A Virgin for the CEO

13

Late that afternoon, Tommy came home with enough fish to feed them for two days, and good news.

"Ate! Mama! The chairman told me I can work in the fishery or in the paddy field starting tomorrow! He also told me I can start learning to drive the jeepney just inside the hacienda in case they needed a hand in transporting anything from anywhere inside here. I have a job!"

They roasted enough fish for their supper and cooked the rest in herbs and spices. They had a very enjoyable dinner and after the dishes were done, their mother asked them to stay with her for a bit in the living room as she read from her Bible aloud for them and prayed to thank the Lord for their blessings before she went to bed.

Tommy remained in the small living room to read one of his school books. She, on the other hand, checked to make sure every window was closed and the doors in the front and back were locked before maybe reading a book of her own. Her friends often would bring her their books once they were done to give to her or lend to her because they know she also loved to read anything she could get her hands on.

Closing one of the windows, she stopped abruptly. She thought she heard the neighing of a horse. But when she looked outside, she saw nothing.

Oh, it was dark of course. But she stayed there for a while, looking out, and nothing else moved except leaves on trees swaying in the night breeze. In the air, she could still smell the burnt smell of coal and roasted fish.

She smiled a little. It had been a good night. This was one of the better days that she could remember. She hoped their family prayer tonight would allow them more of this kind of day. She would love nothing more than for her small family to get better.

Thinking about the noise, she surmised that maybe, someone had ridden past and was now gone.

Maybe it was a Tikbalang? she even thought gamely. Tikbalang was a local mythical creature that was a mix of horse and man in physical features. She had never felt one or been scared of anything inside the hacienda, though. Ever.

She closed the window and as she passed the living room, she bent down to kiss her brother on the top of his head.

Her eyes almost watered when he looked up and did not protest. Instead, he smiled at her, telling her in his 'grownup' way he loved her.

She smiled back.

She was still smiling when she checked to make sure their mother was sleeping okay before she lay down on her side of the bed to sleep.

That's her.

It was her.

That beautiful face, ethereal in the moon's light as she stood by the window looking out towards a different direction than where Enrique was, sitting on his horse.

His eyes watched her while his body felt such inexplicable hunger. He had been obsessed the whole day trying to find who she was and where she lived.

He couldn't be put off. He must find his lady in red.

Imagine his shock when he found out the young woman he had ruined last night lived right here in the hacienda.

And the worse of it all was to find out she wasn't a prostitute. She wasn't a sex worker.

She was an ordinary, hardworking young lass pressed into selling herself for a night to pay for what her young brother stole so they could cover their mother's hospital bill!

Brad was flabbergasted.

The motherfucker couldn't believe it himself. He swore he did not know. He started explaining that there were college students who would sell sex and Enrique didn't even want him to finish. He didn't need details that would not recover the fuckup.

He was too drunk last night but he had noticed something dif-ferent about her.

He somehow knew she wasn't an experienced woman. He saw the fear in her eyes. He remembered how overwhelmed she looked. He sobered up because of it, remember? And made love with her as if he treasured her.

But it had been too much. Her beauty and innocent allure had been too heady for him to stay gentle the whole time and he just...

The blood on the bed sheets.

And still, terribly feeling guilty as her was, he also still felt horny as fuck.

What a monster he was.

He tried to know more about the family living in one of those huts on the edges of the hacienda.

The father had worked faithfully with his dad before he passed away. Somehow, the name was familiar so he was going to ask his father about it later. He thought that the family left. If it was the same man, Enrique couldn't feel more guilty.

Relatives lived too far away in another province and the mother had a frail heart. The young son was known to be performing well in school and was a good kid but left schooling when his mother had a bout of sickness during enrolment time.

The daughter was known to be hardworking and very, very beautiful. She would be magnificent if she could have good clothes and live in better conditions, he thought as he fought the constriction drowning his heart inside his chest.

His father's secretary told him people liked the widow and her kids, and his dad would regularly ask if they were doing okay. That he was planning to give a scholarship to the kid in college and give them work in the hacienda when they graduated. He had offered to the daughter, but she declined because her mother would need a compan-ion at home being too sick as she was.

Well, Enrique could do something about that.

He couldn't believe how someone had taken advantage of the needs of the family and do something so unbelievably unfair.

And he'd unknowingly been part of it.

Even when she had closed the window and the light was turned off in the kitchen, Enrique stayed a while, watching the house, won-dering about the life his lady in red had been dealing with, moving stuff here and there in his mind, not even catching himself as he rearranged her life inside his head.

How is she coping after what I have done to her?

He swallowed the guilt that went up and blocked his throat. Then he finally moved to turn his horse towards the rest house.

He's going to find out more come the morrow.

Tonight, he had another demon to curb, he thought as his lips formed a bitter smile.

Riding with its load that was heavier because of his dark thoughts, the horse moved away from the lit hut into the stillness of the night.