Claiming The Heiress

His Father's Daughter

Sitting in on a twelve-hour flight over the ocean only to wait for an internal transfer with a private company jet was not on my wish list for this year, or any other year for that matter. Leaving everything I have and everything I’ve worked for behind just on a chance is not something I’d usually do. Ever. But Alejandro Montener’s story checked out to the last dot and the truth is ever since that not-conversation with my mother, I've been on edge. I didn't dare to read my father's letters, but at this point I've realised I need real answers.

The doubt kept gnawing at me for days, eating away my resolve and my anger at the father I never knew, and here I am now. It took a while to sort out our visas because where we are headed, somewhere in the northwest parts of South America, to a country I have only heard about, they want everyone to have their documents straight. At least I have Eva with me to help in case something gets mixed up with the paperwork and I try not to think about the fact that she'll have to fly back home and leave me alone at this place.

It’s a big step, a giant leap of fate, and the truth is I am really scared about what I might find once I land.

A part of me is still not a hundred percent convinced this isn't some big scam although at this point I am not even sure what the end goal would be - noone's asked me about money and let's be honest, that's hell of a lot of work for someone trying to traffic me of all people.

As I stare at the vast ocean through my plane window, my limbs already stiff from the long hours spent in the uncomfortable sitting position, I tell myself for the hundredth time that everything is going to be fine. This is not a lie. I’ve done my homework. Pedro and Alejandro Montener are real people. They do run a large estate, a ranch on the east half of an island called San Luis. I even found а picture of Pedro Montener online, one from a local paper saying how much he's done for the community and how respectful he is, and there is no doubt he’s my father. The picture convinced me, not the article about how perfect he was. On that picture he looked older, his skin riddled with wrinkles he probably gained from the harsh tropical sun, and even harder life of boose and drugs, and there was this aura around him, the aura of a man who settled well into his wealth. He no longer looked like the scared kid who got trapped in a marriage he didn’t want with a daughter he didn’t want. Yet his eyes were the same eyes, the eyes I used to think as kind, the eyes that once gleamed with joy and pride every time he looked at me. Or so I imagined.

Now, for his adopted son, we couldn’t find much information. Just that he’s thirty-three, his birth mom died in a weird accident, birth father unknown. Eva managed to dig up some records about the two degrees he got in agriculture and administration, no doubt preparing one day to take over his, my, dad’s estate. The guy never left the island for his degrees but acquired them remotely which means there’s internet where he’s from, so probably he’s just a weirdo who doesn’t do social media. And that’s basically all we know about my step-brother. Well, am I supposed to call him a step-brother?

Whatever. My eyes get back to the picture of Pedro on my phone and the thought of his unopened letters burns a hole in my heart for a hundredth time. I haven’t read even a single one of them. I don’t know what stops me from doing it, I just… can’t. Maybe when I step into his house, when I visit his grave and realize this is all real, I will be finally ready to face the things he meant to tell me, but never got the chance. It’s this stupid hope in my chest that I will find declarations of love and all the apologies in the world that I deserve for how he left. But maybe I will find him telling me to never mention his name again.

It’s all really stupid and dramatic and I am trying to keep the wall of my messed-up feelings up to protect myself from another heartbreak.

Next to me, Eva stirs in her sleep and I lift the jacket that I threw over her when she drifted away, to cover her better. I couldn’t be more thankful for her than at this moment. I don’t think I would be able to do this, to hop on this plane and put my entire existence on the line, if it wasn’t for her. I couldn’t do it alone.

Nervously I check my watch which tells me we have less than an hour till landing, which is what the pilot announces just a minute later, waking my friend in the process.

“So, it’s go time, huh?” Eva asks groggily and stretches in her seat, the jacket falling off her to the floor. “S*hit.”

Her sleepy grumpiness brings a smile to my face and for a moment I am distracted again from all my fears. Through the small window, I can finally see land and the harsh morning sun already creeping up the hills of the unfamiliar green mountains in the distance. I’ve never been to this part of the world before and it looks fascinatingly new and familiar at the same time. I’ve always imagined my first trip to South America would be for a vacation in Brazil or something like that, not going to take over my lost father’s inheritance on a tropical island I know nothing about.

