Chapter 1

"Louisa! Louisa! Wake up and open the door, your Papa wants to speak with you."

Louisa reluctantly opened her eyes and dragged herself from bed. She knew that her Yaya Seling would not stop banging on her bedroom door until she opened it.

The fact that Yaya Seling was calling her by her given name instead of her nickname told Louisa that the old woman was in one of her 'dark' moods. She wouldn't be taking any nonsense from her today. Louisa loved her Yaya dearly, but she could be a real pain in the neck at times. She seemed to always forget that her ward was no longer a child. Louisa could not fault her for that, though. Yaya Seling had been taking care of her since she was a toddler, after all. To keep the peace, Louisa would often go out of her way for her Yaya.

After letting the tyrant in, Louisa jumped back to bed. She dove under her fluffy comforter and snuggled deeper inside its warm cocoon, determined to catch a few more winks.

"Come on, lazy head. Get up. Your Papa has been waiting for over an hour now. He said he needed to speak to you as soon as you're awake. So get up now!" Yaya Seling admonished, dragging the comforter away. Louisa tried to pull it back, but she sat bolt upright when the persistent old woman started rubbing her face with a wet sponge.

"Yaya Seling! Stop it! I hate it when you do that. I'm no longer a six-year-old, you know", she cried, pushing away the hand that was ministering to her. "Okay, okay. I'm getting up. I'll go to the bathroom first, okay?"

Louisa slithered out of bed, half-walking, and half-crawling to the en suite. She splashed cold water on her face to remove the sleep from her eyes.

"Papa should've known that I wouldn't be up early. I spent the whole night looking over those contracts he turned over to me yesterday. And it's a Saturday, too. I always sleep in on Saturdays. What time is it, anyway?" she said from behind the slightly ajar bathroom door.

"It's 8 am. I have no idea what he wants with you. All I know is that your Papa had also been up half the night in his study. I saw the light was still on way past midnight when I went to the kitchen to get a drink. And he looked a bit haggard this morning. He must have had very little sleep himself." Yaya Seling answered, straightening Louisa's bed.

Louisa came out with a puzzled look on her face. "He looked haggard this morning?"

"Yes, but aside the dark circles around his eyes, he seemed okay. A nap would do him good."

"Hmm. I guess I better just ask him myself. I won't be able to go back to sleep now anyway."

Louisa always had difficulty going back to sleep, a quirk she's had since childhood. It would take a few hours before her lack of sleep bothered her, in which case she needed to go straight to bed or end up with a throbbing headache. Though now that her curiosity had been pricked, she wouldn't be able to sleep even without that unusual trait.

Her father rarely, if ever, demanded her presence during breakfast because she often beats him to it. Louisa was a habitual early riser and her father knew that she never overslept. On the rare instances that she went missing on the breakfast table, her father would pass it off without comment. He knew she would have a good reason for sleeping in.

Thus, she found it odd to have her father asking Yaya Seling to wake her up just so she could join him for breakfast. And she was sure that her Papa had forced her Yaya to do it because, tyrant or not, she was very protective of Louisa, often letting her get away with almost anything, including missing breakfast. Her father was very indulgent of her, too, and he wouldn't disturb her sleep for anything trivial. There was that one time, though, that her father had shaken her awake in the wee hours of the morning. It was on her thirteenth birthday. He was so excited to give his gift mare to her that he couldn't wait for her to wake up.

Maybe he has a surprise for me that couldn't wait, she thought happily.

With that in mind, she quickly donned her usual attire - a loose white shirt with sleeves turned up at the elbows, soft chino pants, and her Hush Puppies. Bundling up her long tresses into a loose ponytail, she dabbed a little powder on her face and a quick spray of her favorite cologne. Satisfied with what she saw reflected in her full-length bathroom mirror, Louisa left her room and sauntered down the staircase with a light heart.

Her father was in the Solarium, a portion of the house that had a set of high-tech windows above it. They could be opened or closed depending on the weather with the flick of a switch. It has been her mother's favorite spot since, as she often said, it brought the beauty of the outdoors indoors.

