Truthfully, I have no idea what we're doing this morning and less than two hours to figure it out. Which is not a good look for a man who usually has a staff to do these kinds of things. A staff who just quit and left Marcia to pick up the slack.

But I'm not even going to ask her to help me because she's sworn herself an impartial judge of the situation. So she'll definitely not be helping me. Especially after Lorena charmed the pants off her with the negotiating and the agreeing to sign the documentation. Marcia's job just got twelve times easier and I know she'll never forget that.

I might sign her paycheques, but she runs the show, and she never lets me forget it. Or at least that's what she would say.

And this might be the very first time I wished she didn't run everything for me. Usually I want nothing better than to get out of doing the work, but now...

My eye draws back to Lorena, typing away on her phone in the corner of the room, towel sliding down to reveal her shoulder as she does.

I have to turn away to avoid getting so distracted I fail this mission outright. I don't just want to win any more, I need to. Irritating her is the most fun I've had in... well, maybe ever. Another depressing thought I'll have to push away if I want to get anything done.

"Looking up fun things to do in Roatan?" Lorena's voice cuts through the hum of the air conditioner and Marcia's newly manicured nails tapping against the keyboard.

"No." I will not turn to face her. I will not show weakness.

"Then why is the Roatan tourism page pulled up on your phone?"

"Why are you looking at my phone?"

"Because I can," she says, shrugging. Then she walks herself into the bathroom and the door clicks shut between us.

The shower starts running and I'm still sitting on Lorena's bed staring at the door. But I can feel Marcia's eyes on me.

"Don't start," I say, peeling my eyes away from the door to collect my things from the bed. "I have an excursion to plan and it has to be good enough that Enrique and Bianca don't notice what's going on."

"Have you considered just dropping this and letting her have her thing? I mean... don't you sometimes wonder if you don't already have enough?"

And that has me frozen. "I wonder it all the time," I force out. "But sometimes I also wonder if I have anything at all."

She doesn't follow me when I leave. And I'm grateful for it because I'm going to have to call in some huge favours to get this done. I don't need anyone watching.

* * *

The excitement for 'Lorena and Óscar's mysterious excursions' today is so great that my mother is here. My mother.

She's wearing a floor length floral number that is skin tight to her knees and then flares out. I think the ladies call it a mermaid style but it doesn't look like a mermaid. When I saw her standing in the middle of the assembled wedding party, I almost spit out my tea thinking of what I'd pulled off this morning. And still now, sitting on the bus winding through the narrow roads, I keep letting a little smirk slip out at the thought of my mother and the 'mysterious outing' I have planned.

Lorena, who is sitting right beside me to keep up the appearance that we are working together, keeps shooting me death glares every time I smirk. Which is making it even harder not to laugh. It's a ridiculous and entertaining cycle. I can't wait to see the look on her face when she figures out what I've been smirking about all morning.

"You don't need to gloat, you know," Lorena says finally. "We've barely started and already you are insufferable."

Too easy. She makes it too easy. "Why do you think I'm being insufferable?"

"You're so cocky and overconfident, thinking you have this in the bag when you really don't. This afternoon is going to knock whatever this is out of the park."

"I don't know," I pretend to muse. "It's pretty easy to make magnificent adventures when you're rich, right?"

I poked the bear, but there's people everywhere. Bianca is less than three feet away. Lorena can't do anything but glare.

And stomp her delicate little foot into my toes, apparently. Tears spring to my eyes with the effort of not yelling out in pain. Gotta give her that. She comes to play.

"We've arrived, Sr. Calderón," our driver says, parking the little bus in the middle of the road and cranking the lever to open the door.

"We're here?" Lorena flips to the door in excitement before steadying her face. "I mean..."

But even I'm not watching her anymore as the look of realization and, dare I say it, disgust, crosses my mother's face. "Is this a barn?"

Enrique sits behind her in stitches, struggling to breathe as he laughs so hard no sound comes out. "Best. Gift. Ever," he mouths from beside his wife, whose eyes have gone wide and sparkly with the prospect of animals on the island paradise. I did my research.

Mother is still looking at me with disgust, sparkly silver sandal tapping against the floor of the bus awaiting my answer, as though it were not obvious. "It is," I nod.

