How She Likes It

coincidental.

Chapter One

Isabel wished she knew how to smoke.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. She’d done her fair share of sneaking out to smoking areas with friends in her younger days, placing the lit cigarette between her lips. But each time she'd tried to inhale, an image of her parents’ disappointed and stony faces would pop into her head, complete with their sigh of exasperation at the ultimate proof that their daughter was hopeless. The guilt would scare her out of it, every single time.

But some days, Isabel Alfonso wondered what it would be like to hold a thin white cigarette in her hand, inhaling the poisonous smoke to somehow relieve the stress creeping up her shoulders. All her smoker friends told her, smoking helped them relax. She would die early, but at least she’d be a little bit less stressed.

Sitting in a warm, too-sunny conference room overlooking Ayala Avenue wasn’t stressful, but it was the people in the room that was making her want to reach for a cigarette. There was the uncle/board member who was famous for handing out the red ang pao envelopes on Christmas with three crisp thousand-peso bills inside. The company CFO who was her ninong at baptism was also there, along with the chief legal adviser who was her ninong at confirmation.

Normally she wouldn’t be intimidated to be the only woman in a roomful of men, but when most of them had seen her running across their family lawn in her underwear when she was four, it’s a whole other ball game. For one thing, they still looked at her exactly the same way, even at her ripe old age of thirty.

And then, there was her father.

Urge for a cigarette left unmet, Isabel tapped her fingers against the old narra conference table instead, hoping the meeting would just end already.

After listening to your considerations and consulting with the rest of the team, one of her father’s employees was saying, his gaze fixed on Isabel. It was an impressive show of confidence, although she noticed that he kept wiping his hands nervously on his pants. We came up with an expansion plan for Impressionist Cosmetics that will make its value equal to the Belvedere Resort.

Isabel snorted, but managed to hide it in a cough when her father turned sharply at her.

Allergies, she announced, wrinkling her nose.

We have a partnership with Tian Xia Manufacturing in Shanghai, her father cut in, like he’d been the one standing in front with the proposal. Her father loved taking over conversations that way. They’re ready to take you to their factory at the end of next month to see their prototypes. If you like the quality, we’re happy with the price, you can sign a service agreement with them and use it to boost your standings against Regina.

He’d said it like it was a competition, and to some extent, it was. Antonino Alfonso III was retiring after more than fifty years as the head of Alfonso-Benitez South Holdings. As defined by the company’s bylaws, the board was going to vote on which of the heiresses would inherit the top position, Regina Benitez or Isabel Alfonso. Her father was who he was because of his ambition, and it was that ambition that drove him to forge a deal with an unknown company on Isabel’s behalf without consulting her beforehand. It sucked, but Isabel understood. She understood ambition and her father’s determination to put her in the highest position possible.

So instead of arguing with him about this secret deal, she only nodded. She could find a way out of this if she had to. But there was no way she was going to forget that he’d done this behind her back. Her father valued a lot of things, and this company was at the very top of the list. No exceptions.

Isabel could sense his anticipation over her reaction, leaning over the desk to look at Isabel and try to divine her thoughts and manipulate them to say what he wanted to hear. She’d been on the receiving end of that look since she was a child, and she knew exactly how to school her face into a mask that he couldn’t read.

Fine, Isabel said, pointedly avoiding even sparing her father a glance as she stood up, making the entire room stand up after her. My assistant can make the arrangements.

I have to say, we’re really impressed with you, Isabel, the CFO, whom Isabel still called Uncle Tito said, shaking her hand jovially. You’ve grown that little cosmetics company into a major asset for AB-South.

Isabel is my daughter, she’s been trained and drilled in my way of doing business—the right way of doing business, her father cut in, his gravelly voice grating on Isabel’s nerves like steel wool on her teeth. Never mind that when she’d first approached him with her idea for Impressionist Cosmetics two years ago, he’d scoffed and told her that her million-peso education had been a waste if she was going to spend it on makeup. Unlike Gerund, who let his daughter run off to London for some charity.

Isabel resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Regina had worked with a cancer charity in London, had planned her own wedding, and had helped her mother set up an art foundation in Manila, all while running the Belvedere Resort. It was hardly anything to scoff at.

Anita can’t stop talking about your lipsticks, she has every color. She had our driver line up in front of your first store for two hours just so she could get her hands on them, her godfather interjected, smoothly changing the topic. And you’re looking quite healthy. Eating a little too well, eh?

Isabel didn’t think to dignify the comment with a response and walked right past her godfather to finally abandon the conference room for the safety of the office hallway. She still felt the urge to smoke though, walking briskly toward the elevators to get the hell out of there.

