Chloe woke up with a cracking headache, clearly her and alcohol wasn't friends anymore. Her stomach churned with the feeling of nausea, not helped by the weight of Seb's arm laying across her.
"Guten morgan liebe." By the sound of Seb's croaky voice he might not be feeling any better than her. "Was für eine Nacht."
"Can you translate that for me, my brain hurts." She replied, stroking his arm lightly with her finger tips.
"Sorry, what I meant was, what a night." He shuffled a little closer to her.
"It was a good one." She smiled as her eyes fell on her boots on the bedroom floor. She wasn't sure where her dress was. "Not that I can remember all of it."
"I hope you remember the best parts." He pressed his lips to her shoulder. "If not, I can remind you. Kind of right now." He moved again, she could feel his erection press against her. He obviously wasn't feeling as hungover as her then. A huge wave a nausea suddenly hit her and she flew out of bed and into the bathroom. Seb rolled his eyes as he heard her throwing up. He sighed as he got up, his alarm was due to go off any minute, meaning they had an hour to leave the house for the airport to catch their flight to Italy. He had a meeting with his engineers today about his cars performance in Melbourne and then a few hours simulator work in the late afternoon. They would have go to straight to Maranello from the airport. He threw on a pair of navy sweatpants and headed down to the kitchen deciding to make toast and tea for Chloe to see if he could help with her hangover, if not it was going to be a long journey. Antti was already here, drinking a green smoothie. The sight of it made his stomach churn, maybe he hadn't escaped the hangover so much after all. Best make that two teas with toast now.
"You ok? You look a little off colour." Antti looked concerned.
"I'm ok, we went out last night." He couldn't stop the smirk from forming on his face as he thought about their antics last night. "You should see Chloe, she looks worse." He picked up the kettle and poured hot water into two mugs.
"Cheers Seb." Chloe walked into the kitchen and plonked herself down at the table.
"You do look rough Chloe." Antti grinned as he saw her pale face and messed up hair. "Heavy night was it?"
"You could say that." She held her head in her hands while watching Seb put bread in the toaster. "You're not making toast for me are you?"
"I am, and you're going to eat it." He removed the tea bags from the mug and placed a mug in front of her. "And drink this, tea always helps me if I feel sick."
"Oh shit." She got up quickly, the sight of Antti's smoothie was too much for her, she ran back up to the bathroom.
"We're going to have a fun trip today." Antti smirked. "I'm going to enjoy this."
"Don't you dare, I don't want to miss any simulator time today. I can't miss this flight." Seb looked towards the doorway, waiting for Chloe to come back.
"By the way, I picked her dress up from the floor in the hallway." Antti got up from his stool at the breakfast bar. "Can't think how that could have possibly ended up there." He grinned and high fived Seb before leaving the kitchen.
~*~
The car journey wasn't too great, it was only about 40 minutes long but Seb had stopped twice so far for Chloe to throw up at the roadside. He was feeling slightly anxious about the possibility of her ruining his car's interior.
"Seb. Stop!" She was already reaching for the door handle.
"For fucks sake Chloe, we're literally five minutes from the airport." He slammed on the breaks as she opened the door to be sick. Even Antti was no longer finding it funny.
"I'm sorry, I'm not usually like this." She sat back in her seat, grabbing her water bottle to rinse her mouth out before closing the door.
"You had several shots last night." He replied, moving the car away from roadside again.
"I don't normally have shots." She was starting to feel embarrassed as well as sick now.
"Well that explains that then." Seb shot back. "Maybe next time lay off the shots, or better still lay off the alcohol."
"Your friends were buying them, and you bought some. I wasn't going to turn them down." She kept her hand on her stomach. "Don't blame me for the fact you were all buying me drinks all night."
"What did you to think to Eva and Steef? You seemed to get on very well with them." He wanted to change the subject a bit and also kind of test the waters to see if she'd possibly consider trying his secret hobby.
"I really liked them. They're great." She smiled. "A bit tactile though."
"Yes, it's just how they are though. You didn't seem to mind it when you were dancing with Eva." He glanced in his mirror, he knew he couldn't say too much in front of Antti.
"Must have been the alcohol." She blushed as she looked out of the window.
"Would you be up for spending time with them again? I could invite them over one evening." He internally crossed his fingers.
"They're your friends, of course I would. I'd love to." She smiled.