We land smoothly at the national airport and after it turns out everything is okay with our visas, because of course that it is, and our suitcases are just fine as well, I head to the bathroom to freshen up because we have another jet to catch, a smaller one that is going to take us to my dad’s island. God, even thinking about it like that, is weird. A private jet to take me to my private island. Who even talks like that?

On my way, I notice a guy openly checking me out to which I only roll my eyes because I am not in the mood to deal with creeps this late at night, or early in the morning, depending on the side of the world you find yourself on. Ok, maybe my gaze lingers a little longer on the stranger, but so what? I mean he does look damn fine with his jet-black wavy hair and coppery tan, and I am just a girl, tired after a twelve-hour long flight, so my guard is down.

He notices I am checking him back and lifts his white cowboy hat in a greeting, but then there’s this slightly sideways smirk on his lips, which annoys the s*hit out of me. It’s like it’s a given for him that I liked what I saw and that unapologetic manner of his really rubs me the wrong way.

As I head out of the bathroom a few minutes later, I’ve already forgotten about the stranger. I am jet-lagged and running on barely any sleep and food and I just can’t wait all this trip to be over so I can relax. My eyes wander around the large open space of the airport lobby but for a quick moment, I can’t place where Eva is. She was supposed to stay put and guard our luggage until it was her turn to use the bathroom, but she’s not where I left her, and for a second my tired mind starts to freak out.

A loud sigh of relief escapes me when I spot her waiting near the entrance. I rush to her, my brows furrowed because she does look pissed as she’s mumbling something to herself in anger, pacing back and forth.

“What happened?”

She rolls her eyes again, hands flailing in the air dramatically as she articulates her anger.

“Found your brother,” she informs me, definitely unimpressed by her discovery, she even rolls her eyes and everything.

“Ew, don’t call him my brother, that’s weird. Tony is my brother, this is just the rando Petar choose over me,” I remind her, my eyes scanning the area for someone who might be Alejandro Montener. “Anyway, what happened?”

“Well, he’s a sweetheart,” Eva snorts. “He was checking you out on your way to the bathroom so I put him in his place. He didn’t like it.”

“Wait, what?” I gasp, she can’t be talking about the guy with the white cowboy hat, right? God, this can’t be my luck. Gross.

“Yeah,” Eva shrugs, her arms crossed on her chest now as she points with her chin in the other direction. “I wouldn’t believe it was our guy if he wasn’t holding a card with your name on it.”

I turn to trace her gaze and yep, the guy from earlier is already headed our way. He freezes the moment our gazes collide but manages to gather his wits less than a second later. That sideways smirk from earlier is back on his annoyingly full lips, lazy and cocky, and I suddenly want to smack it out of his face because he looks too pleased about the fact he managed to piss me off right from the start.

Stomping in place, I stand taller, my head raised high because I don’t plan to give into some childish power plays.

“So you must be my father’s daughter,” the man says in English instead of a greeting, and those dark eyes that seem like they are made of molten lava, move up and down my body in amused appreciation. Insolent bastard.

“Mr. Montener,” Eva chimes in before I get the chance to open my mouth and put him in place, her tone suddenly all business-like, not a trace of her usual hot temper, or her current grogginess. “I think we got on the wrong foot here. So, I propose we fix it. I am Katia, Katerina’s, lawyer, Eva Marinova. And this is Pedro’s daughter, Katerina Eneva.”

He tilts his hat again at me, holding my gaze the entire time, the smirk refusing to go away and stopping myself from rolling my eyes and storming away suddenly seems like a really hard thing to do.

“Yes, we did,” he replies to Eva, but his molten lava eyes are still locked on me, and god, the way he’s acting… the edge and the challenge in his voice as he speaks, it’s all enough to piss me off even more. I hold myself back again, swallowing my opinion before I opened my mouth and ruined everything with just a few hard words. “Now, let’s go, the guys have already started the engines. We are wasting precious time and resources.”

The next thing I know he turns around, leaving me and Eva to rush after him, dragging our bags and suitcases with us like fools, and I am already cursing that man and his entire bloodline, and even more the fact that at least for now, I am forced to put up with him.