She was almost home free when Regina Benitez, her best friend and rival for CEO, caught Isabel as Regina emerged from her office a few doors down. Isabel rolled her eyes at her friend when they walked together, their strides perfectly matching, as it had since they were kids. Of course Regina knew about this meeting and of Isabel’s father’s plans. There were very few secrets between the heiresses, the way it had always been.

You are such a scaredy-cat. Regina tutted, half-breathless as she shook her head at her childhood friend. It was already late in the afternoon, and yet Regina’s pantsuit was still unwrinkled, showing no signs of the high-stress job that she was doing. Just being shadowed by Antonino Alfonso would have made anyone look frazzled, but Regina always managed to look cool. Isabel hated that about her.

You ran all the way from your office to tell me that. I hope you’re proud of yourself. Isabel nearly stuck her tongue out at her friend, smashing her finger against the elevator button, even if she knew it wasn’t going to help.

I am, a little bit, Regina said, casually leaning against the wall as Isabel sighed and adjusted her friend’s blazer for her. Regina had been running the Benitez side of the family corporation since she’d come back from London three years ago, and Isabel knew that she was the top contender in the board members’ minds for the CEO position. Isabel was raised knowing that this position was supposed to be hers one day, and she wasn’t the type to give up when the odds were against her. "But are you okay? You looked like you were ready to lunge across the desk and choke someone, because you’re too much of a scaredy-cat to choke Tito Tonino."

You seem surprised. It’s my usual reaction. Isabel wrinkled her nose in distaste, like just saying the company name left a bad taste in her mouth. Papa’s on the warpath, Reg. He wants to get rid of you.

Of course he does. Regina shrugged like this didn’t surprise her.

Obviously, joint ventures with under-the-radar foreign companies are great, blah, blah, blah. But his motives aren’t altruistic. If they were, he would have told me about this new partnership before we talked to the officers. I floundered for like, five seconds in there.

Regina gasped in mock horror.

You joke, but you know I don’t flounder. Especially not in front of Papa. He’s hiding something from me.

"Well. You know as well as I do that ultimately, he wants you as the CEO. And you want to be CEO because it means a huge business expansion for Impressionist."

Regina made perfect sense, of course. Isabel had looked over the expansion plans with Regina, and they talked about possible international distribution. But that could only happen if Isabel became CEO. So Isabel’s father might not be telling her the whole picture. But if it meant getting what she wanted, it didn’t matter.

Right?

Isabel was about to open her mouth to ask Regina that exact same question when the elevator doors pinged open to reveal her mother.

It was apparently going to be that kind of day.

The woman might have raised Isabel (and Regina to some extent), but Isabel felt like she always needed to be forewarned before seeing her. Isabel’s hands immediately felt clammy and cold as Antoinette Ongkiko Alfonso set her laser-beam gaze on her only daughter and proceeded to scan her from head to toe.

Your clothes are one size too small, she sniped, choosing to ignore Regina completely, as she had done ever since the CEO bid was announced. You’re not secretly pregnant, are you?

Nice to see you too, Mother, Isabel managed to say, and it took all of her willpower not to subconsciously pull her skirt down and prove her mother right. She couldn’t believe she still had to say this. And my womb remains empty, sadly.

Antoinette sniffed distastefully, keeping her hands clasped over her Hermes bag. The same bag that one of Isabel’s father’s associates had lined up in Harbour Centre in Hong Kong for, the same one they had to exchange because it had been the wrong color. They had given it to her as PR, and now Antoinette made sure she carried it around with her every time she stepped foot in the office. It was supposed to be a status symbol. A show of power.

Isabel still thought it was just a box to carry stuff in.

Even an illegitimate grandchild would be preferable to no child at all, at the rate you are going on the marriage front, Antoinette said, her eyes moving pointedly to Isabel’s ringless left hand, her lips pursed in disappointment. She gave an exaggerated sigh like she was exhausted from talking about this topic. I assume you were here to meet with your father to discuss your little project?

Isabel managed to keep herself from visibly flinching at her mother’s words. Her little project was a multimillion-peso cosmetics company, but that made very little difference to Antoinette. To her mother, Isabel’s company was a desperate cry for help from someone who was already thirty, unmarried, and childless. Never mind the amount of work Isabel had put into taking the market share back from imported Korean cosmetics. Or the number of jobs she’d made. Let’s not even think about how happy she was with the company, how good she was at running it.

I have to leave for another meeting, Isabel said stiffly, fully aware that Regina had managed to escape her mother’s scrutiny by slinking away like the cheat she was. Mother.

Forget the cigarette, Isabel thought to herself, adjusting her skirt in the empty elevator as she made her way down. I need a drink.

Isabel liked to drink alone. She liked being alone too, but Manila was a crowded city that thrived on connection and camaraderie and who-you-knew, so some days it was impossible.

