Strawberry Kisses

by Phavy Prieto

  STRAWBERRY KISSES

  Phavy Prieto

  For my dear Conchi,

  cheerful and funny florecilla,

  who is always able to make me smile.

  "When you start to believe that love doesn't exist, someone comes along to prove you wrong."

  (Anonimo)

  Maria works in the finance field and her whole life revolves around numbers. She plans every aspect of her life in her inseparable planner so that everything is always organized and under control, whether it is the time to brush her teeth, watch television or have sex.

  What could happen if her planner ended up in the hands of a man who is not so organized but is extremely attractive?

  In order to get the planner back, she is going to immerse herself in chaos and discover that, perhaps, being spontaneous is not so bad.

  Discover the story that will make you smile and throw you in a whirlpool of emotions from the first page.

  Copyright © January 2021 by Phavy Prieto

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, translated or transmitted in any manner whatsoever or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews and certain other non commercial uses permitted by copyright law

  First Edition

  ISBN: 9798591418373

  Publisher: Independently published

  Phavy Prieto is the pen name of a young Spanish woman of Andalusian origin who graduated from the University of Alcalá de Henares (birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes) in 2016 with major in Civil Engineering.

  She wrote her first stories in 2017 by combining her passion for books, which has always accompanied her, with her professional activity. At the moment her readership exceeds 250,000.

  Her first publications in Spanish were historical novels, such as the Saga Ordinales which includes, among others, The Ninth Daughter of the Count (La novena hija del conde) and The Seventh Sin (El septimo pecado). Her latest publications also include erotic novels, such as The Russian Pearl, and humorous novels, such as Oh là là, which allowed her to reach the top positions on Amazon's sales lists and to position herself as one of the emerging writers of our days.

  She is currently happily married and resides in Sardinia, Italy, where she carries out various projects and draws inspiration for her next works.

  If you like to find out more about the author, publication dates and all of her works, you may visit her website or her social network profiles.

  phavyprieto

  Phavy Prieto

  www.phavyprieto.com

  Table of contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter I

  Since I was a child, I have always liked two things: lists and numbers. My mother used to take me to the supermarket, and I would sit in the shopping cart and read out the items on the list, then check them off after writing down the price. I think those trips may have been a big influence on my fascination with lists and numbers. What I really liked, actually, was crossing things she would put in the cart off the list. That feeling, so satisfying, of being able to eliminate something accomplished with a thick line was the reason why I am a big fan of endless lists today.

  I began by making school homework lists, like any normal kid who wanted to get good grades, I suppose, but those lists were too short, and so I began to add more things: regular daily activities, such as eating, going to sleep or just washing my face. It was then that I calculated precisely how long it took me to do everything and decided, therefore, to add a certain amount of time for each activity in order to fill all the gaps on my list.

  My passion for numbers and control led me to study accounting and finance. Although this may seem like a lack of modesty on my part, I have to say that I am competent, very competent: that’s why I work in Madrid in one of the largest national financial companies listed on the stock exchange. As someone who was passionate about numbers, I couldn't waste even a minute. Now I have every second of my day under control, from when I get up until I go to sleep, to leave no room for unexpected events or accidents.

  "Maria, do you know where my red shoes are?" my best friend and roommate, Nerea, asked me.

  "Did you look under the bed?" I asked, as I finished brushing my hair in the mirror in my room. I had discovered that the more things I did locked inside my room, the less time was lost, especially because of the constant interruptions by Nerea who would even walk into the bathroom to ask me about her usual platitudes.

  "Yup!" she shouted. "You're the best!"

  I don't know why she did not look there in the first place, since the free space under Nerea's bed was like Doraemon's bag, where you could find a bicycle or a pair of red shoes, like in this case. After all it was obvious since Nerea cleaned her room by putting everything that lay on the floor under the bed and pushed everything that was lying around into the wardrobe.

  For her that is "cleaning"... better not to say what it is or I risk losing my best friend.

  I don't even know how it is possible to be still such good friends, considering that she is my complete opposite. At first I was afraid that she could suddenly enter my room like a hurricane, destroying everything that I had perfectly organized and sorted by color, alphabet or personal taste. But the idea of living alone didn't appeal to me, and sharing the expenses helped financially.

  "I know," I said, putting on the green necklace I had chosen for that day to match the shoes. "I'm going out in exactly five minutes. If you don't show up at the door, I will leave without you," I warned.

  It would have been neither the first nor the last time that I left without Nerea, especially after I was late for work three times because of her. As punishment, I went out without her on three more occasions until she became punctual.

  "I’m coming! I’m coming! I’m coming!" she screamed as I watched her hop towards the door, attempting to put on her shoes.

