by Anya Palvin
Even the suggestion of him punched Diana in the stomach. "That's good."
Miranda gave her a measuring look. "You know Kate's told to us about your situation, right?"
Diana spat out the coffee she'd just sipped. "What?"
"She told us you didn't want help, but that you needed it. And we're all behind you, Cals. We'll do this for you."
"Do what?" Diana shook her head. "I don't know what she's said to you, but I'm fine. We're all going to be fine." Diana wished her words didn't sound so much like a lie, especially when Miranda called her out on it.
"Maybe next time make that lie a little more convincing." Miranda gave her a small smile, and drank the last of her coffee. "We're figuring something out, don't worry."
Miranda squeezed Diana's shoulder to give her assurance– not much different to her husband's greeting – and walked out of the room, leaving Diana to do exactly what Miranda told her not to.
5.
Diana waved her goodbye to the couple she had just toured with and let a deep sigh escape from her. They were on their honeymoon in Cape Town from Italy, and the joy that bubbled around them was both wonderful and annoying. Despite her feelings of jealousy, Diana had initiatedto push the husband to do something a little special for his wife. And she had succeeded by arranging the tour so that their final stop had been the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town. The opportunity for a fairy-tale had been too good to pass up, so now she stood, staring as the horse and chariot disappeared around the corner. She complimented herself mentally and gestured to John, the tour driver, to bring the car to the front so they could head back to the hotel.
The ride was short and quiet. She and John had worked together long enough to read each other's moods, and Diana knew that the silence wasn't because of John. There was just so much that she was worried about, and she couldn't keep it from affecting her whenever she wasn't doing something to distract herself. She offered John an apologetic smile with her "goodbye" as she left the car, and decided to bypass any possible conversation by walking straight to her own. She had bought herself the old Citi Golf after a year and a half of saving, and though she knew it wasn't much, it got her from A to B, and that was all she really needed a car for.
She wasn't far from the hotel when the car she had just praised for its reliability began to falter and groan. She bit her lip, and slowed down, ignoring the hoot of protest that came from behind her. She changed lanes as soon as she could so she could be closer to the yellow lane, and hissed when smoke started coming from her engine. She pulled over, put her hazards on, and reached for her phone.
"Great." She muttered, and threw the phone onto the passenger seat when she saw the battery had died. She turned the key in the ignition, hoping that the car angels would have mercy on her and that there will be a twist of fate, but none of that reallyoccurred. She didn't know anything about cars, so she didn't think that lifting the hood up to see what had gone wrong would help. But she spied a bottle of water at the bottom of the back seat, and an idea sparked. Surely smoke meant that the car had just overheated? She leaned over to pull the lever that opened the front bonnet, grabbed the bottle of water, and hooked the hood. Smoke rose so swiftly that she barely had a chance to lean away before she was choking.
When the coughing fit had ended and the smoke had dispersed, she tried to see if she could figure out what was wrong. But nothing made sense. The mass of wires and parts only confused her, and she shook her head at her idea that had made no sense at all. She slammed the hood down, and realised that she would have to try and walk back to the hotel. It wasn't that far, and she estimated that it would probably only be about a 20 minute walk from where she was. She would be there in no time, and it wouldn't take long to sort out her car after that. But after 30 minutes, she began to doubt that the hotel was getting any closer.
Your distance estimation needs some work, Diana, she thought as her legs began to shake. She knew she couldn't be that far off, but she suddenly found herself wishing she hadn't drank the bottle of water up in her first fifteen minutes. A car hooted from behind her, but she ignored it. She hadn't expected a bother-free walk, and she refused to give into the temptation to aim one of her famous dirty looks at the driver but the car continued to hoot and the temptation became too much to resist. She turned, and was about to aim her glare, when she identify the driver.
"Do you need a lift?" William asked.
"Yes, please." She said quickly, surprising herself. The words carelessly went out of her mouth before she had realized what that could totally mean and she was sure his chuckle was because of the refutation between her words and the unwillingness written all over her face. He climbed out the car and walked around to the other side to open the passenger side for her, such gesture softened her heart---but on the second thought she felt irritated by how easy she felt she can be.
"Where to?" He asked.
"The hotel is fine. At least then you don't have to go out of your way."
He frowned at her. "You realise that hotel is fifteen minutes in the opposite direction?"
Her face burned bright red as the voice in her head told her that her sense of direction didn't need some work, it needed all the work in the world.
"No, I didn't." She said sullenly. And then sighed and scolded herself to grow up. "Where were you headed? Maybe I could just get a lift to where I could take a bus home."
"Where do you live?"
"Just off Victoria Road. Camps Bay." She elaborated when his face blanked.
"That's in the direction I was going. I'll drop you at home." He pulled back onto the road. "Would you like to tell me why I found you walking seemingly destination-less?"
Diana didn’t hide her grimace. "My car broke down. And my phone was flat when I tried to call a tow truck. So I thought I could walk to the hotel and try to sort it out from there."
