His Discarded Bride #thefictionawards2019

Part Two

CHAPTER ONE

Red-faced, sweating, and stressed, Leilani found her seat and was struggling to get her onboard-luggage up into the overhead compartment.

"Here; let me help you with that."

She barely glanced at the man, distracted by her thoughts; she mumbled the usual thanks and wiggled into the middle seat.

The news had taken her by surprise, and with her world turned inside-out, she'd lost no time in booking an impromptu flight to Rome. The idea was to get away, gather up her thoughts, and hopefully work up the courage to do something about the bombshell she'd just received.

Leilani was hoping to sit back and relax on the plane; however, it was not as she'd imagined. As she fidgeted to get comfortable, whatever preconceived ideas she had about being able to relax during the flight were soon put to rest. The seats were narrow, and the legroom was abysmal. It was going to be a long trip. Her high school friend Seema had organised the ticket for her and had warned her that it would be a long and arduous flight. Seema was concerned that, considering the recent events, the journey would be too strenuous for her; this was a notion that Leilani quickly dismissed, advising that she was perfectly capable.

Leilani wished that she had been just a little bit more organised though because as per usual when she was in a rush things always seemed to conspire against her. Her good intentions hadn't helped her to arrive on time. Sitting back in her seat, she recalled her hectic day.

Unfortunately, she'd had an inconvenient crying jag which ruined her makeup. With no time to redo, she had grabbed her luggage and hauled it down to her car. The boot of the car happened to choose that moment to disobey the remote control, and when she manually opened it, she discovered it was full. She'd meant to clean it out but had forgotten, and with everything else going on, it was hardly surprising.

Finally, she slid the luggage onto the back seat and was ready to go, except she'd had second thoughts as to whether she'd locked all the doors and the windows of the apartment. She took a lift up to the seventh floor and did a final inspection; it was a good thing, as the balcony door was wide open. Getting back down to the car park level of the building was slow going since new tenants were moving into the building. Annoyingly the elevator was continually filled with their furniture. Leilani opted for the stairs, all seven flights and raced down to the car.

Leilani glanced at the time, and her nerves started to get the better of her. If she missed her flight, she wasn't sure what she would do. An absolute novice at international travel she was quite sure that her ticket was non-refundable. Hopefully, she would get there in time and not have to worry about being late. If she ended up missing her flight then she just hoped she would be put on another. She crossed her fingers and accelerated a little faster, just in case that wasn't how the system worked.

She found her prepaid long-term parking area and realised its proximity wasn't close to the terminals. If she parked there, she would need to wait for a shuttle bus, and there simply wasn't time if she was to make the flight. Instead, Leilani opted for valet parking; she would deal with the blow to her credit card when she returned to Australia.

Finally in the terminal with her baggage checked, she had passed through customs relatively quickly. Reading the departure boards, she'd made her way to the relevant gate and even had a few minutes to spare. Locating a newsagency, she bought some water, magazines, and chocolate bars. With her nerves calmed, she stood in front of her gate.

Looking at the monitors, though, she saw no sign of her flight. She retrieved her boarding pass to confirm the gate number. The flight was not appearing on the board, and there was no sign of an airport official around to assist her.