As Seb drove his Porsche Cayenne, Nevaeh gazed out of the window, thinking of how depressingly familiar the scenery looked already. To everyone else, the country that Seb called his home was beautiful with rolling hills, mountains, lakes and green fields but to Neev it was a reminder of what she'd left behind. It was a reminder of her failed marriage and how unhappy she'd been in the last year or so of their marriage as well as the happier times before it.
Next to her, Seb glanced in his mirror to see Anaya gazing out of the window with a look of fascination on her face. She'd cheered up the second she'd realised that her mother was coming with them and spent the drive to airfield and the flight here in a whirl of excitement. He already couldn't wait until Saturday when he'd get to introduce her to his family. Nevaeh, however, was a different story. She hadn't uttered a single word since they'd got off of the plane and she'd stared constantly out of the window, not even looking his way once during their drive to his home. She might have been here physically but in her mind he knew that she'd be miles away - with Fernando. He could literally feel her mood diving as the time went on and he was worried about her seeing his family after so long, especially as they all knew that she'd kept Anaya secret from him since before her birth. He glanced at her, there was no other way to describe her expression other than glum. "Are you ok?" He asked to try and get her talking.
"I'm fine." She replied almost automatically.
He knew her well enough to know that I'm fine was her default response for when she wasn't. It was something he'd learnt to look out for after a tip from his father - When a woman tells you that she's fine, she's never fine. Take it as a warning that she's far from fine and probably mad at you for something.
"Are we nearly there daddy?" Anaya suddenly chirped up from her seat in the back.
He smiled, still getting a thrill from her calling him daddy. "Almost, just a few more minutes."
"I'm hungry." She whined.
"I'll get you something to eat as soon as we get there, ok?" He then looked to Neev again. "You hungry too?"
"Not really." She answered, sounding bored.
"Neev....." He placed his hand on her knee, an action that made her head snap to the left to look at him. ".....thank you for doing this."
"For doing what?" She asked, looking down at his hand and wishing he'd remove it while inside her conscience was urging him to move it higher. She blinked a couple of times, banishing the thought from her mind.
"For coming with Anaya, I know it can't be easy for you coming back to Switzerland."
"You're right. It's not." She uttered quietly while removing his hand from her knee.
"If you're worried about seeing my family....."
"It's not just that." She cut him off. "Can we not talk about it?"
He glanced in the mirror to see Anaya now watching them with a puzzled frown on her little face. "Please try and be happy for her." He murmured as he returned his eyes to the road ahead. "I know you didn't want to come but Anaya did and she's happy and excited to be here, please don't let your mood spoil it for her."
"I'll try but maybe it'll be better for both of you if you act like I'm not here for the whole weekend. Don't include me in anything, don't make me see your parents and just leave me to do my own thing." She replied grumpily.
"Fine." He snapped, suddenly pissed off with her attitude. Maybe it would have been better if he'd made Anaya come without her mother if Neev was going to be like this all weekend.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Getting out of the car, she looked up at the large converted mill that used to be her marital home. She turned and looked back at the yard, still able to see herself in front of Seb's car as she'd coldly told him that she wanted a divorce, still able to see the taxi that had picked her up and taken her to the airport to get her flight back to Britain that same day. Hearing Anaya's little footsteps running from the car, she turned back to see her eagerly waiting for Seb to open the door and let her in.
"Are you coming in or are you staying out here all weekend?" He asked moodily.
His tone only reminded her further of the man she'd left behind, leaving him had the best thing she'd ever done. She nodded and noticing how he was carrying her bag as well as her daughter's, she followed him to enter the house. It was exactly as she remembered, it had barely changed except for fresh white paintwork in between the solid dark wooden beams on the walls and across the ceiling. He still had the same small pieces of abstract art work dotted around between some the beams in the walls, the flooring was still the same dark oak, varnished wood and as she entered the lounge the only differences she could see there was a different sofa and armchairs and a new looking, large tv mounted on the even larger chimney breast.
