Team Principal | Carlos Sainz

chapter eleven

Antonia W.

The city lights of Baku were shining bright and the stars in the sky showed their best side this evening as I stepped out of the cap that had brought Luca and me to the little restaurant. It was a bit more away from the center of Baku so I hoped that nobody would recognize us.

As it was a bit of a fancy restaurant I had put on a long black dress and high heels. Not that I had the need to impress someone, Carlos was here with his girlfriend, I booked the restaurant before I knew who was joining us so the outfit had been planned since back then.

Luca happily jumped around the car and grabbed my hand as we entered the restaurant. He was wearing a black bottom up and some dark trousers. His hair were fixed and together we looked like a mother-son couple in crime.

I really liked dressing up with him and going out, we used to do this back in Germany when I was still with my ex and sadly we missed out on it a bit over the last months as they had been pretty stressful.

This evening should had been a little get away from all the stress and racing, but now it ended in a dinner with my driver and his girlfriend, which I really couldn't stand. But if Luca was happy than I was it too. So I put my nicest smile on and stepped to the waiter.

"Hello, I have reserved a table for four on the name Winter."

The small woman looked into her book and then gestured to the back of the restaurant.

"You're not the first to arrive." she told me with her broken English and I nodded before following her instructions.

Luca snatched his hand away from mine and started running, he really was excited to see Carlos again, I said to myself and a little smile appeared on my lips.

"You're really well dressed little man." I heard the Spanish accent around the corner, "Where have you left your mo"

 He stopped as I stepped around the corner and got into his view. His jaw dropped but as he noticed that I had seen it he quickly closed his mouth again, but nevertheless a little smirk appeared on my face and tried to hide it.

"Antonia, wow, you look stunning." he said and Luca jumped from his lap, where he had been sitting, so Carlos could stand up.

Slowly we walked to each other and I was unsure of what to do, should I hug him? Normally we greeted each other with just a nod or a hand shake but this would be a bit awkward here, I thought.

But before I could decide on what to to Carlos had grabbed my hand and spun me around.

"Mama mia you look beautiful."

I felt my cheeks getting red and quickly took my hand back to go over to the table. As the gentleman he was he pulled back the chair so I could sit on it before he walked across from me, to his seat.

"Is Isa on the toilet or where is she?" I asked, remembering me that he had a girlfriend, who was probably not even twenty meters away.

"She stayed at the hotel, she was tired." Carlos quickly said before looking at my son, who was sitting on my left and his right, "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah." Luca answered and stretched his hands up, "So hungry".

I giggled and a sudden warm feeling went through my body. I wasn't sure if it was because Isa wasn't here or because I loved seeing my son so happy, probably the second one. Even though I had to say, that Carlos was doing a great job with Luca.