Something g about the house renovations has deterred our immediate lodgings, and so Camilla suggested a hotel. According to her, although we haven't met yet in person due to her busy schedule, the apartment will be ready by the end of tomorrow but I have the opportunity to visit beforehand the break of dawn shall I wish.

I found no reason to argue.

I put Isla to bed after dinner, which I barely ate. It's as if the moment I set foot in NYC, something flicked inside me, gnawing my confidence into a blast of sporadic nerves flapping inside me like little birds trying to fly for the first time. Every memory of my last visit here returns as I leap back through time, thinking of Adrian.

All the laughter, teasing, fancy shopping, simple dinner and candlelight, and sex, tons of sex from his private jet up to his penthouse, and then the tour to his fetish land. I fucking hate him for that! For glimpsing me at the utopia that hardly exists, and mostly for throwing me away as if I meant nothing to him.

Why? Just why did he send me back like that as if I'm a misplaced eBay parcel?

But before I sink deeper into the abysmal pain, heartache, and all sorts of displeasure he inflicted upon me the day I left this city, my phone rings from the nightstand placed between two beds. It's Jake calling from California and somehow I wish he'd be with us right now to help me pull through it all.

Wishful thinking aside, I pick up the call with a quiet hello.

"Already in New York?" he asks coolly but his voice projects worrisome curiosity.

A languid smile breaks on my face as I head back to the living area. I don't sit; I loiter around since the room isn't very spacious. It's cozy and homey, painted in dark colors rendering it devoid of gleam, yet I find it pleasing for a glum mood like mine. It has twin beds, a loveseat sofa, wing chairs, and a television set that's airing nothing at the moment.

"Yeah," I reply tiredly as I approach a small window with two outstretched curtains, "but we'll check the house... I mean the apartment, tomorrow. So far so good. How are you? Is everything going well with school?"

I lean my head sideways against the steel window pane, watching the midtown Manhattan cityscape through the set of tall buildings interlinked by the shimmering orange, yellow, blue, white, and so many colors of lights gathered in the darkness like a Christmas tree.

It's nine in the evening.

The sky is strangely midnight blue, so gorgeous, yet my heart is combusting—too many flames of hatred, vengeance, and an untold truth that I bury deep within me, which reminds me that I'm not a pristine woman everyone thinks I am, and neither an angel Adrian trusts he can just separate from evil out of his overweening concerns.

And maybe I'll let him see that. The day I hurt him the same way he hurt me not once but twice.

"I'm good. School is good," Jake replies as vaguely as he usually does, tearing my thoughts away.

I don't press much other than teasing him by asking, "Found a girl yet?"

"Huh?" It sounds like a hushed whisper from him, and laughter resonates from my chest.

I tear my head away from the pane, using my free hand to skittle fingers through my hair. "I mean, no romantic adventure yet? C'mon, Jake! Not even getting lost on campus and bumping into a cute girl so you can ask her for directions?" I keep pushing, imagining his frowned eyebrows and blushing hazel-green eyes that will dazzle some poor girls out there.

Oh, that I'm sure of! My brother is a catch but I doubt he knows so.

He snorts. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about! Where is Isla?"

My eyes roll upward as he bursts my little bubble. "So slippery! Okay, fine but don't just study, remember to have a bit of fun, okay?"

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever, dude," he replies in that signature style of his.

Whatever, dude.

I chuckle, pulling my feet away from the window so I face the pair of wooden beds covered with clean white sheets and many pillows in dark blue, just as the couch, chairs, and soft rug on the wooden floor are.

"Isla is sleeping. It was her first time in a plane but she was a natural," I reply smilingly, crossing my arm loosely on my stomach after shifting my phone to the opposite hand.

I recall how she clung onto me when the plane had the first turbulence, but after I filled her in that it happens sometimes and it wasn't going to kill us, she smiled it off and said she could do it, which she certainly did.

I can picture Jake's smile as he says, "Of course. She's brave."

I know he misses us, just as we miss him too. We've never gone apart for more than a week, not even once from what I recall, but it's been two months now. Time surely travels fast, and I hope so are the feelings of void and doleful pangs devouring me from within.

I end the call after Jake's assurance that everything is proceeding well as far as his classes are concerned. He has one roommate, a guy named Frederick who's a sophomore. For someone like Jake, that was surely too informative and I'm glad he's slowly breaking the barricade.

