Chapter 5
“Hello?” Grace heard. The voice instantly put her on alert. She looked around the room and remembered where she was. “Is anyone here?” This voice clearly spoke English. A sudden urge hit her. Perhaps this person would be able to help her. Maybe it was a concierge coming to check on this head case or room service.
Grace jumped out of the bed, rubbing her eyes and trying to remember the pathway through the maze of rooms. She almost stumbled into a wall she was so eager to get to the door. When she finally entered the original living room, the man she saw standing in front of the door was not anyone working at the hotel. It was the same man she had seen passed out on the bed the night before.
He turned to look at her as she paused in the doorway. “Hello,” he said, a smile slowly spreading over his face. He wore boxers and nothing else. Grace wondered if he was still drunk or if he was acting as he normally would. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“You- you speak English,” Grace finally managed to say. He was clearly not from around that area, but he clearly knew a bit more than his thugs had.
“Yes, but you still have not answered my question.” The man took a few slow steps toward her, and Grace stepped backward. He raised his eyebrows then let his eyes peruse her body. “I guess it doesn’t matter, huh?”
Grace took another step back as the man continued to stumble forward.
“I just usually like to make one’s acquaintance before we begin our. . . business. Care for a drink?”
“At eight in the morning? No way!”
The man squeezed his eyes shut as though the noise hurt his ears. Grace knew then that he was still quite a bit hung over. “Hey, calm down,” he said, opening his eyes and looking her over again with that same look.
Grace shook her head. She backed away again. She didn’t have anywhere to go, but she could at least shut herself in the room where she had spent the night. If she wasn’t able to break out the front door, he wouldn’t be able to break into her bedroom’s door.
Suddenly, Grace turned and started fleeing through the room and down the twist of hallways. She heard the man behind her, but the twisting hallways didn’t allow her to pick up any speed. She suddenly felt his arms around her, pulling her to a stop and giving her a crazy spin so that she slammed into the wall. She crumpled to the ground, and the man fell on top of her.
“Mmm,” he said, as he began kissing down the side of her face and over her neck. It tickled, and Grace didn’t like the feeling it was giving her. The pounding of her head from hitting it against the wall demanded her attention.
“Stop it! Get off me!” She pushed and struggled underneath him until he finally rolled off.
He lay on the floor looking up at her with a confused expression. “You are not the kind of surprise I was expecting,” he said, shaking his head. “You can leave if you’re not interested in playing my game.”
“Yeah right. I already tried that. That’s what I was trying to do all night.”
“What?” He didn’t seem to be processing her words.
“If you can get those guys of yours to let me out, I will be very thankful.”
“You can leave whenever you want,” he said. “You know where the door is. Just go.”
Grace shook her head and crossed her arms. “I don’t know if you’re still too drunk to understand me or if you’re naturally this stupid.”
“Excuse me!” He said, struggling to stand. “I am not stupid. I may be a little slow right now, but I am fast as a tiger, and I will give you the time of your life.”
Grace stood, a hand to her head. “How about we skip that and you do the letting me out part?”
The man led Grace down the hallway and to the first living room. He ushered her toward the front door and crossed his arms as she showed him how fruitless it was. The man immediately frowned. He crossed the room and struggled with the doorknob as though Grace hadn’t been able to do it correctly.
“Hey!” He yelled pounding on the door. “Dejame salir!” He continued yelling in Spanish, and Grace stood back with an “I told you so” look on her face. The man turned back to her, shaking his head. If he hadn’t been awake before, he was very awake now. “They found me.”
“Who- found you? Were you trying to get away from someone? What have you done?”
The man shrugged. “I haven’t done anything yet. That’s the problem.” He gave another frustrated pound at the door before turning away. He started pacing. Grace sat on a stool in the corner and watched him. At least he was not trying to eat her anymore. He wanted to get out too, and she was sure he would find a way out.
“I get why they locked me in here. I guess they didn’t want me to wander away when they weren’t watching, but I’m really confused about why you are here. Who are you?”
Grace shrugged, not sure that she wanted to answer him. What if she had misunderstood everything from the night before? “All I know is a couple of men who don’t speak any English essentially kidnapped me and brought me here, so you would need to ask them what I’m doing here.”
The man swore, then hurried across the room to the telephone. He started dialing. Grace didn’t know where. “Yes, I don’t know who I need, but my door appears to be locked from the outside. I have been somehow shut in my penthouse suite. I’m sorry for the bother, but I need someone to come here immediately and get me out. . .” The man trailed off and seemed to be listening. “Lies! You can’t say it is legal to have me trapped in my own hotel room! I’m calling the police!”
The man slammed the phone down, waited a few moments, then dialed 911. He began explaining his situation all over again. “They should be coming,” he said, hanging up the phone. Suddenly, there were sounds on the other side of his door, and the door sounded as though it was coming off its hinges. After a few moments, the door flew open, and the two men from the day before stood there. Grace was about to let them have a piece of her mind, but the man started doing it before her.
