Chapter 3

• THE STRANGER IN A STRANGE PLACE
• I am driving south on an obscure street in the middle of a winter night in a modern city when all of a sudden my car stops in the middle of the road. The engine wouldn't start despite my chronic exertions to restart it. I glance at the fuel gauge on the dashboard with heavy eyes as anxiety and panic pervade my entire being. Damn! The tank is empty! Really excellent. Freaking wow! How come I didn't notice.
• With my heart thumping in my chest, I kick the door open and drag my lethargic, worn-out self outside. I am not accustomed to spending so much time in the driver's seat. Heck! My longest solo drive so far has probably been an hour. And now, since I fled out of the office, how long have I been driving? My watch reads ten minutes to midnight. I am worn out. I am so drained. How I managed to maintain control of the steering for such an absurdly more than eight-hour drive is indecipherable.
• It was at exactly two in the afternoon when the meeting ended at the Ricca court where our main office is located. All the city's offices of our hotels were shut down during that time in honor of the engagement party. Everyone was invited, and they were all anticipating the grand grandeur event. I giggled as my employees teased me and expressed their wishes as they left the workplace. Little did they know that it would be one hell of a party.
• After lying to my father that I needed to check on something real quick in my office before following him back to the house, at around five in the evening, he left, and I locked myself in the office wondering whether I was ready for this. Thirty minutes after everyone had departed, I hopped in my car and after making a few laps on Nairobi's clogged, bustling roads, I took a U-turn and veered off while depressing the pedal. The road's name and its destination were unknown to me. I just made the initial turn away from what was expected of me without caring where I would end up.
• That is how I eventually found myself wandering here in the splendid metropolis of leisure and pleasure, as they like to call it —Mombasa City. It is one of the most tremendous cities in this country. In the south it borders Tanzania and is on Kenya's outskirts. Heard of the vast Indian Ocean? Well, this city serves as one of its shorelines. Incredible, isn't it? I am not sure why I oddly ended up here. The irony! My situation has absolutely no connection with this city at all, yet here I am. Lost in this city.
• That aside for now.
• I stamp my feet on the surface of the new city feeling apprehensive despite the lovely street orange lights blazing above me albeit dimly. The street is perfectly clear, more kind of deserted. No single soul is roaming around except me and my baby here. Not even a single car passing by. Why on earth did I end up on this street? And just now my baby breaks down on me, of all times and places?
• "Come on, baby!" I grumble as I furiously slam the door shut.
• What in the world am I expected to do now, huh? I shut off my damn phones the moment I stepped out of the office, and I can't risk switching them on. I can not risk the chance of my father locating me and hauling my ass back to that grotesque fiance whom I don't want to ever lay my eyes. I cannot risk getting found this soon. I am not sure how long I can elude detection, but at the very least I don't want to be found now.
• I can imagine what kind of beast my father looks like right now. He undoubtedly is fuming with rage right now, I know that. No one has ever challenged him this way. No one dared to defy him this way. so I can only visualize how a defeated, humiliated, and enraged Richard Bradley Riccaford looks right now. The extent of his rage is something I would not want to think about right now.
• I heave a heavy sigh as I turn around to get back inside the car. I can't stay out here all night, and as it is, there is nothing I can do at the moment. I doubt there is even a petrol station nearby, and the fact that there is no single soul that I can ask tops it all. What a…
• Just as I tap my palm on the door ready to get inside and hopefully dodge through the scary silent night in the car, the lights of an oncoming vehicle creeping up behind me stop me. I give up trying to get inside and instead stand at the door with my back against it, staring at the approaching huge machine with its agonizing lights threatening to impair my vision. I cross my right arm over my eyes to shield my eyes from the obnoxious lights. Heck! Can it just stop? I have already had enough of it and every freaking shit today! Can it…
• "You need help, miss?"
• My ears are filled with an icy but pleasant calm tone that reverberates in the equilibrium of the street. I tremor erupts in my body, a piercing chill cutting through my spine and I refuse to open my eyes. That voice is simply too endearing to be real. Wait...real? That thought alone erupts more shivers all over my body.
• "Miss? Hello?" The man speaks again, and now I feel the urge to confirm my fears or prove them wrong.
• I cautiously peel my eyes as my hand plunges from my forehead. The black limousine's lamps have been dimmed off. I should be grateful to the heavens for that because otherwise, they would have impaired me, but not now when a breathtakingly Greek god is towering over me bleeding only God knows what. I am not sure what is more perplexing. Is it his stupendously physical features, his endearing stature, or merely the way his eyes sparkle in the shades of the street lamps? Or perhaps his rich black sapil potent odor that is cutting deep in my nostrils.
• "Hey!"
• or better yet, the beautiful curls of his soft pink lips as he speaks.
• I swallow hard as I try to move away from him and shake off my thoughts, but my bad! I forgot that my back was pressed against the automobile.
