I am driving south in an obscure street at 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 hours 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 will 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 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 the 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 sutuation 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 dessertsed. 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 stops 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 plunge 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.