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Chapter 49
After passport control, Michael moved to the arrivals hall and looked around for Alice. She was late. It was not her style though. He thought about giving her a call, but maybe she was stuck somewhere in a traffic jam or had trouble parking the car so it would disturb her. Hence, he decided against it.
He must have gone foolish, barely stepped off the plane, and already worried that she wasn’t at the airport. Maybe she was waiting for him at the other end of the arrivals hall. From what he remembered, the Nice airport is quite large.
He decided to wait but in the distance he noticed a large sign with his name on it, so he walked over. He saw a tall, nice-looking young man who, with his white skin, blue eyes and pale blond hair, didn’t resemble an inhabitant of the Mediterranean coast, but a Scandinavian, or possibly a Slav.
Michael came to France, so it was appropriate to speak French, but his mind was completely blank. He hadn't used that language i
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Pierre got out of the car first. He opened the door for him overly nonchalantly. The gesture upset him. He was about to make a blunt comment on what he thought about it when he felt a gentle breeze of cool wind and aromatic air. He was speechless.He was breathing deeply such that he could feel every molecule of the fresh air reach his individual cells. He sucked in the air slowly through his nose to be able to enjoy the scent of the surrounding vegetation.After a while, in a multi-species mixture, he could distinguish the smell of oleanders, lavender, jasmine, roses and violets. Looking around for plants, he saw only pink geraniums in large, clay pots, typical of this region.Pierre opened the heavy metal entrance door. He carried his suitcase inside, and then without saying much, took him to a room on the second floor at the very end of the hall and left him there alone.The room, from what Michael saw so far, was classy. Calm, slightly cool, creamy-bl
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The ringing of the phone woke Michael up. He searched for his cell phone for a good few minutes. However, when he finally found it and wanted to answer the call, it suddenly stopped ringing. Tired and groggy, he peered at the screen to see who had disturbed him and wasn’t surprised to see that it was Alex.Michael wondered what he was doing on Saturday up so early. Didn’t he go to the party the previous night? Or it was him who had forgotten something? But, he hadn’t scheduled any tennis matches; neither had he gone to the swimming pool or to the gym with him for several weeks now because he simply didn't have time.It was almost seven o’clock in the morning. He turned off his phone as he didn't feel like talking to anyone today.He lazily got up from the bed and opened the windows. He was stunned in amazement as soon as he took in the view outside. He didn’t remember seeing the azure, cloudless sky, the unusual blue of the se
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Admiring the perfection of her beauty, he wondered what in that perfect body was the creation of nature and what was the work of a good surgeon.One day the editorial team was working all night. They had to close the edition, the air conditioning didn't work at night and the temperature in the office was extremely high so they had to undress everything they could.Alice, like everyone else, undressed to the proverbial ‘chicken soup’, that was, a tight, skimpy T-shirt and tied her hair.He was sitting right next to her, in a sports T-shirt that he was taking to the gym. He, like everyone else, felt so tired that the sight of her didn’t make the slightest impression on him or the rest of the team.Only Alex in a T-shirt aroused emotions among his colleagues - a jealousy deliberately fueled by Alice, commenting on a perfectly sculpted body on which anatomy could be studied.Michael remembered that night, as one, everyone dreamed of r
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Michael looked her straight in the eyes. She looked concerned, so he decided to keep saying what he felt.“Do you know what I mean?”She looked at him waiting for explanation.“I have lived for more years than I have left waiting in front of me now. Time flies inexorably. I am getting older and I am closer to retirement, and I have nothing. I don’t have a home, a family, children. I will miss the joy of their first independent steps, the first words spoken, I won’t see them grow up. I will never see my grandchildren. I have nothing. Absolutely nothing.”It sounded serious. This time she knew that what he just said was him not just playing around, but words flowing from the depths of his soul, from the heart. Finally, a tough guy showed a human face, and in fact, he was starting to fall apart.“You are one of the greatest columnists I know. I admire you!” Without thinking, she said. “You are my u
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“Michael, get in.” She said impatiently. Seeing that he was completely unresponsive, she opened the door for him from the inside.“Michael, we don't have time!” She repeated louder this time.Eventually it dawned on him that this was not a dream, but a reality in which he was a participant. In that car, he could go to the end of the world.He immediately jumped into the car, plunged into a comfortable leather chair and fastened his seat belts. He didn't trust Alice if he was being honest about it.He rode with her once with his soul on his shoulder. They were supposed to test the car at an unused airport, and ended up driving on bumpy roads around the airport.Besides, he saw her in action on several off-road rallies. At the wheel she was erratic, more dangerous than Alex.The fears turned out to be not unfounded. As soon as he fastened his seat belts, Alice tore out what the machine had given. Before he could catch h
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