Unless, of course, you knew where to drink. There were a number of bars in Makati she liked because they were dark enough that nobody bothered you when you wanted to get sloshed on a Thursday night. But she liked drinking in a posh hotel bar the most, and she liked it best at the Manila Peninsula’s Salon de Ning.

Dedicated to the socialite from Shanghai’s Belle Epoque in the 1930s, the various themed rooms included one dedicated to a boxer, a World War I plane designer, Madame Ning’s shoes, and Madame Ning’s boudoir. Each room was heavily decorated and lavishly furnished with chinoiserie that it would have been tacky if the lights were any brighter. Isabel liked that she could order a drink and not hear the conversation from the other tables, as she so often did at other places. Plus, it was hidden away enough that nobody knew to find her here, which suited her purpose.

She hadn’t planned on having more than one drink, but plans changed when she decided she’d order a single malt whiskey. She and Regina, the spoiled, naughty little rich girls that they were, learned to drink from their fathers’ yearly Christmas hoard of Glenfiddich and Chivas, and having a sip always reminded her of that.

One year, Regina’s father was gifted with a Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac, the kind of alcohol that came with its own case that opened with a push of a button and cost upward of five thousand dollars. She and Regina had a few fingers each, replaced what they drank with water, and put it back in her father’s shelf, no one the wiser. The cognac was later proudly displayed at Regina’s father’s funeral, and it was the first time Regina had laughed since her father died. Isabel still raised a glass to her favorite uncle whenever she drank the stuff.

But before she could raise a hand to order one for herself at the bar, her phone started to ring, demanding her attention. It was Mabel, her father’s secretary. She also knew Isabel from birth and always liked to comment on Isabel’s outfits whenever she was in viewing distance. She never liked anything Isabel wore, not even when she was a kid.

Ms. Isabel, who can I contact to arrange your visa to China? Mabel was calling her from the office at nine in the evening. She could hear her father still talking to someone in the background. A shiver ran down her spine at the thought that this could be her future.

Naomi, my secretary, Isabel said instead.

Naomi quit last month.

She groaned. Right. Naomi had been the ineffectual one, the one who was more interested in scoring free makeup than actually working for her. Thank god for six-month probationary periods, but it did leave Isabel sans secretary at the moment.

Right. Send me the requirements, I can do it.

I was instructed to send the requirements to your staff, not to you, Mabel replied, and the fact that she felt the need to talk to Isabel like she was a child made it clear that Mabel thought herself above her. Or maybe she was just annoyed that she was still in the office at nine in the evening. Your father was very clear that you be treated like a CEO.

Her father was supposed to be pre-retirement and not using his secretary as a way to point out that Isabel needed to hire one for herself. Isabel almost told her that, but decided that she wasn’t going to waste her fighting spirit on a foot soldier.

Fine. I’ll hire someone tomorrow. Isabel sighed. God, she missed the days when she could feel buttons on her text messages to express her rage.

See that you do.

The conversation with Mabel followed with texts from work, from people who should have been home hours ago, on problems she couldn’t solve until morning. And in the way that time zones worked, inquiries from possible distributors and requests from other time countries were coming in a steady stream, each one bigger than the last and asking for her attention.

Maybe it was time to stop drinking.

But before she could ask for her check, a man flopped into the chair across from her, oblivious to her indecision as he pulled a beer can from the deep recesses of his jacket and took a large swallow. She could smell alcohol on him and could see just see the telltale tomato-red flush that had taken over his entire face, even in the dim light. Even his ears (which were a little big) were red.

Her staring must have put him off, because he turned to her. Isabel could see the exact moment that his face lit up when he laid eyes on her, and it was very, very flattering. She knew she was gorgeous, but it was always nice to be reminded.

He was too big and too tall for the chair he’d flopped into, but then again you would be hard-pressed to find chairs that fit a guy as tall and well-built as he was. He ran a hand through a dark mop of wavy black hair, showing off the tension in his muscles, the spindly veins in his long-fingered hands that pulsed in the dim light.

Are you the girl of my dreams? he asked, and it should have sounded so fucking corny, but Isabel was already two drinks in and he made it sound so smooth.

What?

I was supposed to meet someone. It’s a hookup.

Ah. I didn’t think kids your age still did that, she said wryly. ASL?

What?

My point exactly.

I’m twenty-five. He seemed offended that she would tease him like that. Not that much younger than you. Probably.

If Isabel could whistle, she would do it now, because twenty-five was . . . young. She barely remembered being twenty-five herself. But for a kid in adult pants, he seemed mature. There was a confidence in the way he carried himself, even if he was sneaking beer into the bar.

Or maybe it was just the lighting. But she had to admit that such light eyes were rare. They were almost green in the soft lights of the bar.

She isn’t coming, he announced, with a deep sigh, telling himself more