The Stranger's Kiss

Her Name

“I need a background check on someone,” he said over the phone.

He was serious as he listened to the response.

“Yes,” he said. “I just sent you her name and photo.”

Once more, he paid attention to the internet photos of the newly crowned Miss Teen Universe Philippines. Could she be the girl he met four years ago? She must have grown and now looked a bit different, but the unexplainable feeling and erratic beating of his heart made him feel more inclined to believe that she was the beautiful young lady in the photos.

His phone vibrated and he received a call. “Yes?”

“Sir, she did have a relative who worked at the Museum until two years ago,” the special investigator reported. “I’ll email the rest of the report.”

“Thank you,” he said.

He was now certain. The young woman in the photos was that girl. She is now seventeen. It means that she was only thirteen when he kissed her. He felt a bit worried. What if she was traumatized by that experience? However, judging from the photos, she seemed perfectly fine.

He continued to stare at her photos, and the picture of her in swimwear made him feel uncomfortable. How could she display herself this way for other men to see? He felt jealous and angry, but he continued to look at the other photos, and decided to send two of them to one of his people after a while.

“I want these photos enlarged and framed,” he ordered.

Two days later, the pictures were seen hanging on the walls in his bedroom and in his study. He has also chosen one for the wall paper and another one for the screen saver on his mobile phone. Those who knew about these walked around with invisible question marks on their heads.

Finally, he had something on her. Four years ago, she seemed to have completely disappeared. He walked back to the hotel smiling foolishly that day, and came back to the museum every day after the day they had kissed, but he did not manage to see her again. It was hard to forget her. Her beautiful face remained etched in his memory even after four years, but she had no name. He had relationships with other girls before he met her, but these relationships failed because he simply lost interest in any other girl after he came back from his grandmother’s homeland; he could never stop thinking about the first “woman” that he kissed. How could he have fallen in love with a 13-year-old girl? He could not tell that she could be that young then. She was almost five feet four inches tall. Still, she was only thirteen…

His thoughts were brought back to the present as he received another call. “Andrew,” his father said over the phone. “You are urgently needed at the company.”

“I’ll be there,” he answered briefly.

He instructed his driver to get the car ready as he went back to his room to change.

He was still just in robes when he heard a commotion outside his door that morning. One of the nannies was talking about a girl that she knew before coming to work for the Alexanders. The girl was only five when they met at the Montessori. She said that she was taking care of a little boy who went to study at the same school during that time. To her, that little girl was the cutest and prettiest girl she had ever seen, and she even joked with the girl’s mother about letting her daughter marry her own grandson in the future. She could not believe that she would be seeing that little girl’s photos all over the internet one day. She was very excited and proud that she was able to meet the young beauty queen as a little girl.

He wanted to know more, but the nanny did not really have anything else about the girl except that she was called Daniella, and that name is now all over the world-wide web.

A message entered his mobile phone. ‘Her data is now in your inbox.” A smile crept across his face. He acquired the services of a professional, and the man seemed reliable.

The butler opened the door of the car for him as he walked through the front door of the mansion. He would be at the company in ten minutes.

The Alexanders live in a castle, and own other residential buildings on various estates far from London, but his father bought an old mansion in Essex because it was more convenient for work.

Drew, grew up in a noble household. His father was the son of a Filipina tutor who had amnesia when the Alexanders found her. She died without recalling her true identity, but since the couple who employed her was childless, Drew’s father, who was six years old when his mother died, was adopted by the family. He was brought up like the Alexanders' real son. However, aware of the reality that he was not of noble blood, he worked hard to start his own manufacturing business, which grew into a corporation as he began to venture into other businesses including real estate development and engaged in various investments, which included a chain of hotels, resorts, shopping malls, and film production. He married an English lady from an aristocratic family, and she became Drew’s mother, but she died after giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, Drew’s younger sister, when Drew was only ten years old. Their father employed nannies from whom the children learned a bit about other languages and cultures. He also specifically found someone from his mother’s homeland in the hope that his own children would always remember their grandmother. The noble couple, who they came to know as loving grandparents, were also very fond of the children who grew into very attractive and sensible teenagers and later adults. When Drew’s father went to the Philippines to see if he could expand his business there, the siblings had a chance to see their biological grandmother’s birthplace. Drew was 17 years old while his younger sister, Andrea, was only 7 years old.

Drew’s father started a collaboration with some Ilonggo businessmen in the Philippines, but the progress of the project, which had just started, was gravely affected by the global shutdown. Fortunately, Drew was a business prodigy. Unknown to his father’s business partners in Southeast Asia, the mastermind behind Mr. Alexander’s maverick move to salvage the collaboration’s declining state by investing idle funds on properties located in less crowded areas in the various islands of the Philippine archipelago, was an 18-year-old boy who recently enrolled as a sophomore in college. When the value of the properties they had acquired drastically increased three-fold two years later, he was able to prove himself worthy of being his father’s successor. However, the reason for his eagerness to save the collaboration was not the desire to impress his father, but a girl who happened to be living in that country.

“Book me a flight to Malaysia on the 20th of June,” he instructed his secretary over the phone.