Counterpoint

Chapter Five

Brianna sat on the veranda, a glass of cold calamansi juice sweating beside her as she scrolled through her phone for the fifth time that afternoon. The cicadas screeched in the background, loud enough to be offensive, and the old ceiling fan above her spun as if it were just as tired of existing as she was.

It was two days before her flight back to Vancouver. She counted the hours like a prisoner marking days on a wall. The air here was too heavy, too humid, too full of other people’s business. She wanted the kind of silence that only cold cities could give, the sound of her own footsteps on clean pavement, not the hiss of frying oil and distant roosters.

Her phone buzzed across the table. Mama.

She sighed, already dreading the conversation, and pressed answer. “Yes?”

“Brianna, listen,” her mother’s voice came brisk and slightly frantic. “We’re already at the Saavedra mansion, but your father left an important envelope on his desk, the shipping permits for the new contracts. Can you bring them here, please?”

Brianna frowned. “You’re joking, right? You want me to drive all the way there?”

“Yes,” came the quick reply. “Pedro will take you. It’s urgent.”

Brianna leaned back, staring at the empty garden beyond the veranda. “You have ten employees in this house, and you’re picking me?”

“They’re all at the warehouse,” her mother said evenly. “And, sweetheart, you’re not doing anything useful at the moment, are you?”

The words stung more than Brianna cared to admit. She pursed her lips. “I was actually trying to enjoy my last few hours of peace.”

Her mother’s tone softened. “You’ll still have peace. Just bring the documents. It’s a short drive.”

Brianna glanced toward the house, toward her father’s office, where the envelope probably sat waiting. She could almost hear him saying thank you in that distracted way of his, already half on his phone, half on his next deal.

“Fine,” she said flatly. “But this better be the last errand I run before leaving this place.”

“Thank you, darling,” her mother said with the kind of relief that made Brianna feel like she had been manipulated again. “Drive carefully. See you soon.”

The call ended.

Brianna stared at her phone for a long second, her reflection faint in the screen. She could ignore them, let them feel what it was like to be inconvenienced for once, but she knew she wouldn’t. She never did.

She rose slowly, grabbed the envelope from her father’s desk, and slipped on her sunglasses. “Pedro,” she called out as she stepped onto the front steps, “we’re going to the Saavedras.”

The driver nodded, already unlocking the car.

As they pulled out of the driveway, the late afternoon sun poured across the fields in sheets of gold. Brianna watched the landscape pass by, the rice paddies, the small houses with drying laundry, the endless horizon of green.

Her lips twisted into a small smirk. “All this land,” she muttered, “and only a few people actually own it.”

Pedro glanced at her through the rearview mirror but said nothing.

The Saavedra estate appeared soon enough, massive and unapologetic, its gates opening with mechanical ease. Even from the car, she could see movement beyond the hedges, lights, tripods, and people carrying cameras.

A film crew.

She frowned. “What on earth…”

Pedro slowed the car as they approached the courtyard. A few crew members looked up but didn’t stop working. The mansion loomed behind them, white and immaculate, like it had never known the concept of dirt.

Then she saw him.

Jordan Saavedra.

He was at the center of it all, dressed simply in rolled-up sleeves and jeans, his shirt faintly dusted with the day’s heat. A camera hung around his neck. He moved with purpose, giving instructions to the crew, adjusting angles, speaking to someone off-camera. His voice carried easily, steady, confident, not loud but sure of its weight.

He was very much in his element, and everyone around him seemed to orbit that quiet certainty.

Brianna froze, the envelope still in her hand.

She had seen him before, of course. On her phone screen, late one night when curiosity got the better of her. She had watched one of his documentaries, half expecting to be unimpressed. But she hadn’t been. There was something about the way he spoke, measured but passionate, detached but deeply human, that lingered.

Seeing him in person was different. Almost jarring.

He wasn’t handsome in the glossy, rehearsed way she was used to. There was something real about him, something untamed and utterly unconcerned with who was watching. That, more than anything, drew her in.

For the first time in a long time, Brianna didn’t feel like the one commanding attention. And that realization unsettled her more than she cared to admit.

Pedro cleared his throat gently. “Ma’am, shall I hand the envelope to Sir Luke?”

She blinked, realizing she had been staring. “No. I’ll do it.”

She stepped out of the car, her heels clicking against the stone path, the sound sharp in the afternoon air. Jordan glanced her way briefly, just enough to acknowledge her presence, before returning to his work. It wasn’t indifference exactly, but it wasn’t deference either.

She wasn’t used to that.

When their eyes met again, only for a second, she felt something strange twist in her chest.

Admiration. Curiosity. Annoyance. She couldn’t tell which.

And for someone who always prided herself on being untouchable, that loss of control felt both irritating and intoxicating.

As she turned toward the mansion, envelope in hand, she muttered under her breath, “You really think you’re something, don’t you?”

But even as she said it, she wasn’t sure if she meant him, or herself.

When she reached the mansion’s entrance, one of the house staff recognized her and led her to the veranda, where her parents were speaking with Roberto Saavedra. She handed over the envelope quickly, barely listening to their thanks. Her mind was elsewhere, back in the courtyard, back with the young man who had unknowingly shaken something loose in her.

As she walked back to the car, she glanced over her shoulder. Jordan was still there, his back to her now, completely absorbed in his work.

She didn’t understand it, but the sight made her chest tighten. It wasn’t love, she barely knew him, but it was something sharp and new, a feeling she had never experienced before.

And for the first time in her life, Brianna Kim, who was always admired, always pursued, found herself wondering what it felt like to be the one doing the admiring.

That night, as she packed her suitcase, she told herself it was just curiosity. A passing moment. Nothing more.

But deep down, she knew it wasn’t.

Jordan Saavedra had left an impression that would follow her all the way to Vancouver.

And whether she liked it or not, part of her wasn’t ready to leave Vigan just yet.