Lorena uses her excitement to look properly enthused, as though we planned the whole thing together. It's perfect, really.

"You brought your mother to a barn in her Sunday best? For your brother's wedding?"

I nod again.

"And you didn't tell me?"

"That was the point," Lorena jumps in. "Mysterious Excursions, remember? It was in the note we left, I'm sure of it."

The notes she had made while I was scrounging up this little excursion were cute and cursive and had little pop up umbrellas on them. It was either extremely well planned or extremely courageous, but either way it was spelled out in black and white that today was mysterious. Mostly because I hadn't planned anything when she made the 'invitations' and we couldn't risk giving that away.

"Come on, Mama," Enrique places his hand on her shoulder, finally having composed himself. "Let's see what he's planned before we get too worried."

"Let's go inside then," Lorena takes charge, even though it's supposed to be my event. But I did want to prove we could work well together, so I'm not about to complain.

"Yeah, let's go!" I call out again, following Lorena off the bus and passing her on the walk toward the barn.

I do my signature knock when I get there and call out for Edwin, the hand who's supposed to be tending the barn today.

"Ay, tranquilo," he shouts. Then he pulls the door open and says, "Oh, sorry, señor."

"I am not going into a barn to step in cow dung dressed like this," my mother says before Edwin can finish his sentence.

I do not feel the need to point out that I paid for the 'dress like this' and could easily buy another one, because that would be a step too far.

She's about to blow her top, standing still and waving her arms about as though we're all supposed to intuit what she means to say. But it only takes one look from Edwin to get her to, as the ladies like to say here, 'fix her face' to be fit to be seen in good company.

"Ya ready?" Edwin asks, completely ignoring my mother's antics. "You'll not get far if you don't start soon."

"Get far?" Bianca questions. I can tell Lorena is thinking the same thing, brows knit together and eyebrows raised.

"We're going horseback riding," I declare, eliciting a squeal from Bianca, a laugh from Enrique, a look of impressed disgust from Lorena and an inhuman screech from my mother. The rest of the wedding party, Lorena's friends Divya and Carla and my cousins Marcia and Felipe all look appropriately enthused, and much more appropriately dressed.

"What are we waiting for?" Lorena cuts in, ignoring my mother. "There are horses to ride!"

Lorena and Bianca's friend, Carla, spends as much time as physically possible asking Edwin questions about everything from how tall the barn's roof is to where we are going to if the weather is typical. FInally, she takes her turn mounting the horse, throwing a smile to Edwin, stepping into the stirrup, and swinging her whole self right over the horse, dangling off the other side with a dramatic squeal.

"I'm fine," she called out. "Just give me a second."

But she doesn't have a chance to try to climb back on before Edwin is there, shoving her unceremoniously back onto the horse with a little grunt.

And with that, mother demands a step stool to delicately sit up on her horse side saddle. Edwin tries to talk her out of it but she insists.

"Alright, let's go!" Lorena smiles and Bianca bounces atop her horse. Edwin opens another barn door and leads us out onto a narrow path winding down a hill through all sorts of trees I wouldn't know the name of, including some oak trees that always seemed out of place to me there.

The journey passes mostly in silence until we finally break through the last of the coconut and almond trees and onto the sandy beach, where a collective gasp breaks through the crowd. Even I have to say I'm surprised by the beauty of the warm sun glistening off the turquoise waters, the waves crashing against the reef before rolling softly toward the sand.

"You're on your own," Edwin hands me the map he drew for me, though now that I'm here I don't think I'll need it.

"Thanks, Edwin. See you later." I nudge the horse, pulling gently on the rein to turn down the beach toward the site of my second mysterious adventure of the day.

Lorena pulls her horse up beside mine and everyone else falls in behind, silently enjoying the sights the island has to offer.

Lorena has a look of awe about her, nervous astride the horse but taking it all in, hair pulled neatly back in a ponytail and wide-brimmed hat shielding her from the hot sun. Her sunglasses hang on the neckline of her shirt and I'm only looking at them a minute before she turns and glares at me, picking them up and slamming them on her face so hard I'm pretty sure I hear something crack.

My mother asks a hundred questions which Enrique and Bianca answer as the group's horses amble along behind us.

