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The man approached to the reception counter and gave a seductive smile that pretended to be friendly, but that caused other impressions in women. God had blessed with an attractiveness that he never had to prescind, getting the most that he could out of it.
—Good morning miss —his face, next to his accent, created an irresistible combination—. I feel a little bit ashamed, but I need to ask you for a favor.
—Tell me —the girl answered smiling.
—Well look, the point is that I’ve arranged with a friend to meet here, but I don’t remember the hour neither the room —he composed his best dislike pout—. I’m getting older.
The girl stared him upside down and let out a restrained blow, disagreeing with him.
—But at least you remember his name? —she asked with a spark of fun in the eyes.
—Yes, of course —he exhibited his perfect teeth—. In this moment he is Cristóbal, Cristóbal Asensio.
He felt a heat that extended through his stomach as he ended the phrase. How he could have committed that mistake? Maybe she would not realize.
In this moment? —she asked weirded out—. What is he, a spy?
He cursed himself for that carelessness. Anger begun go up through his throat and he noticed a bad flavor in his palate.
—Of course miss —he answered ashamed, this time truly; he did not need to compose a false grimace—. But don’t say anything or I’ll have to kill you.
She smiles at his grace and inclined with coquetry over the computer. She started to type without looking the screen, centering her attention in that guy’s blue eyes.
—If it’s what I told you —he replied and was beginning to calm down—. I’m getting older and I say nonsenses.
The girl reviewed him again and precise that that man shouldn’t have more than forty.
—Yes, here is your friend —she informed—. Cristóbal Asensio, room 209.
—Perfect!
—Do I leave him a message?
—No, no —he answered shaking hands—. I’m thinking in giving him a surprise. For sure he thinks I’m not going to come to the date, so I’m going to wait for him seated here —he pointed a modernist design armchair that seemed especially comfortable.
She looked at him, and although she had fifteen years less than him, she imagined herself with him in one of that hotel’s rooms in which she had always desired to spend the night. She licked her fleshy lips.
—You know what? —he suddenly exclaimed—. I’ll better go and buy him a present and come back soon —he gave her a rogue wink—. Could you give me one of those cards with the hotel’s telephone number?
—Yes of course —she answered emboldened—. And I’ll write you mine too, you know, in case you forget it again.
When she went into a small room where they kept the advertising material, the man turned around with the speed of an athlete and he sneaked upstairs.
****
That was the first day in his life that Antonio José Ulloa could not accomplish with his work as usual. Each and everyone in the editorial office were delivered in a feverish job that in spite that it had them exhausted it kept them happily busy. However, Antonio José couldn’t stop in brooding over to what that old man had confessed him, and its complicated implications in all that. He was a methodic and organized man, given to the maximus with the issue that he addressed in a determined moment, and in that instant his principal conflict wasn’t the newspaper.
He stood up, incapable to take a slightest decision of which the two headlines that he had in front will be in the cover page, and he wandered restlessly through his office. He had gotten into a mess, and he must get out with the least possible damage.
He decided that he would stop being a pawn in that game and that he should take an active part. He buttoned his jacket in the American way and took his Burberry’s coat from the coat rack. After giving instructions to his secretary, he abandoned the editorial office with his mind fixed in one direction.