"We'll sort something out soon then." He left the motorway and headed for the terminal car park, thinking that maybe it'd be best to just have them over for drinks first. With Chloe's past it might not be good to rush things, but he was already imagining the fun they could have.
~*~
The short flight was relatively trouble free, Chloe was only sick once more, she had spent most of it sleeping on Seb's shoulder. Now she found herself at her office door, it the first time she'd been back here since Stephen and Michael had turned up unexpectedly. As she unlocked the door and stepped inside she took a deep breath and looked around. After seeing Michael she somehow felt different being here, a small part of her wished he would turn up again, she hadn't spent nearly enough time with him as she had wanted to. She wondered if he'd still be involved with Ferrari and frequently visiting Maranello if he hadn't had his accident. She put her lap top on the desk and turned it on and sat down. She was glad her nausea seemed to be going now, as was her headache. Not keeping painkillers down meant she had been suffering this morning, it was certainly the worst hangover she'd had for a long time. She wondered if she could try a coffee now she was feeling more human but quickly got distracted by the volume of emails there was on her lap top, not working yesterday hadn't been a good idea. It was going to be a long afternoon dealing with various requests from news papers, magazines and tv stations. She also had to send some updates to the team that ran Seb's website. About an hour in and she was already losing the plot, two tv stations wanted to change time slots for Bahrain and a German magazine was now pressuring her for some of Seb's time in China as well as the BBC radio five live station. Her attention was suddenly taken by a very familiar voice outside, Stephen. She wondered what the fuck he was doing here again, she felt her stomach churn and her palms getting sweaty at the fact he was again at such close proximity to her. She tried to keep her nerves in control. As she looked towards the window next to her door he came in to view, she could feel panic creeping in as he stopped and looked in, a smug smile on his face. Her eyes flicked to the door handle to see if he was going to come in or if Michael's warning for him to stay away from her had done the trick. He opened the door and stepped in. "Good afternoon Chloe."
"Get out." She spat.
"I'm here for business Chloe." He replied.
"I said get out." She gripped the arms of her chair.
"I have to speak to you about Sebastian, strictly business." He held his hands up in defence.
"I'm sure there's someone else you could speak to." She could feel her heart thumping in her chest, no one else ever had this effect on her.
"You his PR as well as PA aren't you?"
"Yes, but......."
"Then it's you I need to speak to." He slowly approached the chair in front of her desk.
"Well I don't want to speak to you." She tried to keep her voice level and calm.
"Now come on Chloe, lets be professional about this." He stopped near the chair but didn't sit down. He could see the colour had drained from her face. "I need to speak with you as we would like Sebastian to attend a function in Bahrain on Thursday evening, Lewis is also attending. We wanted the two main championship contenders to be there."
"He'll be busy." She snapped.
"You haven't even looked to check his schedule, don't be obstructive." He leant on the chair.
"And you've had to personally come here to ask me have you? Couldn't you have just emailed me?" She raised a brow at him.
"I still have a property not far from here so as I was already in the area I thought it would be easier to speak to you. Would you have opened an email from me?"
"No, I probably wouldn't have opened an email from you, I don't want anything to do with you." She was desperate to just get out of the room now.
"Please, check Sebastian's schedule. The sooner you do it, the sooner I'll leave." He sat down on the chair making it perfectly clear he wasn't moving until she gave him an answer. She let out a huff of air and opened the schedule on her lap top, clicking the tab for Thursday next week and scrolling down to the evening. She knew he'd be free, she tried to keep evenings free from Thursday onwards on a race week, it was precious time for them both to relax.
"We..... I mean Seb, he likes to keep Thursday evenings free on a race week." She mumbled as she looked at her screen.
"I don't mean to keep you from your boyfriend, but it's imperative that he attends. Of course you are welcome also, Lewis is bringing his PA, Angela, too."
"So basically even though you're having me check Seb's schedule, he's got to attend either way." She rolled her eyes, it didn't go un-noticed by Stephen.
"He hasn't got to attend but for Liberty Media it's important he does so."
"What time?" She huffed.
"It'll be 7.30pm at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in the business centre, I imagine Sebastian and yourself are already booked to stay there?" He knew a lot of drivers and senior management would be staying there, including himself.
"No we are not staying there." Seb had insisted on booking them in to the Four Seasons hotel, not that she was going to tell Stephen that.
"So, you've put it in his schedule?" He was quickly getting tired of her stubbornness.
"Yes. It's in the schedule." She finished adding it in and clicked on save. She knew Seb wouldn't be happy about it.