• Forget the city's aforementioned features and beauty. Did I mention that this city has ghost-related myths as well? Real ghosts, yes. I am skeptical if that is real or not, but the stories are all over, and one always gets warned of them every time they are coming to this city. What if it is actually true and one is standing right in front of me right now on this terrifying night? If not, why is in God’s name is he the only creature on this deserted road, huh? God, oh God! I didn't flee from my ghost fiance only to run into a bonafide ghost, did I?
• "Miss? What are you doing by yourself in the middle of the night? Do you need help?" Once more, his voice softly echoes, cutting my scary imagination short.
• I blink countless times after realizing that I have been peering at him the entire time. Nevertheless, despite the anxiety that is eroding my bones, at least I dare to gape at him.
• A big white lie! I cannot afford to do that physically. I am having trouble controlling my breathing at the moment. I can’t stand the alluring beauty of his eyes even for a second. Such dramas have no place in me, but he holds this look that wants to swallow me and bury me deep into their bottomless bottoms.
• "Y...o...u? What...are you doing by yourself at this hour of the night?" I finally find my voice and the strength to mutter something amidst all the fear engulfing me, stuttering like a toddler learning to speak.
• I manage to earn myself a smirk and a raised eyebrow from him. Then, as he raises the corners of his mouth to speak again, his countenance abruptly becomes flat. "I should be resting in my house a few meters ahead if you weren't blocking the road."
• Shit! So, he is human? No, actually, a walking charm, to say the least. His demeanor confused me to the point of forgetting that my car stopped in the middle of the road, and his limousine was obviously too huge to fit in any of the remaining tight spaces on the sides. Makes me wonder why did I veer off my line that much.
• His gaze follows my motions as I draw my back away from the car and stride away both from it and from him, as I muster the courage to speak again, "Fuel. I...accidentally ran out of fuel,” I say, averting his bewitching eyes, and trying to point my car at my back, hopefully, he can shift his gaze and stop tormenting me with his gaze.
• "And where were you headed to?" His voice resonates again in the lull of the street.
• "Ah..." My mouth hangs agape as soon as it opens.
• Ahem! Ahem! Yes, where was I going to, again? I mean, I should have looked around for a hotel to check into the minute I entered the city. Or I should have even taken care of it before embarking on this journey. Or at least when I noticed darkness dominating the light. How could I have been so clumsy? Am I really this messed up? Did my rage and confusion have to drive me so deep all the way here? In the middle of nowhere and without a destination?
• "You might swallow a fly if you don't close your mouth."
• Shit! I shut my mouth, looking away from him for a moment.
• "I... I was... Just driving along. Yeah!" I lie. You should see me trying to smile to make it look more convincing, but no smile leaves my lips.
• He looks around as though questioning my statement, then settles his eyes on me when he is done. "Oookay!" The way he drags the word, huh? "Your car will be safe here for the night. I mean, the station is kilometers away from here. However, I can't leave a beautiful goddess like you here all alone. The angels will not allow me to rest."
• Beautiful goddess! Accentuate that. Whether he is flirting or not, that kinda hits in an endearing way. I would be melting at his flirtatious gestures if I did not have a sixth sense though. He might not be a ghost after all, but rather he might be one of these badass women-eaters. You know, these sex-obsessed morons whose third limb jerks with ecstasy at the sight of every opposite gender that crosses their path?
• "How about I drive you back to your place and I will have your car delivered to you in the morning. Is that okay?"
• Shit! My home is back in Nairobi, a freaking seven or eight-hour drive from here. I won't ask if he can drive me there, but I don’t want to go back there.
• Damn!
• Wait, What happened to, ‘you can sleep over at my place just for tonight?’ He said his house is just some meters away, dah! Wait, what am I thinking, huh? Good grief! He may not be a womanizer either, but a hot guy of his charisma must definitely have a wife or a blonde bimbo to warm his bed every night. He cannot afford to have an inconvenience. Sigh!
• "So?" He implores when I take forever to respond.
• "So?” an arc over his eyebrows denotes just how much of a fool I am making myself look to be. Shit! Blink! Blink! “I don't have a place. I just got into the city and well, I ended up here, in this mess. And in the middle of nowhere," I mumble.
• "Okay. To my house then? Let's..."
• "Huh? Excuse me?" I query with a racing heart, cutting him off, or so I thought because he cuts me off too.
• "You have no choice because I am not taking a no for an answer, Gorgeous. As I said, I don't want the angels to haunt me tonight," he speaks again since he seems to be the one with a voice here.
• Hold on! I can not possibly top up all the madness that has transpired in less than 24 hours with this one, can I? A dripping cold winter night in a strange city, and in a pant-wetting stranger's abode? No hell of a freaking way!
• I open my mouth to object, but he beats me to it, “You have zero options, miss beautiful. I am sure you also don’t want to pass the night all alone out here, right?” His voice drips with sarcasms, but I have nothing against it.