Barcelona Rain #AStormOfFanFiction

2: The Sound of Music

She was gone.

He blinked, sure that his eyes must have been playing tricks on him, but all around him was open air, and not a secretary to be found.

He moved, turning in all directions, trying to make out her small figure in the growing darkness. But there was no one. Only the lengthening shadows kept him company on the street corner in which he stood, a solitary shadow against the hazy glow of the street lamps.

Where was she? He took two steps to the side, frowning. She had just been there a second ago. Knowing her, she was probably playing a joke on him and was hiding somewhere, ready to ambush him when he walked by.

"Mr Linton," he growled. "Come here at once!"

The only reply was the lingering breeze, a testament to the stillness around him.

"This isn't funny," he said, circling the spot where he had last seen her. Still she did not appear. His little finger gave one sharp twitch at his side.

Rikkard glanced around one last time. If she didn't come out in the next thirty seconds...

"The time you spend fooling around will be deducted from your wages, Mr Linton," he reminded the empty air crisply. He waited. No answer.

His jaw tightened.

Lilly wasn't here.

Had she run away? It was entirely possible, given her penchant for doing whatever she pleased at whatever time she wished. He wouldn't put it past her to desert him in favor of exploring the goods for sale around them.

Yet even as he considered the idea, a darker thought crept inside his mind and nestled in the core of his brain. What if someone took her? his brain whispered. Nonsense, he said to himself. I would've heard the kidnapper. I was right next to her!

But the thought stuck and held, a worrisome tether to the center of his problem, and the image of Lilly held against her will made him suddenly angry and...afraid?

He had no business being afraid. What was it to him if she got herself captured? He shouldn't care. He shouldn't be dwelling on the fact that his stomach was in knots and his hands had tightened into fists on their own accord. And he certainly shouldn't be standing here, doing nothing while his secretary could be who-knows-where, dead or injured or frightened or about to be incapacitated by her own foolish passion for all things dangerous and unladylike.

So Rikkard walked.

He didn't know where to go. It was a strange feeling, having no sense of direction. He'd arrived with every intention of tracking down Mr Cartwright, with the whole map in his head of the entire stretch of land that lay before him, certain about the man's whereabouts. And yet now that Lilly had vanished, he couldn't remember a thing.

Where would Lilly go? It was a solid question that he could not answer. He did not think like a woman. He definitely did not think like his secretary. There were a million possible places she could've gone, just to spite him.

And that, he thought with a sigh, was the crux of the problem.

He halted outside a small store with a colorful flower display, its fragrance hitting him in full force. He recalled her behavior a few moments ago, when he had denied her the chance to take a break.

Rikkard saw her face, with her deep brown eyes narrowed in frustration, the tips of her brows lowered to form a portrait of anger. The nostrils of her little button nose were flared; the pale pink lips shut closed to hold back the tirade of words she wanted to shout.

The words she'd wanted to hurl at him directly, for ignoring her and leaving her alone. The words she'd been aching to say all day, words she had decided weren't worth the breath to waste when she could simply disappear and have her way.