Love in Barcelona
FROM THE SERIES - A BILLIONAIRE’S FIRST LOVE ( BOOK 2)
Chapter 1
Spanish Serenade
Camila stepped off the plane with her backpack slung over one shoulder and her feet sore in her sandals. She blinked away the dry cabin air, having accrued no sleep on the plane. She had to make a transfer in Bangkok, barely making it to her next flight, and then was sitting idly for so many hours. Though tired, it at least felt good to get up and walk, and the line for immigration was short. It was still the middle of the night in Barcelona, so the immigration officers performed like drones, as they didn’t even see the weary newcomers passing.
She showed them her passport and gave them the address that Mauricio had given her. They stamped her and welcomed her to Spain without a smile or even a glance, except to verify that it was really her in the passport photo. And without any baggage to claim, she stepped out into the night and got a cab.
Her eyes were glued to the window, watching the lights of Barcelona go by and wondering how long it would take to get there. She grew more and more nervous, the driver in front of her quiet, both hands glued to the wheel. She didn’t speak Spanish. She knew a few phrases. Hola. Adios. El baño, but she couldn’t hold a conversation, so she and the driver didn’t have anything to say to each other.
“Little English,” he’d admitted when she entered. “No mucho.”
The buzz of the highway nearly lulled her to sleep. Then she was jolted awake at a quick traffic stop. Voices outside drew her attention. Young men were speaking Spanish in that beautiful, song-like tone. The voices reminded her of Alonzo and Mauricio when she’d overhear them talking at the bar at Nyang Nyang Beach. She looked out the window and, waking from a half-dream, she initially thought it was them.
But it wasn’t them. Only strangers.
The driver dropped her off at a high-rise apartment building in a busy sector of the city. She had no idea where she was, and she was too tired and preoccupied to follow the map on her phone. She spied a group of people walking through the front door, looking like they were heading out for a late-night drink, and she hurried to get into the building before the door closed and possibly locked behind them. She scanned their faces as they passed, but none of them were Alonzo, although their faced reminded her of them. They looked at her curiously, but then moved on nonchalantly.
She found the apartment number and knocked on the door. It was late, and she didn’t want to wake any neighbors that might be sleeping. But she would certainly wake Alonzo if he was there. She called and texted him and pressed her ear against the door, listening for the buzzing or the ringing of his phone, but nothing came. She heard nothing from inside. She kept knocking, but eventually decided her efforts were in vain. He wasn’t going to answer.
She would have to go back in the morning and try again.
She got on her phone and searched for hotels nearby. There was one not far, but it was too expensive. La Aguila, it was called. It was close, but she couldn’t afford more than one night in such a lavish place. Then she found a hotel a little farther down. It would take a while to walk there, and she was so tired she could hardly see, but she could rent a room for several days without worrying about money.
She didn’t fret about walking the streets of Barcelona alone late at night. She might have been young and pretty and foreign to the country, an easy target at first glance. But she was also a purple belt in Ju-Jitsu and was fully capable of defending herself from any ill-intended men seeking to take advantage of an opportunity.
A few drunks heckled her as she walked, but she kept her eyes ahead of her and ignored them. If they touched her, she could kill them with her bare hands. She didn’t want to have to do that and kept walking. It still pissed her off. She couldn’t help but blame Alonzo a little bit for having to walk down to the hotel alone, holding her backpack tightly to her chest, and watching her phone that gave her directions, following the little blue dot that represented her moving through the street. If he’d have just returned her calls and messages, she wouldn’t have to be wandering the streets of a strange city alone with hardly anything on her back. She was also getting cold. The fabric of her shirt was too thin for the chill night air. She was so used the warmth and humidity of Indonesia, and she was so furious at Alonzo that she didn’t even think to grab something warmer.
She walked past a group of hookers on a corner, waving to men who drove by with windows rolled down. An older man, who was clearly their pimp, watched Camila with the cold, dead eyes of a businessman who saw her body as a potentially profitable product. She walked faster, hating Alonzo even more.
If he’d just talk to her, she wouldn’t be walking down the street with strange men, drunk or otherwise, slurring phrases to her in Spanish. She was glad she couldn’t understand them.
She finally got to the hotel and checked in swiftly. They had one room left, and she booked it for three nights. She took the key, and it felt like a miracle to be able to collapse after traveling for so long. She was so tired. The second she got into bed, she fell asleep without even taking off her clothes or getting under the covers.
She had fled Bali to go after Alonzo so fast, she didn’t give herself the time to change her mind. Now she was alone in a hotel in a foreign country where she knew no one, except the one person she couldn’t get to successfully.
She fell asleep thinking about Alonzo. Memories of their time together in Bali flooded her mind. She recalled taking control of his body when they first started Ju-Jitsu together on the mat and putting him into submission, which really pissed him off. Then spending hours on the beach together, their souls syncing effortlessly as waves crashed and surfers disappeared in the blue. The kiss in the temple of Angkor Wat…
She refused to let herself cry at the thought of their friendship and even love severed now into only those memories, lost over time, eventually forgotten.
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