Camilla drops by around ten in the morning. I'm feeling so energetic today that I wish I could kick Jimmy in the balls for my pleasure. As we exit the hotel, a red Chevy Camaro is waiting outside. Sleek and convertible. Isla bounces up and down gleefully like a golden retriever once she's inside it.

"Is this your car, Camilla? It's cool!" she asks.

Camilla laughs heartily and the engine roars as she starts the ignition. "Well, it's more of my boss's car. I use it for work. You know Adrian, don't you?" She glances at Isla, both seated at the front leaving me at the back and I appreciate the space.

Isla bobs her head rather swiftly and ecstatically. "I know him. He's Ara's boyfriend!" Craning her neck, her gaze skates me very briefly from the front passenger seat.

"Um... yes. That's right," Camilla replies skeptically and locks her eyes with mine via the rearview mirror.

Yes, I haven't told them yet.

I inhale a breath, straying my eyes toward the window while I pull on my seatbelt. In one way or another, I know I'm gonna have to come clean about my break-up with Adrian—at least to Isla and Jake, and maybe Josh and Sally whom I'm missing already.

However, a part of me yells sternly that my story with Adrian is not really over. Not yet. I refuse to believe that he's okay after sending me away, that he's forgotten me and every little thing we shared, and for that reason, I'll live to torture the hell out of him until he confesses his true feelings.

Love or not, I need a fair ending to this.

"Hey, Ara," Camilla calls, and although I'm unready to divulge my full attention, my eyes lurk back to the rearview mirror. "Do you mind if we stop by my office? I have to deliver some stuff."

Automatically I check on a zipped suit cover bag laying against the seat like a person seated beside me. It's a man's suit, without a doubt, and a very expensive one based on the exterior details of its elegant bag and a PRADA brand printed on the shopping bag next to it.

"It's alright," I reply quietly.

I hang my head aside, wishing I'd be half as ecstatic as Isla and Camilla seem to be, conversing cheerily over random stuff like Isla's sudden urge to pee.

"Don't worry, chica, just three minutes and I'll take you to the bathroom. Is it that bad?" Camilla asks her.

"Not really. I can hold it," Isla replies, and another laughter they share.

I smile simply and drift, watching New Yorkers walking by in the streets as most ordinary people do in a hurry, and it's already sunny with a gentle summer breeze. The old architecture of the city still dazzles me, and I never feel estranged by all the car horns, ambulances, and police sirens. 

After a brief drive through the arrays of Art Deco buildings, we finally stop at the famous Hotel Continental. It's still here, as glorious as I vividly remember it from my last trip with Dad when I was fourteen. Nostalgia overwhelms me and the first question I ask Camilla is if this is the office she's talked about.

Strangely her answer is yes. It's the first Hotel Adrian invested in when he entered the business world, she says, and the only one he uses for an office once in a while as he does his every operation remotely for the reasons only he can tell. Again, I don't ask for more. I watch Camilla and Isla slipping out of the car, looking friendlier with each second that flies by.

A few minutes later Camilla calls me, and apparently, she's forgotten to pick up the suit and shoes that are still staged on the backseat with me. Strange! I think she's way more meticulous to make such a mistake. I hang up and pull myself together as it's what I should do if I'm gonna stay in this place with an excuse of a new beginning or whatever.

"Excuse me. I'm here to deliver this for Camilla Alves?" I tell the bombshell behind the reception desk, whose golden blonde hair is cut neatly straight up to her cheekbones, not a single strand straying away as her head moves.

"Yes, she just called me." A smile rises through her lips, bold hot pink lipstick matched to her long nails as she places a telephone receiver back on the desk quickly but graciously. "Room 101, Floor no 20."

"Excuse me?" I quip while tossing the slightly heavy cover bag over my shoulder for more balance, gripping its handle rather tightly with a shoe box inside the bag I'm holding with another hand.

I expected to leave them here and move, not this. Whoever these belong to, I'm sure he has somewhere important to be and my hunch tells me they belong to none other than Adrian Castle. It's the only lucid explanation of this.

"Here is the key card. Welcome to Hotel Continental," the blonde tells me ceremoniously, handing out a black card printed elegantly in gold letters.

I'm about to argue about the arrangement when another call pings on the blonde's telephone line, followed by a couple coasting next to me, hotel guests probably, waiting for her attention.

Although full of reluctance, I just take the card and stall, unsure if I should go up or not. What if Camilla has set me a trap in all this? What if Adrian is here and she's trying to have us meet?

______________

A/N: So, should Ara go up in room 101 or not?