"It's not changed much, as you can see." He remarked as if he knew what was going through her mind.
Her eyes settled on a couple of photos on the windowsill; surprisingly he already had a photo of Anaya in a frame, probably taken the first time he'd spent time with her and next to that was one of his parents that looked like it was taken one summer.
"Shall I show you your room princess?" He asked as he scooped Anaya up, leaving Neev's bag on the floor. "You've got own special room for when you come to stay."
She nodded before asking, "Then can we eat?"
"Of course we can. What do you want to eat?" He smiled, he was so happy to have her here. The place had stopped feeling like a home the day that Nevaeh had left him and it already felt more homely again just by having his daughter here.
"Pizza?" She asked.
"I'm sure I've got pizzas in the freezer, we'll go and look at your new bedroom and then we'll pick out a pizza together, ok?" Turning to Neev just before he walked away, he asked, "Do you want me to show which room is yours? I mean, you could find it yourself, I take it you still remember your way around?"
"If you could yeah." She answered meekly, she didn't feel comfortable wandering around the place just yet. While he might think of this as Anaya's home it certainly wasn't hers.
Neev watched as he walked away and picked up her bag before following him. She had to smile as she went up the stairs, the sixth step up still creaked when it was trodden on.
Carrying Anaya on his hip and holding her bag in his free hand, he nudged a door open and stepped inside. Hearing her gasp and seeing her face as she saw her room was the best thing ever.
"A rocking horse!!" She almost screamed with excitement and instantly wriggled to be put down.
Behind him he heard Nevaeh gasp too.
"Oh wow." She'd just walked into her daughter's ultimate fantasy bedroom. The walls were pale pink with pine flooring and on one wall a painted mural dominated. It was a beautiful scene of a green field with two horses, a brown one grazing and a white one standing, with a backdrop of trees and mountains and a blue lake in the middle. Anaya's bed was a fairytale four poster with a string of little fairy lights going around the top. There was pine furniture, a dolls house that was taller than Anaya herself and of course, the one thing that had captured the little girls attention first, the large rocking horse. Straddling a solid pine frame, the white horse had a dappled grey effect dotted on it's sides, a long silver grey mane and tail, a dark burgundy leather saddle and bridal with reigns and even proper metal stirrups. She'd seen these kind of things online and knew it would have cost him at least two thousand euro.
The second her feet touched the ground, Anaya bolted to the rocking horse leaving Seb laughing behind her. "I thought you'd see that first!"
Neev watched as her daughter managed to climb on the frame and then onto the horse with ease while her father got his phone from his pocket and started taking photos to capture the moment. Getting over the shock of seeing such a beautiful room, she joined him, stopping beside him and putting a hand on his shoulder.
"You like it?" He asked, glancing from his daughter to his ex. Although he hadn't done a lot the decorating, he'd been heavily involved in its design and had painted the mural himself whenever he'd had any amount of spare time. He was quite proud of the end result and her opinion mattered to him just as much as their daughter's.
"It's beautiful, it's just amazing." She gushed. "Who did the mural?"
"I did."
She could tell from his voice and the smile on his face that he was proud of what he'd done and he had every right to be, Seb was actually quite talented when it came to drawing and painting, something that not many people knew. "It's beautiful but you didn't have to go to all this trouble."
"Of course I did, she's my daughter, our daughter." He looked back to Anaya who was riding her horse like a natural. "I know she loves horses and ponies so I thought I'd give her a room of her own and theme it around it them."
"Well she loves it as you can see." Neev smiled, loving seeing her little girl looking so happy. "It's amazing, thank you."
"No need to thank me, I couldn't not have our child not having her own room. Shall I show you yours?"
"Yeah, if you don't mind." She nodded.
He turned and left the room and she followed him quietly. She was bowled over by his generosity, it must have cost him a fortune to have Anaya's room decorated and furnished without adding on the cost of the rocking horse. It just showed her how very seriously he took his role as Anaya's dad, how much he loved the little girl already and how much he wanted her to view his home as hers too.