He gave her a slanted look. "You were walking to the hotel?"
"I thought so."
William chuckled, and then his laughed boomed through the car. She frowned at first, trying to retain some of her dignity, but his laugh was so contagious that she couldn't help but join in. She was sure they laughed for a full five minutes, and when the laughter finally died down, she was wiping tears from her cheeks. "I would have been so screwed if you hadn't come along."
"I'm glad I did then."
The mood shifted, and immediately she sobered.
"Me too." She nodded, and pleaded with her heart to stabilise. "So, how has everything been at the hotel?"
"Good, thanks. I think we've managed to identify the areas that need work, and I'll be starting the employee meetings in a few weeks. I just have to run my strategies by the Board and I'll be able to start implementing them after that."
"Do those strategies involve letting employees go?" She asked the question before she had a chance to think about it.
"It might." He frowned, and even then, when he was confirming the very thing she feared, Diana couldn't help but wonder at his beauty. "The one thing my evaluation has highlighted it that Grace Cape Town is haemorrhaging money. I know where that money seems to be used unnecessarily, and that may be due to unnecessary staff. But that's enough about me. I barely know anything about you besides that you love your brother." He smiled. "Tell me what you do."
Panic flooded her before she realised that she didn't have to lie. "I'm a tour guide."
"Hospitality is clearly in the family, huh?"
"I guess so. Connor was the one who started it, really." that wasn't a lie.
"Do you enjoy it?" He asked, and surprised her.
"I do. Every day I get the chance to encounter different type of new who come from different backgrounds and have different stories. And through that, I learn something from them and I reciprocated by showing them one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I keep thinking that one day I'll get tired of it. That one day the sights I see so often will no longer excite me and it will no longer be as interesting." She shook her head, a dr
eamy smile on her face. "But then I take a guest out and I get to see it through their eyes, and I fall in love all over again. It's like watching someone opening a present and seeing how much they like it."
William looked at her when he heard the passion in her voice. He couldn't see her entire face, but he swore she was glowing. And he couldn't get over how completely she fascinated him. "I think enjoy is nota good fit when asking you that question."
She gave him a soft smile, and William felt the armour around his battered heart crack.
"You're right. I love what I do. And I won't be able to do it for much longer."
He frowned. "Why not?"
"Oh, it's nothing serious." She said, quickly. "My company is just downsizing."
"They'd be fools to let you go."
"Thanks. You can take a left here."
The rest of the car ride didn't involve much talking besides her directions. William pulled up in front of a small cream-coloured house surrounded by a kaleidoscope of flowers.
"This is yours?"
"It is. It's not much, but it is home." Her hand rested on the doorknob, and William thought she looked like she was pondering the world. And she asked, "Would you like to come in for a drink?"
6.
Diana regretted the offer she made as soon as she realized what she had done, she wished to take it back but she couldn’t, and so she have to deal with this man who had so much effect on her---from the hairs at her nape down to the most sensitive part of her body---William King was now sitting comfortably in her tiny kitchen – which also doubled as a dining room – filling the space with his masculinity. She rarely---no, actually she never had let anyman to come overat her place thushis presence seems to be completely out of place. She shook off the feelings that his presence awakened in her, and called Connor to help her sort out her car, that was still stranded somewhere near the hotel. When he promised to take care of it, she moved to her sink that formed an L-shape with her kitchen counter on one side of the room, and rinsed out two glasses. The view she had from the window on top of the sink had always calmed her since it looked out onto her tidy little yard and strongly collocate the mountain she could see just above it. But at that moment, all she could think about was the fact that the man she had tried to stay away from since meeting him a week ago was now sitting at her dining room table, waiting patiently for her to pour him some wine.
"Is red okay?" She asked, and took out a bottle she had got from a guest who owned a vineyard a few months ago. She had never had reason to take it out as she didn't entertain too often, and it seemed like a waste for her to drink it alone.
"Yeah, anything will do. I'm not too finicky." He paused, and then gestured to the flowers that appeared all over her house. "Are these the same as those which was outside your house?"
She brought over the wine and sat next to him. "It is. I've been growing them since I moved in here. Gardening had become my source of comfort ever since my parents passed away."
There was a moment of silence as he processed the news. "I'm sorry to hear that."
The words were so genuine that Diana couldn't resist the bubble of warmth that popped inside of her. "Thanks. It was a while ago, and doesn't quite hurt as much as it used to."
His hand suspended over hers for a second, but then he dropped it to his lap, and asked the question she knew was coming. "Do you mind telling me how they died?"
She angled her head, and didn't look at his eyes when she answered. "They were on their way home from a weekend away. It was their anniversary, and every year they celebrated by staying at the hotel they'd had their wedding at. They'd been married 20 years." She smiled, but it was saturated with sadness. "A drunk driver overtook when he wasn't supposed to and crashed into them. They died instantly."
"How old were you?"