There was a lot of yelling that Grace didn’t understand. She just stayed in her corner, waiting for the men to move from the doorway so she could get away. The men finally quieted down, and the man who had tried to molest her that morning went back to his room to put on clothes. He came back out dressed very richly, and Grace realized that he must be the source of all the money. He looked a lot more attractive wearing dress pants and a light pink dress shirt. His tie was drawn loosely around his neck, and he placed a fedora on his head to top it off.
“Come on,” he said, motioned toward her. While he looked calmer, he was definitely not happy about the situation.
“Where are we going?”
“For some breakfast. I need to get something in my stomach, and I’m sure you could use something to eat as well.” Grace thought this might be a great opportunity to make an escape. But something about this man’s mood seemed to have change. No longer was he acting like the hormone-driven playboy.
“Where are we going?” Grace asked hopefully. If they went to a public place like they had the night before, then Grace knew she would not hesitate to say something.
“They serve breakfast here,” the man mumbled, pulling his fedora down to cover his eyes. “And don’t think about trying anything crazy. Just give me a chance to talk to you.”
This was definitely different. Grace wondered what the men could possibly have said to make him so calm. She followed all three of the men downstairs to a lush breakfast area. There was even a menu where you could order something fresh or an omelet bar where you could have your own omelet made. Grace heaped her plate with the rich food and sat down at the table for two the man had chosen. The other two men were standing in various parts of the room as though they were guarding both of them.
“I’m. . .Antonio, by the way,” the man said, as Grace set down her plate of food. So, he had a name, if that really was his name.
“Are we prisoners or something?” Grace asked. “Who are those men? What have you done?”
Antonio shook his head, but Grace didn’t know if his frustration was at her questions or the answers he knew. “Yes, we’re prisoners or something,” Antonio said. “I was just informed that someone performed a wedding ceremony last night while I was passed out. Is that even legal? Who knows? But Pablo and Herman seen to think so.”
“Well, it’s not, see,” Grace became excited. “They forced me to sign this paper. They had a knife, and they were threatening to use it. So what else was I supposed to do? But you didn’t sign anything did you? So if only I signed something (and even that was something I didn’t understand), then we can’t be legally. . .” Grace couldn’t bring herself to say the word “married.” This was certainly not the way a young girl dreamed about her wedding day.
“If only your cleverness were true. While I didn’t sign anything, Pablo has signing rights for me. If he signs my name on something, that is as good as me signing it myself. It’s legal, and I’ve always enjoyed it because. . .”
“How can someone sign things for you? I’m pretty sure that’s not legal, no matter if you’ve done it before.”
Antonio shook his head. “The rules are a bit different for me. I’m the Prince of Aruba. I know, you probably don’t know where it is. It’s an island off the side of Venezuela to put it into perspective. Because I never had much desire to attend those boring conferences, I signed over my right to agree to Pablo. He would attend the conferences, listen to all the boring stuff, and sign what I was supposed to sign. That freed me up to have some fun. I never thought he would use it against me.”
“Wait, just wait a minute. You’re a prince?”
Antonio nodded.
“What are you doing here as a prisoner, with them forcing you to marry random strangers?”
“I came for a visit to the United States. I have come before, and I enjoyed it. I came by myself though without any service agents, and they were pretty ticked at me.”
“So as punishment they make you marry someone?”
“Will you just let me finish?” A touch of impatience was creeping into his voice.
“Sorry,” Grace mumbled, waiting impatiently for him to fill in all the blanks.
“In Aruba, there is a law that the eldest son, me, must marry before their twenty-sixth birthday to inherit the throne. I wasn’t really interested in marrying, but I always thought my parents would not worry. I thought they would be okay with it, you know, bend the rules to fit me and in this day in age... Princes are technically not supposed to run wild in the streets either, but I did, and they put up with it. But now, they say that if they turn their back on the law then they are just as good as perpetrators. The punishment for not complying with the law is death.”
“Whoa. Death?”
Antonio ignored her interruption. “So, I came to the United States. I didn’t come on my private jet or anything. I took a regular flight. Yet, they still found me. Now, it appears they have forced me to marry as well.”
“But that’s actually good, right? I mean, now you don’t have to worry about people chasing after you trying to kill you. You can just live peacefully.” Grace hadn’t yet connected Antonio’s story with her own.
“There’s one more difficulty,” Antonio said, taking a sip of coffee for the first time. He put his hand to his head, and Grace realized that his hangover must still be bothering him. “If I do not return to Aruba in the next week, I will be considered dead, and my younger brother, Josue, will take the throne and the inheritance.”
“You’ll be cut off?” Grace asked.
“No, there will be no cutting. They will just see me as though I am dead, not actually kill me.” Grace gave him a funny look and had to remind herself that even though he spoke English well, he did not always understand all of the little phrases or ways of saying things. “The problem is that if I stay here, I will have no money. All of my money comes from family accounts.”
“Okay,” Grace said, thinking him crazy for not realizing that was how Pablo and Herman had tracked his whereabouts. Instead, she dove into her food which was getting a bit cold. The story was unfolding in her mind. “So, why don’t you just go back then? It’s no big deal, right?”
“I will go back,” Antonio said. “But you must come with me. You are the Princess of Aruba.”