Passion Abroad: A BWWM Billionaire Holiday Romance (3 page)

“
That’s
good,” he said as he chewed. “Really good,” he said
as he reached for another tortilla. “Three years I have been
coming here and I have never thought of ordering this,” he
said.

Erica
raised an eyebrow.

“
I
have to ask, what nationality are you?” she asked.

“
American.
Why?”

“
Are
you trying to tell me that you’ve never had tortillas?”
she asked in surprise.

“
Well,
I don’t like admitting it in public but I have actually never
had any,” Daniel shrugged. Erica’s eyes grew wide. “Given
the look on your face right now, I can assume that you are genuinely
surprised,” he said.

She
nodded and took a bite of her fajita.

“
I
am,” she said before taking another bite.

“
Why?
I don’t think it’s that weird,” he said.

“
Actually,
it is just as strange as a Chinese man never having had rice in his
life,” Erica looked at him and smiled.

“
Okay
when you put it like that I sound like an absolute…snob,”
Daniel said. The waiter who had served her earlier came carrying a
tray and stopped at their table. “Thank you Emilio,” he
said as the waiter put a plate in front of him coupled with a glass
of pineapple juice. “I see you already had a taste of this
glass of heaven,” he said before taking a long sip from his
glass.

Erica
smiled and took a sip from her own glass.

“
It
is perfect,” she said.

“
I
have been having a glass every single day since I got here. I don’t
know what I am going to do when I go back home. I mean you can never
get something this good and authentic back at home,” he said.

Erica
looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Just how long have you
been here?”

“
Fourteen
days and counting.”

“
Wow,
any plans of going back time any time soon?”

“
Oh
Erica, are you already bored with me? It’s only been a few
minutes,” he teased.

She
smiled and shook her head.

“
No,
no, no. Please don’t get me wrong. It’s nothing like
that. It’s just that you look like a venture capitalist kind of
person and such guys usually have a few weeks every fifty years to
take a vacation,” she said. He took a bite of his paella rice
before he looked up at her.

“
I’m
sorry, venture capitalist? Whatever gave me away?” he asked as
he looked at her.

“
Well,
you might be in linen pants but I work with suits all day. I know
exactly what an Armani shirt looks like,” she said. Daniel
looked at her and nodded. He looked seemingly impressed.

“
Okay,
now I have to ask what you do,” he said.

Erica
took another bite and shrugged.

“
I
was a lawyer, two years,” she said before taking another bite.

“
Was?
Did you change your mind about law or something?” he asked.

Erica
took a long deep breath and shook her head.

“
Honestly
I don’t really know. I gave my resignation to my boss before I
took this trip,” she said. “The trip is actually supposed
to help me make up my mind about…a lot of things.”
Daniel nodded and took another bite of his paella. “So, what
about you? Was I right about you, Mr. Venture Capitalist?” she
asked.

“
Actually
I am what you can call an innovator…or at least my team is,”
he smiled.

“
What
is that supposed to mean?” she asked. Daniel reached for his
wallet and pulled out a business card. He looked at it for a few
minutes before he handed it to Erica. “Quicker Kitchen Me? The
microwave guys?” she asked. Daniel smiled and nodded. “Wait,
CEO? You run QKM?” she asked almost too surprised.

“
You
know about the company?” he asked.

“
Are
you kidding? If you saw my kitchen you would probably have me as your
poster child,” she said with a smile.

“
Well
you see, you were really wrong about me being a venture capitalist,”
he said.

“
Actually,
unless you do the actual groundwork in your company, I really don’t
think you are anything other than a venture capitalist,” she
said as she took one last bite of her food.

Daniel
was smiling, almost grinning.

“
How
did you ever get your law degree if you can’t even know the
right definition of venture capitalist?” he asked. She looked
at him and shrugged before reaching for her glass.

“
How
do you know that all this is not just an act?” she asked
looking at him over the rim of her glass. Daniel looked at her
perfectly round brown eyes and shook his head.

“
Yes,
how do I know,” he said. She looked at him and took one last
sip of her juice before putting the glass down.

“
I
guess you will never know,” she said as she dabbed her mouth
with her napkin.

“
Leaving
already?” he asked as he looked at him.

“
Well,
I am done with my lunch or really late breakfast,” she said as
she looked at him.

“
I
would really like to see you again,” he said. She looked at him
and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“
Are
you staying here? At this hotel?” she asked. Daniel nodded.
“Good, then I’ll see you for breakfast tomorrow,”
she said as she walked out of the restaurant. She could almost feel
Daniel’s eyes on her as she made her way out.

“
You
came here to get away from everything, not to start a fling,”
that was the thought
running in her mind but somehow, she pushed the thought to the back
of her mind. When she got to her room, she could not wait to talk to
her sister.

*****

When
she finally turned the corner, Erica was practically running to the
elevator. She had tried as hard as she could to maintain her
femininity for as long as she thought Daniel was watching before she
finally broke into her real self. She was breathing hard and deep as
she waited for the elevator to stop at her floor. She was drumming
her fingers against the side of her thigh as she hummed a familiar
tune. She didn’t even realize that she was riding the elevator
with two more people.

“
Oh
God…I’m so sorry,” she said when she came to her
senses. The man and woman in the elevator smiled and shrugged.

“
You
sure do look happy,” the woman said.

“
I
am. For the first time in a long time I really am,” Erica smile
and then shrugged.

