-Thursday afternoon, 2:45 p.m.(Central Time), Dallas, TX-

-Natalia's hotel room-

As Natalia finished getting ready pulling on a pair of jeans and a pink sweater she had brought with her, her cell phone rang again. She kind of already knew who it was. "Hi grandma," she said, as she held her cell phone, which she had left on the bed charging and had rushed to get it from the bathroom.

This is all before her grandmother had said anything and she hadn't even looked at her Caller ID. "Natalia," said her prim and proper grandmother, or at least that's what she sounded.

"What is this that I hear that you're not coming back home?" she asked, her tone a bit questioning and a bit scolding. Natalia just smiled at herself. Her grandmother was a great person and if anyone else had answered the phone, they would of said her grandmother was mean. She really wasn't, she just worried about her. After all, she was her only grandchild.

"Well, Kevin needs me to do a story in Seattle and it's with, you'll never guess? Molly Phillips" she said, her voice taking a high-pitched yelp.

"Interesting Natalia. Yes, sweetheart. I heard you the first time you said it," said her grandmother as Natalia kept chanting the name, unbeknownst to herself.

Her grandmother cringed on the other side of the line. She also smiled at herself. It was about time Natalia had a change of scenery again and she had practically been working her butt of trying to meet deadlines for the magazine. She was, after all, the star of Sayer's Magazine.

At 5'4 inches, she was a bit shorter than Natalia and didn't really look anything like her. The only features they shared were their black hair and strong noses, something her son had inherited and had given to his only daughter.

She was not matronly, still able to make a few heads turn as she walked down the street. Please, she was only 56 years old, not an old maid. She had raised Natalia since Nat was 14 years old, when both her parents died in a car accident. She had cried over the loss of her son, Michael, but had been more than overjoyed at raising his daughter.

"Well, then. I guess you'll need more clothes then. Right?" questioned her grandmother, as Natalia stopped chanting Molly Phillips' name and excused herself for acting like she had.

"Yes, grandmother, I will. I only bought a shoulder bag. I only thought I was going to be away for a week at the most," said Natalia. She did feel bad that she wouldn't be seeing her grandmother for another month and wanted to reassure her grandmother that she would be missed.

"Sorry grams that I can't be there for Aunt Matilda's birthday party. You know I would've never missed it for the world."

"Oh, por favor, your Aunt Matilda won't mind and if she does, I'll set her straight. You just go have fun. You need to have some time to forget about all the things you have here, especially of Jackson. Okay?" said her grandmother.

Natalia felt her grandmother always knew what to say in every situation and she was very thankful for that.

"Thanks grams. I love you. Now about my clothes being sent, I'll just have to call you from where we'll be staying and you can send them later today. I think the tour will be in Seattle for at least a couple of days. Okay?"

"Yes child. That's fine. Now be good but above all, enjoy yourself mija. Okay?"said her grandmother, worried that her granddaughter would feel a bit too guilty and would want to come home.

"Thanks grams. Love ya," said Natalia. "Bye."

"Bye sweetie."

And they both hung up. Natalia put her phone back on the charger again and turned around to face her laptop. She had finally been able to put some kind of ending to the article and had been looking for any odd word conjunctions or gibberishy sentences.

The maid had come in about half an our after she'd given her the clothes, and had all of Natalia's things washed and pressed. They were so clean, she swore she could smell sunshine beaming of them.

Anyways, she had thanked the maid and had started packing up her few articles of clothing into the duffel shoulder bag she had packed for the Dallas trip. She realized that maybe not having any warmer clothes would give her an excuse to go shopping in Seattle. Besides feeling she needed some kickass coffee from one of the coldest yet culturally active areas she loved visiting she also realized that her grandmother had been right, she did need a break from her job and her relationship problems.

She had just finished being able to convince Jackson to leave her alone, something she thought she'd never be able to do, and had also been able to get her life back in order. She'd only been out of college for about 6 months and had been at Sayer's Magazine for all of that time. She had interned there before they had offered to make her a music journalist and she loved it. The people were great, the atmosphere was great, and the opportunity to meet new musicians was amazing. All she'd wished for, only wishing that her parents should of gotten to see it too.

The momentary wave of sadness was washed away when she heard her cell phone ring again. She reached out with her left hand as she kept on reading her article.

"Grandma, what's wrong?" she asked, ready to listen to her grandmother speak. What she got was a big surprise.

"Hi baby," purred a slow and sensual voice on the other side. Natalia practically dropped the phone. JACKSON She thought. How the hell had he been able to get her new number. She'd had it changed once he had promised he'd stop bothering her because she knew he'd never be able to keep his end of the bargain. At least he'd been able to stay away from her apartment and her grandmother's home in Manhattan.

"What do you want Jackson?" she asked angrily, reacting to the surprise she'd first felt when she heard his voice.

