Love in the Dark

Chapter 1 Daddy's Girl is Home

It was a mild, windless day in the late days of spring in Buenos Aires. Busy city streets echoed as busy merchants and street vendors shouted endlessly to sell their products. A young, twenty-one-year-old beauty and daughter of wealthy wine magnate Bella Garcia's vehicle, driven by her family's butler Raul, passed through the city center. Bella peered out the tinted window of the back passenger seat. She smirked as she looked out amongst the squalor of the city's lower life forms. Shameful. She thought silently in her head as they came to a stop light and beggars approached her car, asking for whatever they could spare.

""Disgusting," Bella said properly to Raul, instructing him to drive off to get her away from this filth.

"Now, Miss Garcia, remember it's not ladylike to mock the less fortunate," replied Raul in a German accent as the light turned green and the car moved past the city center and into a ritzier area of the city.

After about an hour of driving, their car was now in a more rural, lush countryside with rolling hills and meadows. As Bella rolled down the window, the soft, fresh scents of the countryside pierced her nostrils, and she inhaled deeply. "Finally, I can breathe freely," she thought to herself silently as the window blew her dark brown hair so elegantly. Her bluish eyes gaze upon the beauty of nature outside. Her moment of embrace was broken by the sounds of tires squealing as the car jolted her forward. After a moment to regain herself, Bella fiercely looked up at Raul and smugly said, "Raul, what are you doing?"

Raul controlled himself as he bravely asked Bella if she was alright, like a parent would ask their child. "There seems to be a herd of cattle loose on the road, Miss Garcia," said Raul, explaining the reasoning for his abrupt braking of the car. Bella just sat back in her car seat, huffing in annoyance, as she grabbed her phone and started looking over her photos throughout her year at the university.

As Bella scrolled through the photos, she came across a photo of her and a young man, both properly dressed for the school's yearly Tango dance. What a fool! Bella thought silently, as she gazed at the photo. You could have had everything you ever wanted, Samuel, if you just did everything I asked of you. She thought, huffing in disbelief and going to delete the photo. Why can't I find a man who just fits everything I want, thought Bella silently to herself as she looks away from her phone and back out the car window. As she gazes upon her exteriors she sees a dim reflection of herself in the window. Is it me? Bella thinks to herself gazing upon her dimmed reflection, Of course not she says in her mind as her outer beauty through her eyes is just too perfect to change for anyone's wants and desires for Bella is immaculate and people should change for her not the other way around she thinks manically in her mind as if she's trying to convince herself silently through her racing mind. Bella closed out of her phone as Raul said, "Ah, yes, looks like we can finally start moving again, Miss Garcia. We are nearly at your father's, and he is most impatient for your arrival."

As the car began moving down the countryside road, the fields of her father's winery began blanketing both sides of the road. The car began traveling uphill as the view of Bella's father's estate became visible. I hate this business, Bella thought to herself as she looked upon the vines and trees, all neatly rowed, with farmhands working tirelessly in the sun. I want to travel and experience the world, Bella's inner voice says to her as she watches tree after tree pass by her window almost like a metaphor of the same old same old that is her life. I want to experience life, feel free, not seclusion Bella thinks to herself as she lets out a small sigh that only she can hear.

"Your father is so proud of you, Bella. The fact that you're studying Agriculture at the university just brings him joy, knowing his little girl is going to have this all someday," Raul said in a proud tone. Bella forced a smile to Raul, but she knew deep down this wasn't the life for her. She knew the second she had a chance, she would sell the business and move far away from Argentina. She wanted to travel and see the beauty of the world, but she knew she would never be able to, because she felt obligated to make her father's wishes come true. But if only I could find the strength to tell my father what I want and not what he wants to hear she thinks to herself as she stares aimlessly through her window.