Twenty-two year old Sofia Lily Hernandez Archibald is a simple girl who clings on to the hope of a better life for herself. During the day, she suffers at the violent hands of her step-father, and during the night she works at a night club. Although...
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Sitting on the edge of the queen-sized bed, a fluffy grey towel wrapped around my body, I watched Cristian, as he searched through the rack of clothes that he had, somehow, magically made appear, whilst I had been in the shower. Although I felt a little uncomfortable being around him in just a towel, he emitted an energy that made me feel at ease and relaxed. Unlike the men at work, his eyes did not roam over my body like I was a dessert he wanted to devour. Instead, he only looked at my face, more specifically my eyes, when speaking to me. It made me feel calm and I appreciated it. It was clear that this was a man with morals and someone who knew boundaries. He was a man who held qualities that the men in my life seemed to lack.
"What happened to me?" I asked, towel-drying my hair with a smaller, but matching grey towel. There was something so satisfying about matching towels. My neck was craned forward, as I rested my elbows on my thighs, not having the energy to lift my arms up. The recent events, and my life, in general, were taking their toll on me and I wanted nothing more than to shuffle under the quilt of the bed and never resurface.
"Valentino will explain everything to you in a little while." He replied, not even turning to look back at me. His only focus, right now, were the clothes that hung in front of him. He assessed and then dismissed every possible option on the rack. From my view, all of the clothes looked beautiful and I felt as though they did not deserve to be worn by me. They deserved to be on the body of some beautiful hot-shot model, who could parade the clothes in all the glory that they warranted.
"Valentino? Is that mystery man?" I wondered out loud. Mystery man was such a childish name to give to someone and I knew my cheeks were flushing a shade of red as the two words slipped past my lips.
"Mystery man?" He loudly chuckled. If he was drinking water, it would have definitely spluttered out of his mouth, adding to my embarrassment.
Whilst, sounding like someone a four-year old would say and lacking in originality, mystery man was quite a fitting name for a mysterious guy who's name I did not know. I just hoped that I could find a way to plead with him to let me go. That, however, seemed highly unlikely, considering he seemed to be the man who had orchestrated my kidnap. There was a reason he had brought me, or rather drugged me, here, and as much as I wanted to know the reason, fear consumed my body as I wondered the answer to my question.
This whole situation had me confused. This was never how I had imagined a kidnap would be. In movies and stories, the kidnapper is aggressive, psychopathic or a sexual predator. But here I was, sitting in an extravagant bedroom, with my own person stylist. If the situation had been under different circumstances, I could have imagined myself to be a princess and I could have definitely gotten use to this kind of lifestyle. But the lives of princesses' and proper's did not mix.
"Perfecto!" Cristian span round on his toes, holding a hanger on his index finger, a wide teeth-showing grin on his face. He placed his chosen outfit, for me, on the bed and ushered me over to the vanity table. As I took a seat on the chair, Cristian began his makeover on me. He tied my hair up in a neat, yet casual, bun on the top of my head, with a few stands hanging loose around the sides of my face. Thankfully, he did a natural and simple make-up look on me, one that I regularly did on myself. The only difference was that he applied a little brush to my cheeks and a glossy rosey-gold colour to my lips. This hostage situation had introduced me to my new favourite lip colour, thank you Cristian, I mentally muttered.
As he left the room, I got up from the chair and wandered over to the dress on the bed. It was a navy-blue colour with white and brown-gold flowers dotted around. The neck was a v-line shape, attached to thin spaghetti straps. It looked gorgeous on the hanger and I was scared to dress myself in it.
Stepping into the dress, the soft material glided across my skin as I pulled it on. The dress reached down to my ankles, where it circled the bottom of my legs, acting as a sort of shield. When I walked, the front of the dress split apart, showing off the skin from my feet to the middle of my thighs. Clearly, not a very good shield, but protection was something that my life lacked. I was used to thinking someone would protect me, only for it to split open and deceive me. The neckline showed a little bit of my cleavage. I would say that it showed enough to look seductive, but not enough for people to say I looked like a teasing whore. However, I could have been dressed in a baggy long-sleeved t-shirt and loose jeans and someone out there would still suggest that I was trying to get the attention of men.
I tied the straps of the best in a bow at my waist, allowing the dress to hug further against my body and define the curves that I had. After slipping on the strappy white heels Cristian had left at the foot of the bed, I walked towards the long mirror to admire the finished look. As I looked in the mirror, a smile formed on my lips. The dress looked amazing, I looked amazing. I could not remember a time in my life where I had felt so beautiful. Unlike my usual outfits, the dress was not cheap and I looked out of place wearing it. For the past few years, I had never worn anything other than my work uniform or the pyjamas I wore to bed.
Smoothing down the dress with the palms of my hands, I chewed the inside of my cheek, feeling emotional over how breath-taking the dress was. This was different, but a nice different. I mentally took a photo of how I looked, wanting to remember this moment forever. Who knew when there would be a time that I would look this magically again.
A knock on the door pulled me away from my internal photoshoot. The thin heels clicked against the wooden floor as I made my way towards the door. As I opened it, I was greeted by Cristian leaning against the wall opposite, hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. It was only now that I took in his appearance. His hair was a deep brown colour, that was of medium length. He had a comb-over style, showing a small partition on his head, a few strands of his straight-ish hair falling over one side of his forehead. His big bright blue eyes stood out against his tanned complexation. They were like the cloudless sky that begged to be looked at. His face was shaven clean of any facial hair, making him look younger than he probably was. He was definitely a man who took pride in his appearance. His silky black suit that was covered in pink flowers and small pale green leaves told me that he was a guy who was passionate about fashion, and flowers too, judging by both of our floral outfits.
"I did good, huh?" He smirked, his eyes roaming over the dress. It was not a sleazy gaze over my body, rather a gaze of admiration and pride. Definitely a gaze that no one had graced upon my being in a long time.
"You did." I croaked, my eyes slowly filling with my raw emotions.
Pushing himself forward from the wall, he stuck out his arm towards me, allowing me wrap my arms around. Holding onto his bicep and forearm with my hands, the luxurious suit felt slippery under the pads of my fingertips. The pain that shot through my hand as I pressed my hand harder against him, reminded me of my injury.
"Could you get me a first-aid box, please?" I asked Cristian, loosening my poorly hand from his arm. He looked at me in confusion for a second, before nodding, not questioning me, which I appreciated.
"There's a first-aid box in the counter under the sink." He informed me, as we approached a dark brown wooden door. "Do you need any help?"
"I'll be fine, thank you." I removed my grip on his arm and opened the door, leaving him behind in the hallway, in confusion.
As I closed the door and turned around, I immediately went and retrieved the green first-aid box. Setting it on top of the toilet seat, I searched through it, finally coming across a roll of bandage. After tightly wrapping the bandage around my hand, I put the first-aid box back in its place, and met Cristian back in the hallway. Upon my presence, he stuffed his mobile phone, which he was just tapping away on, into his pocket and held his arm out for me, again.
I allowed him to lead me to an unknown destination. Most people would be sceptical and fight against being taken somewhere, but here I was willingly allowing him to walk me to a place which could have ultimately be leading me to my death. I had already tried the whole fighting against it thing, maybe not fighting would have a different, a better, outcome for me.