"Just wondering when you're getting back from Dallas. I was expecting you back today but from the looks of it, I see that you won't be back. I was able to decipher, from what your grandmother is doing, that you'll be gone for awhile. Maybe I should be informed of where you are and I can always drop by," he stated, honey dripping off his every word.

That bastard, thought Natalia, he's been spying on grams. "Believe me Jackson, you won't find out. Besides, Grams would never tell you and you know it."

"I know, I just thought you would of gotten over our little "fight" by now and be ready to take me back. You know it's the right thing to do."

"You know I'll never take you back Jackson. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what I ever saw in you. Now you know things are over between us and you'd better stop staking out Grams and her house or I'll call the police. You know I will Jackson, so don't push it."

"Okay, okay," laughed Jackson haughtily on the other end of the line. "I'll leave your Grams out of it. Just remember, you know I'm right and you'll realize it soon enough babe. Bye," he said, smooching a kiss over the phone to Natalia as she hung up.

"Gawd, the nerve of him," she yelled out loud. How dare he try to get back together with her after the hell he'd put her through, she thought, as she stood up from the bed and ran her hands through her blow-dried hair with frustration. He'd been doing very illegal things, things she'd been unaware of until a police officer, Daniel Davis, had come up to her and told her what her boyfriend really did for a living. Well, she'd dropped him right then and there and had helped the police prosecute him. Unfortunately, the D.A. hadn't been really able to prosecute him since there wasn't enough evidence but she'd basically kicked him out of her life.

Apart from the fact that he was a criminal, he'd also gone around cheating on her to make matters worse. She'd found out when the D.A. had shown her some of the information that they had collected on him. She'd been angry and betrayed completely because he'd always told her she was the only one for him.

Thank god she had never slept with him. She'd always vowed that if she ever did sleep with any man, it would be with one that she loved and could see herself getting married to. So much for that theory, she thought. All her decorations about love had been thrown out once she'd found out that Jackson had been cheating on her. There was also the fact about the family curse that seemed to accompany the Marin family everywhere.

Not many people were aware that the Marin family was supposed to be unlucky in love. It wasn't exactly what you told all your friends 'Oh, yeah and by the way, I can never fall in love or I risk either getting him or me killed.' Only her grandmother had truly believed that, saying to Natalia that that was the reason why her grandfather had died.

Natalia herself had never believed that until her parents had been killed in that odd car accident and she started studying the family tree. What she found astounded her. She was actually surprised, at the end of her research, that the Marin family name had been able to carry-on the way it did. By her calculations, the entire family tree should've died out with her great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Alejandro Miguel Marin de los Santos.

He'd been able to outrun the curse with the birth of a son who had been illegitimately conceived when he had an affair with a noble woman. He never loved the noble woman and that had been what had allowed him to have the child. Recently, though, the Marin kin had been able to have children before they died, with her Aunt Matilda's son, George, having her cousins Robert and Analiese.

She'd been the only one grandchild her grandmother had been able to have and her grandmother guarded her like she was the most precious thing in the world.

She quickly brushed the phone call with Jackson away and concentrated on her article. Seemed good to her so she got ready to save it and send it to Kevin. She had specifically requested a room that had wireless internet connection and found out soon enough that it worked. Good, she thought, as she clicked send from her laptop.

"There, all done," she said loudly with a groan and sigh of relief. She quickly disconnected her laptop from the charger and started packing all her things up in her carry-on suitcase for her laptop and electronic things. She felt so weighed down as she zipped it up so she placed it on top of the bed. When she was done, she looked all around the room. She had finished packing all her clothes just before her grandmother had called and zipped up the duffel bag as well.

She walked back into the bathroom to see if she hadn't forgotten any of her toiletries. "Nope," she muttered out loud. "Not a thing." The only thing left was to go downstairs and check out but she then remembered that Kevin had told her that Molly would call her to see when her plane came in so they'd go pick her up. She slowly smiled to herself and inwardly jumped for joy. She'd be touring with Molly Phillips for a month. A whole month. WOW

She started getting all her bags together and carrying them as she let herself out of her room and headed for the elevator. Once she reached the lobby, she checked out, turning in her key and paying her hotel room bill, along with room service with the magazine's credit card.

The concierge asked one of the bellhops to help her with her bags and to hail a cab for her.

"Thank you," she said, as a young man in a bellhop uniform took her duffel bag and headed outside, opening the door for her. Soon she was in a cab, heading for the International Airport of Dallas, thinking of all the things she needed to buy while she waited for her luggage to arrive.

That's when her cell phone rang. She scrounged for her phone in her suitcase and looked at her Caller ID, to see if it wasn't Jackson calling again. It wasn't. It was Molly Phillips. Her hands started to shake as she answered the phone.

"Hello?" she answered, her heart beating fast.