Hanap-hanap

Chapter 1

She was there again.

He looked around, trying to get his bearings. He heard the crash of waves as they rolled onto wet sand, and immediately knew that he must be on a beach somewhere - whether it was here or in his native Australia, whether it was night or day, he couldn't tell. It wasn't important ...

What was important was that she was there, again. Standing, near but just out of reach, her back turned to him and her long hair flying in the wind. Nothing else was clear about her, just her slight form that told him she was female, and her hair that seemed to catch and flutter with every breeze ...

He had already lost count of the number of times when he had seen her, just like this, in his dreams. Lost count of the number of times he had wanted to come nearer, run his fingers through her hair, and finally get her to turn around so he could learn her name. Lost count of the number of times that he had yearned, so strongly and yet so inexplicably, to hold her in his arms where he knew - somehow - that she would fit perfectly ...

Though he was certain - from past permutations of this selfsame dream - that nothing would come of it, he took a step forward anyway, reaching a hand out, trying to touch the image that felt like a mirage. In response, she merely moved away, ever so slightly, so that the distance between them remained exactly the same.

He gritted his teeth in frustration. Why was it always this way? No matter how many steps he took, she would still be hovering somewhere between too far and within arm's length - never nearer, always just a bit out of ...

A soft thud on his head brought him quickly to consciousness, and his mystery woman disappeared, along with the beach, the waves, the breeze - only to be replaced by the angry image of one of his general managers, Veronique - plus a sea of white bedclothes, a pillow on the floor, and too much sun pouring through the window slats, amplifying what felt like a thousand drills buzzing in his head.

"James," Veronique said without preamble, her brows knit together in anger, "What is this? What the hell is this?"

He groaned, not even attempting to look at what she appeared to be waving at him, feeling his head throb painfully at every sound, every shaft of light. Hangovers were really a bitch; he couldn't even remember how he got home. "Veron, I have no idea what ... whatever that is. And can you please tone it down? I've got a headache."

"Tone it down?" Her voice crept up progressively through the sentence, and had he been sober, he would have appreciated how she even managed to do it within the space of three words. But he wasn't, unfortunately. "Alam mo ba what sort of firefighting and damage control we've been doing since last night? Alam mo ba how many people have not had sleep because of you?"

James pulled the duvet over his head, trying to block out the sound. Go away, he begged silently. Please, go away. "No, I don't."

"And you don't care?"

Damn it.

James closed his eyes and sighed in defeat. Knowing Veronique, she would harangue him until she got her point across, hammer him and his conscience until he was ready to sign everything over just so he could get some peace and quiet. She was tenacious and she was relentless - some would say manipulative, and that was true, too - but she also had been one of the first to take a gamble on him when not too many in the business were willing to touch him with a forty-foot pole, and it was that deadly combination of gratitude and attitude that always managed to make him feel that he could, at the very least, be accountable to her, if not to anyone else in management.