LOVING AN OLD SOUL

Chapter 2:Dinner before the storm

LOVING AN OLD SOUL

Chapter 2: Dinner Before the Storm

The Monteverde ancestral house stood in Tarlac like a proud survivor of time.

Its capiz windows glowed beneath the evening sky while old narra trees guarded the property with silent dignity. Workers moved across the grounds preparing for Don Alejandro Monteverde’s upcoming birthday celebration, a gathering that would undoubtedly attract politicians, businessmen, and families who still measured status through bloodlines and inherited surnames.

Inside the house, Doña Celestina Monteverde watched the rain through the veranda.

“You’re worried,” her husband said.

Don Alejandro sat nearby with a newspaper folded across his lap.

“I raised a stubborn son.”

“And you married a stubborn woman.”

Celestina glanced at him.

“Gabriel thinks he can fool us with this girlfriend.”

Alejandro smiled.

“He is my son. Of course he thinks he can.”

She sighed.

“I did not force Lola into this.”

“I know.”

“She deserves security.”

Alejandro’s gaze softened.

“She already has our name and protection.”

“Protection is temporary.”

Celestina remained quiet.

Few people understood her attachment to Lola.

Twenty-five years ago, they had found the infant near the eastern farm during harvest season. No note. No explanation. Just a baby wrapped in faded cloth and crying beneath the shade of bamboo.

Celestina still remembered holding her for the first time.

Tiny.

Cold.

Yet strangely calm once carried into her arms.

Lola had become family long before society learned her name.

Perhaps that was why she wanted certainty for her future.

And in Celestina’s mind, certainty had always looked like Gabriel.

Too bad both children seemed determined to sabotage her plans.

“You’re thinking too much,” Alejandro said.

“I am a mother.”

“You are a strategist pretending to be sentimental.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You make me sound terrifying.”

“You are terrifying.”

A servant approached.

“Ma’am,” he said respectfully, “Miss Lola is here.”

Celestina smiled.

“Send her in.”

Moments later, Lola entered the veranda.

She wore a cream blouse tucked into dark trousers, her long hair loosely tied behind her neck. There was something effortlessly elegant about her—never excessive, never desperate for attention.

Yet attention followed her anyway.

Alejandro watched her with quiet approval.

“You finished reviewing the Pampanga acquisition?”

Lola nodded.

“There are hidden liabilities.”

“I knew it,” Alejandro muttered.

“The land valuation is inflated,” she continued. “And the ownership records raise questions.”

Alejandro chuckled.

“This is why I keep you around.”

“You keep me around because I save your money.”

“And because my wife loves you more than me.”

Celestina ignored him and gestured for Lola to sit.

“You’re going to Manila tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Business?”

“And dinner with Bella.”

Celestina hesitated.

“Gabriel arrives tomorrow.”

Lola’s expression barely changed.

“So I heard.”

“You do not sound curious.”

“Should I be?”

Her tone was polite but amused.

Celestina studied her.

Lola had always been difficult to read.

Not cold.

Never rude.

But composed in a way that sometimes felt older than her age.

“I only wish for you to meet him,” Celestina said.

“And he already wishes otherwise.”

Alejandro coughed into his hand to hide a smile.

Lola looked toward the rain.

“He has a girlfriend.”

“Allegedly,” Celestina muttered.

Lola laughed softly.

The sound warmed the veranda.

“I assure you,” she said, “I am not wounded.”

And she meant it.

Marriage had never been her dream.

Not in this life.

Especially not after remembering the others.

There had once been a lifetime where she loved so fiercely that grief followed her into death.

Another where she married power and discovered loneliness inside luxury.

And another—

The memory surfaced unexpectedly.

Paris.

Winter.

A lover whose face she could no longer fully recall.

Only his hands.

And the ache of goodbye.

Lola pushed the thought away.

Past lives were memories, not prisons.

She had learned that lesson long ago.

“I prefer peace,” she said quietly.

Celestina sighed.

“You sound like an eighty-year-old woman.”

Sometimes, Lola thought, I feel older than that.

But she only smiled.

“I take that as a compliment.”

Meanwhile, in Singapore, Gabriel Monteverde was regretting his decisions.

Bianca Valdez entered his penthouse carrying shopping bags and expensive confidence.

She looked exactly as magazines described her—beautiful, fashionable, and dangerously self-aware.

“You owe me,” she declared.

Gabriel poured wine.

“I already know that.”

“You interrupted my weekend.”

“You were shopping.”

“I am still shopping.”

She surveyed the room.

