Conflict Of Interest - Part 2 (When Your Crazy Ex-Sister-In-Law...

Silence before the storm

When Alicia woke up she realized that she was alone with her daughter in the cottage. Just when she started to feel slightly alarmed she noticed a piece of paper left on the nightstand beside the bed she slept in. 

I went out to look for a place with signal. I'll be right back.

Good... She sat back down on the side of the bed and rubbed her face. She slept for the first time in more than two days, yet she felt more exhausted than the day before. And the fact that she had to wake up several times to feed her daughter didn't help either. What the hell am I going to do from now on... ?  I don't even have a place to go to if I don't want to cause trouble for my family... And until I don't have new documents, I can't take a fucking step...

When Sergio came back, he found Alicia sitting on the porch, playing with her baby. At first she seemed almost cheerful, but when he took a step closer he realised that despite her playfulness, at one point she was cleary wiping away her tears. He stopped behind the fence giving her a moment. 

The baby suddenly let out a disgruntled whine.

"What is it now, huh?" she leaned closer to her, both patiently and with nervousness in her voice. "Are you worried about your future too? I can't blame you for it, my dear..." she sighed.

Victoria started to cry louder. "What?! I've just changed you! Are you hungry again? Oh... you're right, it's been three hours already... How punctual you are! I am used to eating one proper meal per day, you know? But l'll get used to this... I promise! You'll be all right." with that she stood up and walked into the house, pensively repeating her last words to herself.

When Sergio stepped into the kitchen, Alicia was already breastfeeding her daughter once again. He awkwardly looked for some occupation on the kitchen counter, just to have a reason to turn his back on her as he told her that he managed to contact Marseille and that in approximately an hour he will be there to pick them up. Meanwhile he found some instant coffee in a box on a shelf. He smelled it, it didn't seem to be bad. "Do you want coffee?" he asked Alicia.

"Yeah, that would be good."

Great! at least I have an activity for the next three minutes or so...

It was not just the gentleman in him giving space to the mother. Until the day before he saw in Alicia the woman his brother was crazy about, mixed with a ruthless yet clever but also distraught police woman who happens to be his opponent in this game he's playing. But as the police part slowly blurred into the background, and he was forced to spend time with her stuck under the same roof, he started to notice more and more about the woman.

Sergio was not the kind of man who easily became entrapped by the sight of a woman. Not even if it was a sexy one. He might have noted to himself that they are objectively beautiful or deliberately provocative, or for some other reason he just simply found them attractive, what rarely happened, so usually it remained simply a cold, mental conclusion. He acted awkward around them nevertheless. 

The Alicia he had memories about from their past from his few, brief encounters with her as Andrés's wife (he just rarely met his brother's partners in less serious stages of his relationships than marriage) kind of used to tick the box for all three categories from above. But she was his brother's wife, and even if she wouldn't have been, she was fully out of his league. He was a nerdy, socially incapable young boy with huge glasses and pimples on his face. He was aware of his limits, and definitely not the kind of person to deceive himself, thinking that he could have had a shot. During the past decade he didn't even really give it a second thought. Romantic relationships with women were not his strong side. He focused on what he was good at instead.