"Thank you." He stood up and for a moment he simply stared at her.
"Now what?" Her eyes rose up from her screen to him.
"Chloe, the other week, when I was here........"
"Get out!" She yelled. "Just go, please!"
"Ok, ok." He turned and left, leaving her door open. She quickly got up and slammed it shut, then returned to her seat. She sat there feeling angry and upset, Seb was right, she should have seen things through with the police. She should have put herself first instead of the team and the sport, if she'd done that then he wouldn't still be haunting her today. Without thinking she picked up a mug that stood on her desk and threw it across the room against the wall in temper, it shattered into pieces. She slammed down the lid of her lap top and slumped forward on to her desk in tears, her return to F1 had come at a price, having to set eyes on Stephen again and again.
~*~
It was gone 7pm when Seb finally got into Chloe's office with Antti to collect her to take her back to his house. He nudged Antti and tried not to laugh at the sight that was in front of him. She was asleep at her desk, her head resting on her folded arms. He got his phone out of his pocket and took a couple of photos.
"I can use those for blackmail." He whispered, grinning at Antti. He sat down in front of her desk. "Chloe!" He yelled, laughing and clapping his hands, thinking it was funny to wake her like that. She jumped in fright and screamed, he suddenly realised she wasn't going to find it funny as leapt out of her chair.
"Fucking hell Sebastian! What the fuck!" She picked up a pen off the desk and threw it at him in fury.
"Hey, I was just mucking about." He flinched as the pen hit his arm.
"It not fucking funny!" She stood against the wall behind the desk, breathing heavily.
"Did that mug do something to upset you earlier?" Antti asked, pointing at the remains of the mug she'd thrown against the wall across the room.
"It'll be him next if he bloody does that again!" She sat down.
"Has something happened?" Seb looked worried.
"Let's just get out of here." She stood up, grabbing her bag and walked to the door. Seb and Antti just looked at each other, wondering what was wrong. They left the office and watched as she locked the door before striding down the corridor ahead of them. Once they'd all got in the car Seb decided to ask her again.
"Liebe, has something happened?" He put his hand on her's.
"Can we just get back to the house?" She muttered.
"Look, I'm sorry I frightened you like that. I thought you'd find it funny." He started the car and reversed out from the space.
"Well I didn't."
"You thought it was Stephen didn't you." He remembered that the last time she was here was when Stephen had appeared in her office, and then Michael. He drove out of the car park, she stayed silent. "Shit, Chloe I'm sorry. I didn't think. I almost forgot that the last time you was here........"
"He's been here today." She interrupted him.
"What?!" He glanced across at her as they left the Ferrari site behind.
"In my office, he turned up in my office again."
"You should have called for me." It made him feel sick to know Stephen had been near her again. "Or called Antti. What did he want?"
"He was here for work purposes, he wants you to attend a function in Bahrain." She felt him take her hand, holding it tightly.
"You told him to fuck off, right?" Seb asked.
"It's on the Thursday evening, 7.30pm at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, in the business centre. Lewis is going too, Liberty Media want you both there."
"You said no though?" He replied.
"We're going, he said it's important that you go so I'm coming with you."
"We won't be going." He didn't want to do anything that man asked them to do.
"I'm not speaking to the twat again to tell him we're not going, so we are going to go. Lewis is bringing Angela with him so I'll come too."
"Seriously Chloe?" He couldn't believe she had bowed down to what Stephen wanted. "You know I want to keep that night free on a race week, I told you that."
"I know and I told him that, he didn't give me much choice." She felt her mood diving even further. He didn't reply, he knew he should drop the subject now. Chloe was right, things like that he had no real control over, he just wished she had done something about Stephen and followed it through when she first had the chance. He had no idea how he was going to feel if he had to face him that night, he was still far from ok with what had happened to her and probably never would be. Even her attachment to Michael still bothered him even though there was times he managed to push it to the back of his mind.
~*~
They lay in bed together that night with Chloe cuddled up to him. She had been quiet all night making him feel guilty for spooking her, seeing Stephen had obviously shaken her up again. They spoke briefly about it again after he had noticed her puffy eyes from getting upset and angry earlier, and she had admitted that she was going to have to get used to seeing him around at races despite Michael telling him to stay away. After a while they both lay on their sides with Seb spooning her, holding her tight. He was determined to keep her safe from Stephen whether he was still a threat or not.