Her Latin Lover (Contemporary Romance) (2 page)

Mary went to put her key in. In order to reach the metal box, she had to lean over the table. She tried to ignore the gun that lay there beneath her. Suddenly, she heard a loud bang. She jumped and dropped her safe key. It fell from her fingers onto the table below, landing on the gun. Metal hit metal. Mary looked around. The loud noise that had startled her had only been the flap of the reception desk falling shut. Señor Marcos picked up her key off the table. Mary thought she could feel his scrawny arm brush against her breasts as he did so. She looked at the gun and then looked up at the hotel owner.

“Your key,” he said, handing it to her. Mary could sense the moisture of his rancid breath on her check. She snatched the key off him and jammed it into the safe, cursing Nick as she did so. If he hadn’t scampered off to the capital city this morning, she wouldn’t be in this situation now. Nick was always running off in search of the action, chasing one event after another. It was what made him such a great journalist and it made life with him very exciting, but it was also extremely frustrating at times. This was one of those times.

Mary tried to turn the key. At first it seemed jammed, but then she thrust it in harder, heard a click, and gave it a strong twist. The small metal door swung open. Mary peered inside the darkness. She couldn’t see anything. She put her hand inside the hole and groped around until she came across something hard and stiff. She pulled it out and saw that it was her passport. Inside was her return air ticket from La Puesta to London in three weeks time. She felt inside again, but she couldn’t find anything else. Where were all the dollars and the credit card? And where were Nick’s passport and his air ticket? She moved her hand in deeper. At the very back of the safe box she felt something soft and papery. She withdrew it. It was a cheap paper napkin, the type they handed out in bars with snacks, like peanuts and olives. Across it was something printed in Spanish and underneath was Nick’s unmistakable flowery script: “Really sorry! Bit of a mess. Will explain everything back in London. Love you, Nick.”

Mary turned the tissue over several times in her hand and searched the safe box again. There was nothing else. Someone had stolen everything. “Where is it? Where’s the money?” she asked the hotel owner.

“Señor Kingsley, he take. He go La Puesta.” The hotel owner replied. He brushed a lock of oily hair back behind his ear and then wiped his hand on his dark brown trousers.

“You’ve stolen it! Nick wouldn’t leave me alone like this.”

“No Señora. Señor Kingsley, he take the money. Now you pay me for the room or you go.” Without breaking eye-contact with her, he reached out for the gun on the table, took it and tucked the barrel down the front of his baggy trousers.

“Ok. I’ll go to the bank. I’ll be back in a minute.” Mary skirted round him and stormed out of the hotel.

Mary tried the local bank, but they said that without a credit card they couldn’t advance her any money. She knew her own bank in London wouldn’t be able to help her as there was no money in her account, and even if there was, she couldn’t remember her personal bank details for either telephone or internet banking. There was no one she could think of to ask. Most of her friends, having only just left college, were as broke as she was. Her mother was a widow and lived off a meagre government pension, and as for her older brother, the less she had to do with that waste of space the better.

She left the bank and went to the café on the square where she ordered a coffee. She got out her mobile phone and started to make some calls. The first person she tried was Nick, but as she expected, his phone was turned off. Then, once she eventually got hold of their number, she called the British Embassy in La Puestra, but they were about as useful as the hotel owner. When she explained her situation, they said that they always advised people to take several forms of money with them when travelling overseas and she should have brought her own credit card with her. She then told them about the hotel owner and how she thought that he might have stolen the money. The embassy official merely replied that it was unwise of her to have such large sums of cash with her in a country like this and she should take up the matter with the local police. When she told them about the gun, they actually laughed down the phone and said that personal guns out here were like mobile phones in the UK: everyone carried one. At that point she hung up. She did contemplate going to the local police, but decided that without any real proof, it would be pointless.

The next phone call she made was to the airline to see if she could change her ticket. After being placed on hold for over ten minutes, she was told by an airline official that the fare conditions of her ticket meant that she would have to pay an extra $500 to have it changed. However, there were no available flights to London until late the following week. Mary hung up and ordered another coffee. As she sipped it, she sent Nick another message. She clicked send and a few seconds later her phone pinged. Maybe it was a message back from Nick explaining what had happened and then the whole thing would get sorted out. It wasn’t. Instead it was a message informing her that she had no credit left on her phone.

