Dasha smiled at the last customer of her antique shop, after he paid cash for the mother of pearl cut steel antique button with Philippine pearls bracelet.
“Thank you for purchasing this item, sir,” she said to him, handing out the small brown paper bag where the boxed item was carefully placed inside.
“I’m sure my wife will love it! She just loves vintage items,” the forty-ish man in casual clothes answered with a toothy smile. He gave her a nod as he accepted the paper bag and walked out of the shop. The chimes hanging by the glass door jingled when he opened and closed it.
The slender twenty-eight-year-old woman with long jet black hair glanced at her wristwatch. It was already six-thirty in the evening, way past her closing hour, which was five-thirty in the afternoon. She just extended today since she came in late, at around ten instead of nine. She got lazy whenever it was the first day of her monthly cycle. But she had to run the shop alone since her assistant, Melanie, had a family emergency.
Dasha took the money from the cash register, leaving a few bills and coins for change in the morning. She then gathered her things and made sure everything was good before she switched off the LED lights.
“I finally found you, my pretty little scammer!”
Dasha almost jumped when a stranger with a sexy deep voice came up to her. He was tall, perhaps six feet, in her guesstimation. He was well-built, and not to mention a Caucasian man. A foreigner, whose accent was familiar like she heard it before, but she could not pinpoint where it was from. He wore a white-and-blue stripe polo shirt and dark blue jeans with dark sporty sneakers.
“Excuse me?” Her eyes met his. With the help of the street lamps just some meters away from the shop, she could very well see his striking face that showed off his not-so-bushy eyebrows, aquiline nose, thin reddish lips and slightly square jaw.
He snorted, blue-green eyes blazing as he regarded her. “Forgot your husband, Dasha?”
A motorcycle with a loud engine passed by that she thought she must have misheard him. “Excuse me?”
“Has your vocabulary been reduced and limited to only two words now?” he sarcastically spoke. His brows were knitted tightly.
Dasha swallowed, sensing that even though he seemed hostile, he was not dangerous. Well, not the kind of peril that she would probably be assaulted physically. She somehow felt it through her instincts.
“I think you’ve mistaken me for another person, sir,” she calmly told him. As far as she was concerned, her name was Nicole Hernandez. And yet, there was a small voice screaming in her head. She could not hear it well nonetheless.
She closed the roll up door of the shop with a crashing sound that even her ears almost shirked in protest as if they were assaulted. Just after she closed it, she gasped when he grabbed her arm, and his face was so close to hers. She could smell his fresh pine and masculine scent that seemed to overload her senses, traveling down to the pit of her stomach and further down south.
Now her heart jumped, looking at him with rising panic in her round black eyes. She knew she should shout “Help!” but it was trapped in her throat. The passersby did not even glance their way. If they did, they did not want to get involved in their business.
She hoped the bulky security guard in the nearby bank next to the antique shop would see her with this stranger, but it seemed that he was nowhere. He must be checking something inside the bank, instead of sitting outside on a monoblock chair and play a game on his phone.
“Let go of me!” She pulled her arm back from his grip, eyes flashing. “What have I done to you? I’m not Dasha! My name is Nicole Hernandez. If you want to see my ID, here it is,” she said and took it from her handbag to show it to him.
He did not even look at it. Instead, his eyes never left her face. “Why would I believe what that ID says? You can do anything. You’re a scammer after all,” he accused her again.
Her face contorted, getting irritated. “If you want—”
“I want you to come home with me and pay your huge debt!”
Her face twisted. “What? That’s absurd! I live here! And what debt are you talking about?”
“You’re my wife, Dasha! Now that I found you, I can take you anywhere I want and you have to live wherever I live. Do you understand?”
She was horrified at his words. “H-how could you say that I’m your wife?”
He menacingly took a step closer at her, looking into her eyes. “You need proof?” His voice dropped.
She had no words to say. She could feel his warm breath with his nearness. He was so close, and she had to step back. But then, she was rooted in her place instead.
Tangna! (Son of a b***h!) Why can’t I even move? her mind shouted.
He leaned in closer to her. “Let’s try this. You have a thumb-shape birthmark on your left thigh that’s as big as my thumb.”
Her audible gasp escaped from her, and she looked down at her outfit immediately. She wore a plain white sleeveless blouse and a fitted pair of black jeans, sported with flat strapped sandals.
There was no way he could have seen or known that!
Her heart thumped against her rib cage, the sound of it thundering in her ears. She could feel the heat travel in her system as she looked at him again.
Oh, crap! Is he telling me the truth?
She gathered her wits and gathered her composure instead. “I-I think you’re some kind of a pervert, a stalker that’s been—”
“I was always fascinated by that chocolate-colored birthmark of yours, Dasha,” he cut her off, whispering. “It’s near your inner thigh. I always kissed it, and I even licked it multiple times!”
Dasha’s eyes widened, throat drying up like a desert. How could his words affect her so much? She should feel harassed. But instead, she felt aroused for some reason, and her breathing became uneven.
“Y-you…”
He snorted. “What now? Do you want to call the police and settle this matter?” he dared her.
Her eyes widened, and she gulped. It did occur to her. Her heart was still beating wildly. She took a quick glance at the bank, but the security guard was still not in his usual spot. Her hand quickly fished out her cell phone.
“You bet I will,” and she dialed the Philippine National Police hotline, which was 117. Her heart pounded, thinking, What if he’s going to snatch my phone away and drag me to somewhere?