*19* Pierre

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Why were there tears in her eyes?

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Why were there tears in her eyes?

When I looked at her, my heart did a flip, literally!

I was waiting for her, my fans reacted differently to meeting me and I was used to extreme behavior, often many people stunned me, squealing right next to me and shouting my name.  Just knowing that I meant so much to them was nice and I was happy if I could drive a good race and give them some joy or take a picture with them or sign an autograph.  Part of it was also that if it wasn't for their interest in my sport, I might not have achieved such good results.

But I didn't treat Annie like fans, we were supposed to work together, I expected professionalism and dedication from her, because I gave the same from my side.  I always did everything 100%, I didn't stop, I went ahead through every difficulty, always overcoming it in the end.

A strange feeling of dejavu seized me, as if all this had happened before, as if we had met in the arrivals hall of the Bangkok airport before, looking into each other's eyes and trying to guess what the other was thinking.  I accidentally touched Yuki's back with my hand and immediately felt as if I had been electrocuted.  Somehow, his shirt was electrified all over, but that made me break eye contact with Annie.

"Who are you exactly?" — I asked her a question in my mind, to which I knew the answer: she was Polish, 24 years old and had been through a lot in her life, not very tall brunette with light eyes, and most importantly, the author of fiction that liked  my boss enough to convince the general manager to make a series based on it, and by the way, which was supposed to help me with a supposedly fictitious coming out.

For a long time, Yuki and I have been looking for a way to tell the truth to our fans without missing out on our career opportunities.  Yuki often said that it didn't matter to him, he just wanted to raise enough money to open his own restaurant.  The championship title only mattered to him because he liked competition and it could help him realize his greatest dream.  From the very beginning of our acquaintance, I was surprised by his approach.

For me, the case was completely different: making a public coming out could, and in fact almost certainly involved the risk of losing a seat in Formula 1, i.e. losing the chance to fight for the world championship.

—I'd like to say to our fans, I don't like lying to them, if Charles can show publicly his girlfriend, why can't I show you? — Yuki said one evening after a very poor race by both of us.

My car broke down on the warm-up lap when it turned out that the front suspension had broken.  This was the result of a minor collision with Mercedes' George Russell during qualifying.  At first everything seemed fine, the mechanics found no damage, replaced the front wing and I was allowed to line up on the grid like that.  I had only done half a lap before I knew something was wrong.  My feelings were confirmed by my race engineer, who told me to pit.  I thought maybe it was just a wheel, that the tires would be changed and after the case, I would be able to start from the pit lane.  Unfortunately, after a quick inspection of the car, it turned out that the problem is much more serious.  Frustrated and disappointed, I left the cockpit and went to my locker room to change.

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