Maybe she should follow Nick to La Puesta and look for him there, though she didn’t know how she would find him in a city of 10 million people. She asked the barman when the next bus to La Puesta was. Once he finally understood what she wanted to know, he explained in very broken English and with lots of gestures that she had just missed the last bus of the day which left at 10 am. The next bus would be tomorrow at 6am. She paid him for the two coffees and left.

She was alone in Corazon, in the middle of nowhere in South America with an air ticket for a flight in three weeks’ time, a passport, and just $16.

Chapter 2

Mary dressed up for dinner. It was a habit that she had formed as a child when she went away on holiday with her parents and her older brother. They never went anywhere very exotic and they never stayed anywhere very expensive, but when they went out to dinner, even if it was only to a local cafeteria, her mother insisted that they all dressed as if they were going to dine at the Ritz. Some people might have thought that they looked foolish, the four of them in a cheap café, Mary’s mother in an elegant dress, her father and brother in fresh-pressed shirts (a huge challenge in some of the places where they stayed) and little Mary in her best dress with a row of tiny pearls around her neck. Mary, however, loved it. She felt that it made the few occasions when they went out unbelievably special, no matter where they went.

Therefore, that evening, even though she didn’t know where she was going to eat, or how she was going to pay for it, she still got dressed for dinner. She took a shower as best as she was able given the tiny trickle of water that came out of it, dried and brushed her short wavy hair, put on a pair of blue linen trousers and a clean, white cotton blouse. She wore only the smallest amount of make-up, only because if she applied anymore it would refuse to stay on in the constant humidity.

Mary had spent much of the afternoon earlier that day lying on her musty hotel bed trying to figure out what was going on and what she was going to do. She still wasn’t sure if the hotel owner, Señor Marcos, had stolen the money. She knew that he had a key to the safe, as he showed his copy to Nick when they first placed their valuables in it. She even remembered Nick joking about the fact, saying that it was good that at least two responsible people had a key, because if he was the only person with one, he would lose it in two seconds flat and then where would they be?  

But would the hotel owner steal their stuff? It seemed unlikely, but then what did she know about criminal activities in South America? She had heard stories about travellers having their drinks drugged in bars by so-called friendly locals and then waking up the next day with a kidney missing. If people could steal body parts to sell on the black market, Mary was sure they could steal some cash and a credit card. But what about Nick’s passport and air ticket? Mary vaguely remembered reading a newspaper article somewhere about the international black market for passports, especially American and British ones.

Did the hotel owner look guilty when she opened the safe? Mary wasn’t sure. He had seemed more interested in groping her than what was in the safe, but then there had been the gun. If he was innocent, why did he have a gun there? However, the Embassy had said that everyone carried guns and he had left it clearly within her reach until she had started arguing with him.

These thoughts buzzed around Mary’s head for several hours like angry little flies as she sat sweating in her room. Other thoughts kept on creeping in as well: thoughts about Nick. Was it possible that Nick had run off with the money and left her alone with nothing in this small, stinking place? He had done some crazy things in the two years that they had been together, such as the evening he left her flat to buy a bottle of wine and came back two days later! He said that he had met some friends at the shop, who invited him to a party and one thing had led to another. He hadn’t called her because he’d left his phone in her flat and couldn’t remember her number. Mary had been so furious that she hadn’t spoken to him for a month. She only forgave him because he bought the most enormous bunch of flowers that she had ever seen, delivered them personally to her at the school where she worked and presented them to her in front her class. Having told the children on many occasions about the importance of forgiving each another, it was hard not to forgive him when he pleaded with her in front of thirty nine-year-olds all screaming at her to say “I love you”.