  I met Nerea in high school. We both come from the same Spanish village (one so small I don't even mention it because it probably doesn't appear on the maps). Since we were going to study in the same city, our parents decided to find an apartment for both of us. While I was studying finance and spending sleepless nights drawing charts and diagrams, Nerea pretended to study psychology. In fact, she skipped most of her classes due to the constant outings during the first year at university. It took her three years to focus on her studies, and now she was trying to combine school with working as a part-time receptionist at a private clinic.

  Although Nerea tells me that I am a crazy woman obsessed with control, the truth is I see myself as someone too normal: I wake up early every morning, read the news, go to work for eight hours, go to the gym, prepare lunch for the next day, watch a movie or a TV series, read a book, listen to music. Is it not what everyone does? The only difference is that I write down everything in advance to be sure not to forget anything and not to waste time, and I consider this a very valuable asset.

  "Good morning, Maria!" said the intern, w
ho had been entrusted to me during these months, smiling as she handed me a latte.

  "Good morning, Andrea," I answered with less kindness, taking the paper cup. "Has the boss already arrived?" I asked, already knowing of the general anxiety because of the arrival of a new branch manager expected this week.

  "No, maybe he won't come in today," she shrugged, as I headed to my office. I assumed the new manager was not used to mingling with "the mob", but that week I had to present a new investment project with high profitability, and I did not feel like presenting it to someone nitpicky and repressed, like his predecessor.

  "Well, let's hope he doesn't show up until Friday," I replied. As I sipped the latte, I let out a Tarzan-like cry. "What did you pour into the coffee, milk or lava?" I screamed sticking out my tongue, as I tried to blow on it.

  Don't do it, it's technically impossible.

  "I'm sorry, Maria!" Andrea shouted hysterically. "I got confused!"

  "Of course you did!" I said in a harsh way. I gave her back the paper cup with the latte from hell and walked towards my office.

  "I'll bring you one with cold milk immediately," she said embarrassed, walking briskly.

  "Great! Two minutes wasted,” I thought, after I closed the door and turned on the computer that my intern had negligently forgotten to turn on.

  Back home I placed the gym bag on the kitchen counter where the washing machine was. I was about to take off my dirty clothes to do the laundry when Nerea suddenly appeared.

  "Hey! You're back!" she exclaimed enthusiastically. "Did you read my messages?" she asked eagerly.

  "I didn't look at my cell phone," I said, as I opened the refrigerator to get the fish I had to cook for dinner.

  "I need you to do me a favour tonight," she said pleading.

  "If it lasts more than half an hour, don't count on me," I said. I programmed the washing machine and took my gym bag to go back to my room, but when I looked at Nerea, I saw that she had only one eye made up, and I assumed she had a date.

  "Please, please, please!" she begged. I realized it had to be one of those big favours to ask. My curiosity prevailed.

  "Let me guess... You want me to clear out for the night, so that you can have a romantic evening with your boyfriend," I told her, sensing that she was getting ready like that because she had a date with Mr. Million, as she called him, for, according to my infallible calculations, that should have been their third date.

  "No!" she categorically denied. "I don't even think of bringing Mathews here," she said bluntly.

  "No wonder! If only he saw your room, he would run away," I thought, since the guy in question was a super cool British guy, full of money.

  It was frankly funny that Nerea, with a worse English pronunciation than my grandmother, pronounced "Mathews" so well, that you would have thought her entire childhood was spent in one of those expensive British academies full of Mathewses.

  I crossed my arms and stared at her. Judging from the way she was dressed, I doubted that her request was to lend her some clothes.

  "Then what?" I asked, a little surprised. I didn't know what Nerea was going to ask me, because the options were running out.

  "I need you to come with me tonight," she said, without further ado.

  "Don't even think about it!" I replied with even less ado and turned my back to her.

  Going out for dinner or dancing was not on my agenda. Neither was anything she had planned to ask. I had other plans, and my planner was the witness.

  "I need to be accompanied by a friend!" she exclaimed. “Mathews' cousin is in town, and he asked me to bring someone. Please, Maria! If you come, I swear I'll clean the house for a month!" she cried in desperation.

  Jeez! That Mathews must be really cool if Nerea begs like that.

  "A month?" I asked amazed. "Are you really going to clean well?" I asked as I considered that possibility... I could easily imagine what Nerea meant by "cleaning": wiping the dust from the TV and putting it under the bed.

  "Yes! Yes! Yes!" she said with small shouts to the rhythm of her hops. "Surely Mathews' cousin is as handsome as he is!" she added in a desperate attempt to completely dispel my doubts.

