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Marta shrugged. “That’s a good question,niña. Maybe you’ll find out when you meet him.”
The mention of what was to come in my very near future sent a fresh wave of anxiety running through me. Marta, sensing this, placed her hand on my shoulder.
“Calm yourself,nina,” she said. “I know this is scary, but it doesn’t have to be.”
“It doesn’t have to be? How do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Maybe this Mr. Stone will be kind, friendly even. Maybe he isn’t like your father. Maybe this will be a good thing.” She smiled. “Come on, how many Hallmark movies have I snuck in here for you where the young woman in a terrible situation meets a handsome stranger who sweeps her off her feet?”
The notion, despite being silly, managed to bring a small smile to my face.
“Those are movies, Marta. This is real life.”
“Perhaps. But you never know, this man very well could turn out to be as evil as your fatherorhe could turn out to be kind and loving. There’s nothing wrong with having a little hope, is there?”
“Hope. I don’t even know what to do with a word like that.”
“You keep it close and don’t let it fade. I have no doubt in my mind that one day,niña, things will turn around for you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow,. but they will.”
Marta cocked her head to the side as something else occurred to her.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You rememberBeauty and the Beast?” she asked.
I smiled, the film having been one of my favorites since I was a little girl.
“Of course, I do.”
“Your situation is not so different from Belle’s, you know.”
“You think this Mr. Stone guy will be like the beast?”
She chuckled. “Hard to say. Maybe he will be scary at first, only to reveal himself to be something different entirely. Either way, my advice stands—don’t ever lose hope,niña.”
A knock sounded, the door opening before I could say a word. The staff that had originally started packing my stuff was there.
“He didn’t want you two in here alone,” one of them said. “He told us he wanted to make sure the job was getting done.”
“Then do it,idiotas!” Marta shouted, waving her hand toward the men. “Get to it.”
She turned to me as the flustered pair hurried back to work, taking my hands and holding them together.
“Hope. Don’t lose it. It may be what gets you through what lies ahead.”
As I watched the men return to packing my life away, I had the notion that it would take a lot more than just hope to see me through.
Chapter 3
Emily
One little push. That was all it’d take to shove open the car door and just… jump out.
As I watched the streets of Manhattan through the car window, it was all I could think about. Well, that and the fact that I was actually inManhattan. Dad never let me go there, even though the compound where I’d lived since forever was only a few miles away on Long Island. I’d been to Manhattan once, back when I was barely a teenager and Dad needed to take me to a specialist that didn’t do house calls.
As we drove, my eyes went from the tops of the buildings—those gleaming skyscrapers that reached all the way up into the clouds—then down to the ground, to street level where thousands of people, from businessmen and women to shop workers to college kids and everything in between, made their way through the hustle and bustle.
I could’ve watched the view from the window for hours, mesmerized by the life and vitality of the city. Dad and I were in the back of one of his luxury cars, the driver hidden from us by an ink black partition.