However, it was going to take more than a bunch of flowers to make her forgive him for this escapade. Knowing Nick, there were a million possible reasons as to why he might have run off to La Puesta for the day, but why had he taken all the money and his passport? Also, why had he paid the hotel bill up until that day? Deep down, Mary felt that he would return later that afternoon, or maybe the next day with some wild story about why he had gone. They would argue, forgive each other and perhaps end up having sex, though, for someone who was wild and unpredictable, Nick was surprisingly boring in bed and didn’t seem to be that interested in making love. Mary decided that she wouldn’t tell him about her panicky calls to the airline and the Embassy, as it would make her look like an hysterical female, but she would tell him about the hotel owner’s advances, so that Nick would see that he had left her in a very awkward situation.

By seven o’clock in the evening, Mary’s earlier feelings of despair had given way to feelings of anger towards Nick and an even stronger feeling of hunger. She had had nothing since the two coffees that morning and she was now famished. Therefore, once she had showered and changed, she put her $16 in her bag and headed downstairs. Señor Marcos stared up at her with his small, black eyes as she descended the staircase to the reception area. He seemed to be waiting for her.

“Nick will be back later today and he will pay the bill when he arrives,” Mary called out to him before she had even reached the desk. “He’s probably on the bus to Corazon now,” she added with a lot more confidence than she felt.

“The last bus from La Puesta, it already arrive and go. It arrived at six o’clock. No more buses today,” Señor Marcos squeaked at her. He gave her a sickly smile.

“Well, perhaps he missed it. I’m sure he’ll be on tomorrow’s bus then. He’ll pay you for the room when he gets back.”

“He is not coming back. Not today. Not tomorrow.” The smile on his face broadened. He gave her a lecherous look.

Mary wondered what made the oily man so certain. What did he know that she did not? Had something happened to Nick? Images of Nick sprawled across a gutter somewhere ran through her mind. She could see his beautiful white skin slashed open to remove a kidney, or perhaps even worse. All this time Mary had been angry with Nick for running off, but perhaps he hadn’t run off at all. Perhaps he’d been attacked, or even murdered? Maybe she should go to the police and report that he was missing.

Señor Marcos rolled a thin cigarette between his fingers. He put it to his mouth, lit it with a large black lighter and took a long, hard drag on it. After keeping the smoke deep in his lungs for almost a minute, he blew out what was left, high into the air. “Do not worry. Your hotel bill is paid already. At least it is paid for two nights.” He took another long drag on the cigarette.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” Mary saw that the man had mistaken the look of worry on her face about Nick, for concern about how she was going to pay the bill. However, from what he had just said, it sounded as if the bill had been paid. Had Nick come back, paid it and gone off again?

“Don Paulo de Castile paid it,” Señor Marcos said, lowering his voice. It reminded Mary of the way people speak in hushed tones when they are in a church, whether they are religious or not. “He is in the bar, waiting for you.” Señor Marcos pointed to the hotel’s poor excuse for a bar to the left of the lobby.

Mary peered inside. She saw a tall man standing by the bar. He was alone and drinking what looked like brandy. He had short black hair, a heavy jaw and large dark eyes. Under his left eye, Mary could see a deep, pale scar which was made all the more noticeable by the bronzed colour of his skin. Mary felt that she had seen him somewhere before. He turned and looked directly at her and smiled. Mary froze. She remembered why he looked familiar. He had been one of the men who sat with Nick playing cards in the bar across the square the night before. However, despite the scar, he didn’t seem to be like the other local bandits who had been there.

Firstly, he didn’t dress like them. Instead of the dirty jeans and sweat-strained shirts, he wore a clean white shirt and, despite the heat, a dark jacket over it. Secondly, last night he hadn’t acted like them. Instead of yelling and chewing tobacco, he remained quiet and composed. He had asked Mary to come and sit down with them. She had felt so strongly attracted to him that rather than say yes, she had felt the need to walk away and leave the bar, which was why she had left early and returned to the hotel on her own. He didn’t have the boyish good looks that Nick did, with his pale blue eyes, soft blond hair and cheeky smile. Instead, this man had a powerful, dark strength to him that seemed to dangerously pull her in. And now, here he was again, looking at her.