“So.” Bianca dropped onto the sofa. “Tell me about the bride.”

“There is no bride.”

“There is always a bride in stories like this.”

Gabriel handed her a glass.

“My parents want me to marry someone.”

“And naturally you lied.”

“I prefer strategic misdirection.”

Bianca smirked.

“Strategic cowardice.”

He ignored the comment.

“You only need to play along for a few days.”

“A few days pretending to be your girlfriend in an old-money family gathering?” She tilted her head. “That sounds entertaining.”

“It is not entertainment.”

“It is for me.”

Gabriel loosened his tie.

He disliked family pressure.

Disliked emotional manipulation even more.

And yet he knew his mother.

Coming home without proof would only invite more persuasion.

Bianca crossed her legs.

“What’s her name?”

“Lola.”

“That’s adorable.”

He frowned.

“It’s a name.”

“She’s beautiful?”

Apparently.

But he merely shrugged.

“I have never seen her.”

Bianca nearly spilled her wine.

“Never?”

“She grew up in the province.”

“And somehow your parents decided she was wife material.”

“She works with family businesses.”

“Dangerous,” Bianca said.

Gabriel looked at her.

“What is?”

“A competent woman.”

He laughed.

“You make her sound threatening.”

“Competent women are always threatening to men who like control.”

“I don’t like control.”

Bianca stared.

“That is the most dishonest sentence you have ever spoken.”

He smiled faintly.

Perhaps she was right.

Gabriel liked order.

Predictability.

Outcomes earned through effort.

Marriage felt like surrendering all three.

“You know,” Bianca said, “I almost feel bad for her.”

“For who?”

“This Lola.”

“Why?”

“Because your ego enters rooms before you do.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“And yours doesn’t?”

“My ego is prettier.”

Their flight left the next morning.

Gabriel expected inconvenience.

Nothing more.

He certainly did not expect destiny to wear dark silk and ignore him.

Manila welcomed Lola with familiar noise.

Traffic.

Humidity.

Glass towers rising beside old churches.

She and Bella checked into a boutique hotel in Makati before preparing for dinner.

Bella emerged from the bathroom wearing emerald satin.

“Well?” she asked dramatically.

Lola looked up from her phone.

“You look expensive.”

“I paid to look expensive.”

Bella narrowed her eyes.

“And you?”

Lola stood before the mirror.

Her dress was black.

Simple.

Sleeveless.

Fitted without trying too hard.

She wore no excessive jewelry—only pearl earrings and a silver bracelet.

Bella stared.

“That should be illegal.”

“What should?”

“Looking like temptation while pretending innocence.”

Lola laughed.

“You exaggerate.”

“I do not.”

Men noticed Lola everywhere.

Always had.

But what fascinated Bella was not Lola’s beauty.

It was her indifference to it.

As if admiration had become background noise.

“You know who might be in Manila tonight?” Bella asked.

Lola picked up her clutch.

“Who?”

“Gabriel Monteverde.”

Lola paused.

Then shrugged.

“Good for him.”

Bella groaned.

“You are impossible.”

“No,” Lola said gently. “Just uninterested.”

And she believed it.

Completely.

Until fate decided otherwise.

At the same hour, Gabriel and Bianca entered one of Manila’s most exclusive fine dining restaurants.

Crystal chandeliers cast soft gold across polished interiors.

A pianist played near the wine cellar.

The atmosphere smelled faintly of roses and expensive restraint.

Bianca admired the room.

“Now this,” she said, “I approve of.”

Gabriel adjusted his cufflinks.

Dinner before the flight to Tarlac.

One quiet evening before family politics began.

That was the plan.

They were guided to a table near the center.

Conversation flowed easily.

Business.

Travel.

Mutual sarcasm.

Then Bianca suddenly stopped speaking.

Her gaze shifted toward the entrance.

And for reasons he did not yet understand—

Gabriel looked too.

Two women had entered.

One was lively and fashionable.

The other—

Time hesitated.

Black dress.

Long dark hair.

A face that seemed sculpted from elegance and moonlight.

She was beautiful.

Not merely attractive.

Beautiful in a way that felt unsettling.

But it was not beauty alone that held him.

It was her composure.

As though she belonged entirely to herself.

The restaurant noticed her.

Men looked.

Women looked.

And she noticed none of them.

Gabriel found himself staring.

Bianca slowly smiled.

“Oh,” she murmured.

“What?”

She lifted her wine.

“I think dinner just became interesting.”

Because the woman walking toward the opposite side of the restaurant—

without a single glance in his direction—

was Lola Santillan.