"Here we go." He opened a door and stepped aside to let her enter. "I figured that you wouldn't want to be too far from Anaya so her room is between both of ours."
"Thank you." She smiled. "And thanks again for her room, she loves it. It must have cost you a lot of money though."
"Cost is nothing when it comes to my daughter." He shrugged as though it'd only cost him a few euro.
"Well it means a lot to her and to me too."
His stance towards her softened, he found himself no longer as annoyed at her as he was in the car. She fell quiet as she looked around the room and he could only imagine the memories that being back here was bringing back to her mind.
As if she was echoing his thoughts, she turned to face him and said, "It brings back so much being here."
"Good as well as bad I hope." He replied.
Despite her not wanting to, she found herself gazing at him, taking in his handsome face and those beautiful blue eyes that always, so freely, showed every emotion. Of course she remembered the good times, they'd had plenty during their time together and as one or two special memories came to mind, she found those blue eyes locking with hers, mirroring her thoughts and connecting with her in the way they used to - before it had all started to go wrong. The man she'd loved was still there, he was standing right in front of her.
His beautiful Nevaeh, the only woman he'd ever truly loved and whom he still loved was here and holding him fast with eyes that were just as vivid as his own. He knew that she was remembering the exact same memories as he was, ones filled with love, passion and lust, ones where they'd simply been unable to get enough of each other. The butterflies made his whole body tingle before a burst of warmth blossomed inside him and his body began to react as he longed for those moments again. And she wanted it too, he knew it, he could tell.
Hearing little footsteps heading their way, Nevaeh blinked rapidly, breaking the spell and banishing those memories to back where they belonged while Seb looked a bit guilty and his face flushed at his body's reaction to what they'd both been thinking.
"I'm hungry." Whined a small voice.
Figuring that he'd need a moment alone to gather his thoughts, she swept past him to go to her daughter. "Why don't we wash your hands and then we'll join daddy in the kitchen." She took Anaya's hand to lead her away but not before stealing a glance at Seb who she heard sigh heavily while letting his head lull back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nevaeh turned over and over in bed, going from laying on her left side to her right, then to her front and then to her back. She just couldn't sleep, no matter how hard she tried. Being here just felt too weird, this house was too full of memories. Outside the rain was lashing against the windows, drumming noisily and endlessly, making her wish that she was back in Spain, back with Fernando. With a huff she threw the duvet back and sat up to reach out and put the bedside light on. As she looked around the neutrally decorated room her eyes settled on something that she hadn't noticed earlier on one of the walls and she swung her legs out to get out of bed and take a closer look at it. Her lips twitched in to a ghost of a smile as her fingers touched the glass that housed the photo of herself and Seb, taken on their wedding day. Standing in the doorway of the church, gazing into each other's eyes, they both looked so happy and so in love. And they had been until his career had become more important. Closing her eyes, she relived that day in her mind. Back then she'd been so happy, her heart had been so full of Sebastian. She remembered the emotional moment when they'd taken their vows, the moment he'd slipped a beautifully simple gold wedding band onto her finger, the way he'd nibbled on his bottom lip to try and stop his tears as she'd slid his gold band onto his finger and his smile and sparkling eyes when they'd been pronounced as husband and wife. It was all too painful to think of it now as the photo, along with her memories, became blurred by tears.
Seb sat in the kitchen at the table staring blankly ahead while twirling a wine glass round and round by its stem with his fingers. Unable to sleep, he'd come down to the kitchen to see if a glass of red wine would help him to drift off. He doubted that it would though, all he could see when he closed his eyes was Nevaeh. His mind just wouldn't shut up, instead it seemed to want to provide him with thoughts and memories of happier times with her and then it wanted to list the reasons why they were now divorced. His eyes flickered to the dark liquid as it moved in the glass, having Nevaeh here was too painful. It might have made his daughter happy but all it did for him right now was hammer home how he was still in love with her mother. Some movement caught his eye and he looked up from his glass expecting to see Anaya, instead his gaze settled on the woman who was rooted in his thoughts.