"So," I turn to Lorena and then look away. No need to cause any more awkwardness while my mother is here so graciously providing it for us. "What do you think of the beach?"

"I don't do oceans," she says simply.

A flash of her terror when I pulled her out of the waters yesterday runs through my mind. "I remember."

Her eyes dart to mine and I realize I've turned to face her again. What is happening?

"But I have to admit this is the best way I've ever seen a beach before. Very far from the water."

"Atop a large animal," I add. "Don't forget my amazing job with the horses."

"Bianca's always wanted to ride horses," she admits. "But she doesn't get to vote."

"True," but everyone else knows how much she likes it, and that counts for something."

"How did you get horses on such short notice?" she asks a few moments later as a group of school children chase a mango into the sea.

"I don't think you want to know, Lorena."

"Rich people things, huh?"

And then she does something I don't expect. With absolutely no snark, she asks, "Does your friend usually run tours or is this just a bonus venture because you are a friend?"

"My acquaintance," I correct her, "runs tours out of that barn. But usually they are led by Edwin, who guides the tourists up and down this beach a couple times a day."

"And people like these tours?"

In my time in the fútbol world, I've sat through enough interviews to know what this is. "Yes. People like these tours."

"Interesting. And how might someone go and find your friend, if they wanted to book a tour?"

"Are you trying to copy my idea?"

"No." But her face goes red. "No, I'm just trying to learn about the place I'm visiting. What's so bad about that?"

"We'll have to wait and see, I guess."

My mother claims she is falling off the horse, so we have to stop to help her back on, which affords Carla the opportunity to pick up a mango and chuck it so far into the ocean only three of the kids are willing to go chase it down. Apparently it's a fun game I've never seen the appeal of.

Lorena doesn't get off the horse, but Enrique and I manage to help our mother back onto the horse to her satisfaction, even though I think she is less balanced now than she was before, but that woman knows no compromise.

I'm barely back on my horse when she asks, "Are we almost there? I keep slipping off."

"Yes, Mama, we are almost there." I can see the remnants of the wharf already popping up above the waves. It used to be a beautiful place to jump off or sit with your feet in the ocean, but a hurricane took it out a few years ago and no one ever rebuilt it. Sometimes I think I should rebuild it, but I wouldn't know where to start.

Lorena's scanning the horizon, probably trying to assess where we are going, but you can't see it until you're right on top of it, that's why I chose it.

A patch of trees opens up on the right to reveal a cute little blue house on the hillside and I have to marvel at how easily it clings to the steep slope. Digging in and not letting go, no matter what tries to push it down.

I want to be that strong. That sure of myself. The way I sense Lorena already is.

Stop thinking about Lorena.

Finally, we pass the last patch of sea grape trees and come up on the small picnic laid out on the sand, Edwin standing beside it with water for everyone. He passes us each a bottle and takes the reins of the horses as we jump down, leading the animals away for a small break.

It's not quite noon, but I have a Lorena-imposed time limit, so I have to make do with a slightly early lunch looking out over the ocean. Everyone already has their phones out taking pictures and enjoying the ocean breeze. Everyone except Marcia, whose head is buried in her messages as usual, and Lorena, who pulls out her phone and goes white as a sheet, bolting upright and racing away without so little as a backwards glance.

I haven't even managed to unpack the picnic basket and I have no idea what to do. No one has ever run away from me so much as this woman, I swear.

"What's wrong?" Marcia asks, concern etching her brows. "Do you think it has anything to do with—?"

I shake my head. "I don't think so."

"Are you going to go make sure she's okay?" she asks, hands folded across her chest. "Or are you both not working together?"

"I didn't think I should," I answer. "It would be weird if I went after her, right?"

"Honestly, Óscar, sometimes I wonder how you get anything done at all."

I don't know what to say.

"Am I just supposed to go after her? And leave everyone here alone?"

"Go," she says, shaking her head. "Honestly."

I don't take the time to think it through, sprinting after Lorena faster than my legs should go. Normally, I'd take time to think, and I wouldn't do anything even remotely rash. But nothing about her is normal. Nothing about this situation is normal. So I keep pressing forward, pushing myself as far as I can.

I have to find her.