“
Well,
that’s what life’s all about right?” the man
pointed out as the elevator doors opened. Erica smiled at them
politely before she walked out. She tried hard not to smile as she
passed a few more hotel guests along the hallway. When she got inside
her room, she tossed her purse somewhere as she headed for one of her
bags. She pulled out her iPad and checked her connection as she sat
on the bed. As soon as she established a connection, she smiled when
she saw her sister was online. She dialed her and waited for her to
pick up.

“
Hey
you,” she said when Emily picked up.

“
Hey…what’s
wrong with your connection?” Emily asked.

“
What
do mean?” she frowned as she looked at her screen.

“
I
can’t see you. That’s what’s wrong,” Emily
said.

“
Wait…I
think I know what’s going on…hold up,” she said in
a low voice as she tapped on the ‘enable video’ icon.
“There,” she said sitting back.

“
Better.
And oh, someone looks excited,” Emily said with a smile.

“
I
kind of am but I first want to hear about you. You look like you are
still in the office,” she said.

Emily
looked around her office and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess the work
is never really done,” she said.

“
Those
guys don’t pay you enough,” Erica said.

Emily
smiled. “I know, right? Sometimes I think that maybe I should
have gone into law like you did,” she added. Erica frowned and
shook her head. “What, you don’t think I would crack it?”

“
Come
on, Ems. You have always been the money guy. Accounts are like sex to
you. You would never walk away if your life depended on it. You know,
kind of what I did,” Erica said.

“
You
know, I’ve been meaning to ask, are you sure that is what you
really want? To just walk away from everything?” Emily looked
at her and smiled.

“
Yeah.
Maybe I will rethink everything in the long run but the truth is that
right now, this is all I want. To just be away from everything,”
Erica shrugged. “I’m fine, I promise you,” she
added with a smile.

Emily
ran her fingers through her hair and sighed.

“
I’m
happy if you’re happy, sweetie,” she said. Erica looked
at her sister and smiled. If she could she would have reached right
through the screen and kissed her sister. Sometimes Emily acted like
she was the older one and Erica adored her for it. “So, why are
you so happy anyway? I mean I know that you are on vacation and
everything and that being happy is kind of part of the package but
you are a little glowy,” Emily noted. Erica tucked a strand of
hair behind her ear.

“
Okay,
I’m not glowing but if you must know, I met a guy,” Erica
grinned.

“
Wait,
didn’t you just land today?” Emily asked. From the tone
in her sister’s voice, she could tell that Emily was impressed.

“
Yes,
I did and I blacked out…I was too tired but as it turns out,
the decision not to have room service was what led to me meeting a
fine gentleman in the restaurant,” Erica said excitedly.

“
I
didn’t understand any of that,” Emily frowned.

“
Okay,
I wanted to have room service, you know with the exhaustion and
everything but I remembered that time we went to Puerta Vallarta and
didn’t get out of the room for most of the vacation so long
story short, I ended up going downstairs and bam! I met the guy. And
get this, he is hot!” she said excitedly.

Emily
smiled at her sister.

“
So,
what was this? Just a one-time meal or is there something else in the
future?” she asked.

Erica
shrugged as she thought of the look Daniel had given her as she left
the restaurant. She was not sure but years of working with other men
making huge settlements had taught her that she could read men quite
well and the way Daniel had looked at her spoke volumes.

“
We
are definitely going to have something else,” Erica said just
as she heard Emily’s office door open and close. “Are you
busy?” she asked when she saw Emily look up from her computer.

“
Yeah,
I just got this stack of paperwork. Something to do with last month’s
financials. Talk tomorrow?”

“
Maybe
but if I don’t I’ll get some time later this week,”
she shrugged.

“
I
have a good feeling of what you’ll be doing,” Emily said
before she hung up. Erica rolled her eyes. She didn’t get
enough time to tell her sister not to mention anything to Cassandra.
Emily had a thing for always exaggerating and given a choice, she
would have loved to be the one to break the news to Cassandra. She
shrugged and put away her iPad. Maybe she would take care of that
later…much, much later.

Needless
to say, Erica was a little keener to detail when she dressed up the
next morning. She had initially planned on wearing a sundress but she
also wanted to check out the pool later…or maybe the beach.

“
Maybe
I’ll just wear a swimsuit,” she thought as she picked out
a lime green bikini from her suitcase. She oiled herself and put it
on before putting on a striped black and white swimwear cover up. She
held her hair in a high bun and put on a pair of silver dangling
earrings and a pair of black flip flops before she looked at her
reflection in the mirror. She put on some light makeup and then
looked at her phone and sighed. It was nine o’clock. She didn’t
want to look like she was just going there with the intention of
bumping into Daniel but she also didn’t want to miss out on
seeing him. She bit her lower lip and touched up on her blush and
lipstick before she headed out. She didn’t know whether it was
the adventurous pink lipstick or the fact that she was almost
completely naked under her cover up but she felt a little more
confident than usual. But her confidence suddenly vanished when the
elevator doors opened and she came face to face with Daniel.

“
If
I didn’t know any better I would think you are stalking me,”
was what she initially wanted to say but when she opened her mouth,
she could only mumble. She hated knowing that he could have such an
effect on her. “Daniel…hi,” she said as she walked
in. She was hoping that he didn’t notice how hot he looked in
his neutral pants and dark blue t-shirt. His muscular chest was
almost calling out to her. It was then that she knew it was official,
the dry spell was getting to her.

“
Erica,
fancy meeting you here,” Daniel said looking at her. “You
look about ready to hit the pool,” he added as he looked at her
up and down.