  "As if that mattered to me," I said to myself, thinking of the chaos that reigned at work and the fact that I didn't like coming back home late at all. The next day I would surely have sported two fantastic panda eyes.

  "I have a presentation tomorrow, Nerea, and I can't come back home late," I said with my index finger raised as a sign of authority mixed with threat.

  "I swear we'll be home before two in the morning!" she reassured me, raising her hand as a sign of promise.

  Unfortunately for me, Mathews' cousin was not handsome and I didn't get home before two o'clock.

  "I hate having a hangover," I moaned in my office, as I took my second sip of coffee that horrible morning.

  "Maria!" my intern screamed as she walked into my office like a crazy woman, crazier than when she was nervous.

  "For God's sake, don't shout!" I whimpered as I tried to shift things on my schedule to be able to accomplish what I hadn't done the night before due to the night out with my roommate "slash" friend and that loser that I wanted to erase from my mind as soon as possible.

  "Okay, I won’t scream," she whispered. "But the new manager is here," she added. I spat the coffee on the desk.

  "What? No, no, no, no, no!" I began to fidget.

  I would have never gone to work without a perfect manicure, without heels, without my completely straight hair but, above all, with two dark circles that competed with those of a panda. Not to mention the headache and the makeup that couldn't cover the signs of my hangover.

  "He's already upstairs," Andrea informed me. "They've requested your presence."

  Holy shit! Calm down, it's okay, don't panic... You can do it, you've prepared yourself for this moment. Even if you are not in the full capacity of your mental faculties, you will succeed!

  "It's okay," I said, abruptly closing my planner, whose black skin was unaffected by its heavy use, and tucking it under my arm along with the reports I had to submit.

  If there was one thing in the world that I never parted with, it was my planner. I wasn't able to go anywhere without it. I was constantly looking at the schedule to know if I had actually achieved my goals or had to reschedule my activities.

  I called the elevator and took a sip of coffee while I was waiting. I was mentally reviewing the presentation when I remembered that I was supposed to go to the laundry to drop off the dress I had worn the previous night, the dress that that idiot Mathews’ cousin, far from being as wonderful as Nerea promised, had stained with red wine.

  And my dress was of the purest white.

  I opened my black leather planner, placed it in a precarious balance between my left arm and forearm while I was holding the coffee with my left hand and squeezed the visit to the laundry into the time slot that I had for reaching the gym from the office. While writing, I saw from the corner of my eye that the elevator doors opened, I took a step forward and bumped into someone who was going out.

  The coffee flew to the side, my pen ended up God knows where, and my planner fell to the ground with a thud.

  "Fuck!" a male voice said.

  What a hell of a day! Next time Nerea asks me for a similar favour, I'll send her to Patagonia with a one-way ticket.

  "Can't you look where you're going?" scolded the voice.

  "You didn't pay attention either!" I yelled, while looking at my shirt and the skirt splashed with coffee, because I didn't think I was the only one responsible for the accident.

  Making a good impression on the new director went to hell!

  At that moment I saw that the man was dressed kind of informally. He was wearing a shirt and pants without a suit and tie. I watched as he bent down and, to my dismay, picked up my open planner, full of cancellations and checkmarks covered with small coffee stains.

  Inexplicably it suffered less damage than the two of us.


  "That's mine!" I yelled trying to get it back. But before I could, that man stood up and looked at me. I swear I had never seen a more handsome guy in my life. Where the hell did he come from? From the cover of Men's Health? My God!

  Calm down, Maria. He's just an idiot who has your planner and a face of an angel.

  "Yes, it's yours," he said, looking at me intently. "Just like the coffee you have just spilled on me," he added in a tone that I swear was condescending.

  "Will you give it back to me, please?" I said trying to be nice.

  I could kill for my planner, literally.

  "No," he said without hesitation, leaving me speechless.

  Who the hell does this guy think he is by taking possession of someone else’s belongings?

  "Give me that planner right now or I'll call the security," I replied in a tone as cold as possible.

  "Please, go ahead," he replied with a faint smile, disguising a certain air of superiority. "I'd really like to see everyone's face when they see that tonight at 10 o'clock you are supposed to... masturbate."

  "What? What are you talking about?" I quickly thought if I had written it in my planner. No, never... though my headache didn't allow me to be completely sure.

  I jumped in an attempt to grab it, but that cover model was too tall. In that instant I regretted not having practiced basketball as a child to be able to jump higher. Besides, I was late for the meeting!

  "I won't give you anything back, until you pay for the damage you caused," he said, pointing at his shirt.

  Is that all? Did he just want me to pay for the laundry? I would have accepted anything to get my treasure back.

  "Send the laundry bill to my office, and I'll pay for it," I said, believing that it would solve the problem.