squeaked; no one had ever said that to her, certainly not someone like Sebastian Vettel. "There's nothing to admire about me." Inside she felt strangely happy and she found herself enjoying his small bit of praise. It was something that she wasn't used to at all.
"Yeah. I've learnt a lot about you today and I find myself admiring you for your bravery, strength and resilience. You're a fighter as well as a ball buster."
"I'm glad you still think I'm a ball buster, I'd hate to think that you thought I'd weakened there." She remarked with a smile which quickly faded as she added, "but I'm none of those things, I'm just a good actress."
Knowing that his favourite café was at the end of the trail, he got back on to his bike. "Come on, let's get something to drink."
She watched him pedal off with an odd feeling inside, worried that she might have offended him by disagreeing with his opinion of her. She was a good actress, she'd had to be throughout her life and it helped her to separate her working life from her personal life. It was her mask and her shield from the outside world, protecting her from other people. With a sigh she set off after him.
A short while later she found herself sitting opposite him, observing him as he devoured a large slice of chocolate cake. To the side sat a steaming mug of hot chocolate while in front of Alex was just a white coffee, she had no appetite whatsoever after earlier on.
"I understand you now." He said suddenly, his first words to her since they'd been at the top of the hill. "I now know why you never wanted to talk about anything personal, I know why you were always so distant."
"I find it impossible to let anyone in." She admitted, finding herself unable to look away as he started to lick his fingers clean. "Or at least I did until I met you."
His concentration went from his now empty plate to the woman sitting opposite him. Their gaze met across the table as he thought about her last words. She'd let him in, she was letting him get closer. And he could feel himself being pulled in, drawn in by some magic, magnetic force that temptingly invited him to delve deeper, making his mind picture her in scenarios that he knew he shouldn't be thinking of.
Seb's eyes were hypnotic, even more so when he was staring intensely into her own as he was now. Those feelings surfaced again; feelings that felt dangerous and scary because giving in to them would mean risking so much for her. Letting him in was a massive step for her but it was the only step she was prepared to take. She wanted him but she wanted him her way. But then even that was feeling wrong now; he was meant to be her next target, her revenge on him for letting her go at the end of June, she was supposed to be leaving a broken marriage behind her, doing what she did best. Now she was staying and Seb was getting too close to her for that, making her feel pulled in two different directions. She held his stare for a moment longer, his eyes giving away his attraction to her, making it clear that she was getting closer to what had been her ultimate prize. "I take it that the cake was good." She said, shattering the quiet but intense moment between them as a delicious shiver tingled down her spine.
He blinked a couple of times as the spell was broken and he looked back down at his empty plate. "Yeh." He replied quietly as his brain tried to process exactly what he'd just been feeling. Lust, longing, curiosity and temptation. "Thanks by the way."
Whatever had just been going through his mind must have been pretty major, he looked pretty stunned and then confused. She was getting under his skin, she knew it. Maybe Soren turning up in Monaco had been good for something. "I wanted to at least find one way of thanking you for everything you've done for me and chocolate cake seemed like a good way to start."
He picked up his mug of hot chocolate and couldn't resist inhaling its scent. "You don't have to thank me, I've done nothing really."
She slid her hand about half way across the table, she wasn't expecting him to take hold of it or anything like that but it was just a small gesture to try to show that she meant what she said. "You have Seb, you've done a lot. I could have been back in Almere right now, I could have been in hospital."
He shuddered at the thought of her laying in a hospital bed, battered and bruised from Soren's beating. It made him think of the time she'd miscarried, she was in hospital that time too. From her alienation from her family to living for six years in an abusive relationship, she'd gone through more shit already than anyone should in a lifetime.
"I'm not a victim." She announced suddenly, sounding quite offended because she was more or less able to read his thoughts.
He smirked at her over the top of his mug before taking a sip and then saying in a flirty, suggestive tone, "you're right. You're a lot of things Aleksandra and a victim isn't one of them."
His sudden flirty nature made her relax and she leant back in her chair, enjoying this chance to banter back at him, "are you flirting with me Sebastian Vettel?"
His eyes twinkled mischievously as he took another sip of his hot drink. This was more like it! This was the kind of relationship he'd wanted to be able to have with her from the start - the odd harmless flirt, some jokes and banter. Except that now, flirting would feel far from harmless.