The bonsai palm trees and ferns surrounding it gave the Solarium a soothing ambiance. The small breakfast driftwood table varnished in a dark-brown, glossy tint, that dominated this space would have looked intimidating and out of place if not for the intricately-carved legs that held it up – expertly carved dark wood that was made to look like thick vines sprouting up from out of the ground. The black, wrought-iron chairs with cushioned seats in bright, tropical colors that accompanied it lent a contemporary touch to this otherwise old-world setting. Louisa had designed the set when she was twelve and her father had it made according to her specifications, commenting that she had a natural talent for designing. This set was what inspired him to venture into furniture production later on.

As she approached her father, she saw that he was sipping brewed coffee with an unlit tobacco loosely held in his left hand. He had quit smoking a long time ago, right after her mother died, but he still kept a stock of those foul-smelling things around. He only touched them when he was troubled or brooding over something. That he was doing it right now crushed the hope that his 'surprise' was a happy one. Her quick, light steps turned heavy. Still, she could not back away now. She needed to know what was troubling her Papa.

"Good Morning, Papa. I see you beat me to the breakfast table this time," she said cheerfully.

"Good Morning to you, too, my pet," her father replied, his soft voice laced with tension.

"So, what's up?" Louisa said, taking her usual seat across her father.

Don Ramon continued sipping his coffee, purposely avoiding her eyes. He's stalling, she thought. Not a good sign.

Louisa chose not to comment on his father's brooding mood, focusing instead on the appetizing breakfast spread before her. The aroma of the freshly brewed coffee, freshly-baked bread, scrambled eggs, and sausages reminded her of her meager fare last night. Reviewing proposals and contracts always had a way of ruining her appetite, so her dinner consisted mostly of biscuits and a mug of weak tea. This morning, it was filled with the fragrant coffee. She skipped the cream and added two teaspoons of sugar to it. Next, she piled her plate with sweet-smelling bread, scrambled eggs, and sausages. The home-baked bread was just perfect, crusty on the outside but soft and fluffy on the inside.

The food distracted her enough to forget that she had been summoned to breakfast. The last of her bread was dunked in coffee and finished in one bite. She felt her father's intense stare before she saw it. Thinking that her Papa was annoyed by her barbaric display, she picked up her linen napkin and delicately dabbed at the corners of her mouth.

"There! See? I still have manners. No need to look so horrified, Papa," she said, grinning at her father.

Such light banter, on any other day, would've brought on a funny rejoinder from her father, but this time the elder Almendrez only stared back at her. The hairs on her neck literally stood up when a dreadful thought flashed in her mind.

Oh, God, please. Don't be ill, Papa, she silently prayed.

Losing one parent was painful enough. She wasn't ready to let go of the only family she had left. Her fear must have been reflected on her face because her father suddenly snapped out of his brooding. He straightened his shoulders and noisily cleared his throat, the unlit tobacco returned to its casing beside his coffee cup. His slow, deliberate movements made Louisa anxious. Her father was not a delicate man. His actions were often quick and forceful. He rarely moved slowly or hesitantly. That he was doing just that warned her that he was about to drop a bomb in her lap.

"Louisa, I have some bad news about Tio Fernando," her father's voice was so soft she hardly heard him. "He had a stroke and is now in a coma."

Tio Fernando had been her father's best friend since childhood. She knew how painful this was for him. Instinctively, she reached out for her father's hand. Feeling the gesture inadequate, Louisa walked to her father and hugged him tightly. She kissed the top of his head, still thick with wavy, auburn hair similar to hers.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Papa. I'm sure he'll get through this."

She hated how her words sounded cliche. She wanted to offer some encouragement, but a small lump had lodged in her throat, making it hard to speak. She loved her godfather, too, and this sad development affected her just as much as it did her father.

Ramon looked at her and smiled, his dark, brown eyes misting with unshed tears. Louisa saw the pain in his eyes, but behind his grief was a desperation that Louisa was not familiar with.

"What's wrong, Papa?"

"I think you need to sit down, my dear. There is something you need to know." He kissed her hands and nodded at her chair.

She went back to her seat with trepidation. A lump had settled on her windpipe, nauseating her. With fingers crossed, Louisa waited for her father's announcement with bated breath, convinced that whatever it was he wanted to tell her wouldn't be good.

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