She almost skidded to a halt on the grey tiled floor, startled by his presence. "Oh, sorry." She stammered before scuttling past him to the sink. "I erm..... I just wanted a glass of water."
With a concerned frown, he turned in his seat to follow her with his gaze. Had she been crying? Her eyes looked pink and puffy. He watched as she automatically went to one of the top cupboards for a glass. She seemed to still know where everything was, it was like she'd never been away.
"I couldn't sleep." She added, feeling as though she had to explain her reason in coming down here for a drink.
"Neither could I." Seb admitted as she ran the tap and filled her glass.
As she downed her glass of water she could feel his gaze on her and she knew that he'd noticed how she'd been crying. Running the tap again, she thought about refilling her glass so that she hadn't got to turn around and face him while trying to sound upbeat as she said, "The rain is keeping me awake, how about you?"
He knew exactly what she was up to, trying to use any excuse that she could so she didn't have to turn and face him. "You've been crying Neev." He stated quite matter-of-factly.
"No I haven't." She replied quickly, turning the tap off as she realised that she didn't really want to drink anymore water.
"Then why won't you look at me?"
Her eyes snapped shut to avoid another onset of tears. Pushing the wave of emotion to one side, she tried to sound confident as she replied, "I'm just getting a drink."
"Turn around Nevaeh."
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that looking at him right now would hurt, just like looking at their wedding photo had.
The fact that she was staying silent and not moving told him that he was right. For some reason she was upset, maybe she'd had an argument with Fernando. He concentrated on his wine glass again, fighting his instinct to go to her and pull her into his arms.
As she heard the annoying sound of his wine glass scraping on the wooden table, the one question that was playing on her mind came out of her mouth before she could stop herself, "Why did you leave that wedding photo in my room?"
His eyes darted up focus on her back. What wedding photo? He was certain that he'd removed all photos of her a long time ago.
"There's a photo of us on a wall in my room." She added, as if she knew what he was thinking. It would be typical of him to play a trick like this and then pretend that he didn't know what she was going on about.
He leant back in his seat, letting out a frustrated sigh while covering his face with his hands. He rarely ever went in the guest bedroom that Neev was staying in, he'd forgotten all about that photo. When their divorce had been finalised, he'd gone through the house removing all traces of her existence, shipping everything up into the loft apart from one photo. It had been his attempt to forget her and move on, not that it did any good. Their wedding photo had been the last one to go but at the time he couldn't bring himself to part with it and so he'd moved it from the bedroom he'd once shared with her and put it up on the wall in the rarely used guest bedroom. He sighed again before uncovering his face and leaning forward in his chair again. "I'm sorry, I'll go up in a minute and move it. I'd completely forgotten it was still there."
"So you didn't put it there on purpose?" She asked, full of suspicion that he'd have done it to prove a point - that he still loved her.
He snorted in offence to her accusation before sarcastically replying, "Oh yeah, of course! I put it up last night just to piss you off."
Putting the glass down, she turned to face him. She'd kind of asked for that, she couldn't retaliate when she knew she was in the wrong. Finally finding the courage to look at him, she lifted her gaze from where it had first settled on his wine glass to meet his. He looked hurt and pissed off. "Sorry, that was uncalled for." She mumbled sadly. "It just....being back here and...." Her voice trailed off as his intense look softened.
"Come and sit down." He gestured to the chair across the table from himself. "I'll get another glass and pour you some of this." He added, pointing to his bottle of Merlot.
"It's nearly two AM, I'd say it's a bit late for that."
"It'll help you to sleep." He replied, gesturing to the chair again.
Deciding to change the subject, she went back to the cupboard and grabbed a wine glass. "So, what have you got planned for Anaya tomorrow?"