Now she looked at him. "Nineteen. Old enough to survive."
"But still young enough to be left behind."
Diana couldn't describe how the fact that he understood made her feel.
"Yeah. And I didn't deal with it very well. Which is why Connor is the protective big brother that he is today." She sipped of her wine to soothe her dry throat.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that. Speaking as a protective big brother myself of course."
She smiled, grateful for the change in subject. "Of course. You're obviously close with your family then?"
"With my father and stepmother, yes. My mom and I don't really speak." He shrugged. "My parents divorced because my mother didn't want children and my father did. She got pregnant accidently, and was furious with my father when he wouldn't agree to an abortion. So she had me, and stayed until I was ten and then decided she couldn't take it anymore. I only hear from her on my birthday. If she remembers."3
Diana wondered if he knew how much he had in common with her brother. "That bothers me in a way that it probably shouldn't." She shook her head. "I could never imagine leaving my child, no matter what the circumstances were."
"That's because you're a good person."
"No, it just means that I would love to have kids." Her voice softened. "I wish I could help every child who needs it."
"Why don't you?"
"I don't have the means to." She gestured around her little matchbox house. "I inherited this from my mom after she died. She lived here before she met my dad, and I think she had dreams of me living here in the same way she did. Finding the man of my dreams like she did."
Diana made the mistake of looking up, looking into his eyes. And though she knew it was going to happen, she couldn't resist herself from leaning the small distance to where he was offering something she hadn't let herself wants. Their lips met and she felt as if her insides were on fire. There were no explosions, no electricity. No, the way he was kissing her was sweet, simple, but just as dangerous. She felt the resistance in her pool into warmth that ran through her veins, and she responded, weaving the hand that didn't hold her wine through the hair she had admired on the first night that they'd met.
William couldn't believe how quickly it had happened. For one moment he was still listening to her and admiring how incredible she was and then all of a sudden, he felt that magnetic force that went beyond reason and logic. He had wanted to make contact with her, had wanted to prove to her that they could find a way to be together. And then it happened, and he was facing emotions that had been missing in every relationship he'd had in the past. Her lips were soft, warm, and he groaned at how similar it came to his expectations. But he could never have expected the way his heart thudded in his chest, pushing him to think about how aware he was of every part of her that touched him, every part of her that drew him in. The realisation that he wanted her, more than anything he had ever wanted before, shocked him into pulling back. And doing so abruptly, he had the opportunity to see the dazed look in her eyes, her flushed cheeks, and guilt poured through him.
"Diana," He breathed, his voice suffering the aftermath of her more severely than he knew. "I'm sorry."
She looked at him, and then tossed back her remaining wine. "Me too. It didn't just happen though – we both wanted it to." She shook her head when he opened his mouth. "But I can't – won't – happen again."
He didn't answer for a while, and then asked, "Do you want me to go?"
"I think that would be a good idea."
* * *
Thoughts rumbled through William's mind as he headed home. He went back and forth between them, wondering how things had rocketed to the point where he was completely lost as to his next step. So he tried to establish the facts of the situation. It had always worked for him in business to think about things logically and systematically, and he figured now, when he was confused beyond return, that maybe, just maybe, it would help if he followed suit in his personal life.
He liked her. That was the number one fact that William couldn't deny. The very reason for the chaosthat was happening in his head. His last relationship had been...messy. Julia had become more and mo
re selfish, and toward the end of the relationship, she had demanded things from him that he couldn't give her. That he didn't want to give to her, he acknowledged. He hadn't thought the child she wanted would have solved their problems. He knew what it was like to be between parents who didn't care for one another, and he hadn't wanted that feeling to taint his child's life. In hindsight, he should never have got involved with her, should never have entertained their relationship to the extent that he had. But he had been bewitched by her. She was beautiful, intelligent, and just a little arrogant. It had been a fascinating combination, one that had lured him in and blinded him to the truth of her.
But those feelings hadn't lasted very long. And they were so strongly contrasted to his feelings for Diana that he knew the genuineness of what he felt now. The problem was that she wouldn't date him when he was her brother's boss. It was the second fact of the situation that sat heavily between them. He couldn't afford to have his new staff think that he was favouring Connor, although heaven knew the man was more reliable and sharper than any of the other regional managers he had worked with in the past. But he had been given a job to do and that job was hard enough already. He didn't want to complicate it by giving the staff reason to think that his decisions were based on anything other than his devotion to making Grace Cape Town run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
He turned at the corner and realised he hadn't driven himself home. A few minutes later he was parked outside his father's house, and he got out of the car before he could talk himself out of doing what his subconscious had clearly thought necessary. He rang the doorbell out of courtesy, especially since he had a key and Gloria, his stepmother, repeatedly told him to use it. But somehow it never seemed right to, and he acknowledged that deep down he still felt like his father's new life wasn't quite something he was a part of. It was something he would never admit out loud if he wanted to stay alive.