He stayed quiet and watched as she walked towards him. "If there's one thing I've learnt from losing you, it's that talking matters."
She sat down opposite him and put her glass down, watching him as he picked up the bottle and poured some wine for her. She didn't want to talk, not about them. She just wanted to talk about their daughter.
Not put off by her silence, he continued, "If we'd talked more, communicated openly with each other then maybe things would be different now."
She lowered her gaze to her glass and began to twirl it slowly round by it's stem, just like he'd been doing. She really didn't want to hear this.
"I know it's my fault that we're not together anymore, I made such a big mistake. I pushed you away......"
"This is pointless Seb." She cut in, still staring at her glass. "It's done, it's in the past. You've said all this before and I don't want to hear it again."
"When our divorce came through, I went all through the house removing every trace of you." He confessed.
"Nice Seb, nice." She remarked sarcastically before picking up her glass and taking a large gulp of wine.
He chose to ignore her sarcasm, he needed her to hear this. "Our wedding photo was in our...my room. I couldn't bring myself to put it up in the attic with everything else. I couldn't completely let you go." He stopped to gage her reaction, her furrowed brows and pained expression as she returned to staring solidly at her glass gave him some encouragement. "So I moved the photo into the guest room and because I rarely go in there, I'd forgotten it was there. If I'd remembered then I'd have moved it, especially as it's obviously upset you."
"It didn't upset me." She lied. "It was just a bit of a shock to see it."
"I know you were crying and if you want me to remove it from your room then I will."
She took another sip of wine while she thought about it. Suddenly the thought of him removing the photo, the last trace of her having ever lived here, was nearly as painful as it was to look at it. She gave him a small shake of her head. "No, leave it."
He tried not to smile, trying hard not to read too much into her answer but it was hard not to think that maybe she wanted the photo left because she still cared about him. "I've changed Neev, I'm not man you left behind, I'm the man you married, the man you fell in love with when we first met. I know what's important now and that's you and Anaya."
She swallowed past the unexpected stab of hurt that she felt upon hearing his words. Yet again her fickle heart was giving her a hard time. It would be so easy just to settle on his lap and wrap herself around him, it would feel so good, it would feel just like coming home and reacquainting herself with all the good memories. Putting her glass down, she stood up, pushing her chair back sharply behind her. Staying here, drinking wine with her ex-husband, was forcing her mind into territory that she didn't wish to go in to. "Thanks for the wine." She mumbled, avoiding his eye contact and knowing that he'd be looking at her, silently pleading her to stay. Before he could move she turned and walked briskly away, needing to put the distance back between them.
Seb couldn't let her go and he jumped up to his feet to jog after her, catching hold of the top of her arm and making her spin round to look at him. All of sudden he felt desperate to make her see how he still felt about her, how he'd changed and wanted her back. This weekend was giving him a chance to experience what life could be like as a family of three and he wanted her to see that too.
He didn't have to say a word, she could see how he felt and it angered her that she felt the same way too. "Don't." She spat while wrenching herself from his hold. "I'm going to bed."
"I love you, I've changed and I'll prove it to you."
"It's too late, I'm with Fernando now."
He stepped closer to her and didn't hesitate in grasping her face gently in his hands. "I know you still love me."
She took hold of his wrists while replying sadly, "You've had too much wine."
"I can prove it to you, I will prove to you that I've changed, that we're worth giving it another shot. You know that Anaya would love having her mummy and daddy back together."
With a snarl, she ripped his hands away from her face. "Don't you dare use my daughter in this!"
He tried to defend himself, "I didn't mean it like....."
"Just leave me alone!" She hissed before turning and storming away from him.
He was still determined to prove himself to her as he yelled, "I'll quit Ferrari if that's what it takes to get you back!"
Getting to the bottom of the stairs, she stopped suddenly before smirking and muttering ironically, "Yeh, sure you will."