by Claire Angel
Chloe watched her leave with a sad smile on her face. Chloe might be a bit too unusual with the way she treated everything like a pinch of salt, but she was always right when it comes to how they could both handle their feelings as teenagers.
By next week, Chloe would be sixteen, but she had always felt like an adult since her father’s death six years ago. So many things had gone wrong with her relationship with her mother since then, but she was at least glad they still lived together. It would have been worse if she was left alone in the world without her mother or her sister, Kelly.
Thinking about her mother and her sister’s relationship compared to the relationship between her and her mother, Chloe opened the gates into the compound and made her way into the house. Kelly, unlike her, hadn’t felt betrayed when their mother had gotten married to their uncle a year after their father’s death. Chloe was unable to wrap her head around it. First, she couldn’t see why her mother couldn’t wait a while longer before moving on after their father’s death. Secondly, there were thousands of men in the country she could choose, and Lynda Coleman settled for her late husband’s brother instead. It was appalling to Chloe, especially since her uncle spat and stunk of coal all the time because he worked at the mines.
“Why did you do it?” Chloe had asked one afternoon during lunch.
Lynda Coleman had glanced from her bowl of custard to look at her and Chloe knew she understood what she was talking about. “You wouldn’t understand,” she had said.
“I wouldn’t understand?” Chloe reiterated. “Or I wouldn’t forgive you?”
“There is nothing to forgive, Chloe,” Lynda sighed. “Your father died, and he would want me to move on and be happy.”
“Yes, he would want you to be happy, but he wouldn’t want you to be happy with his brother!”
Chloe knew she had overstepped with her outburst that day but her mother had only stared into her bowl, hiding the sadness in her eyes. Gradually, since Chloe wasn’t comfortable with everything, she withdrew from Mother and everyone else too. Confronting her mother had ignited an intense discord between them and at the moment, Chloe would rather think about talking to Jacob Alder about her feelings than to remember the day she had yelled at her mother over her choice of a partner.
∞∞∞
The house Chloe had come to know as her home for the past three years was a small wooden bungalow behind the Alder Mansion. According to Mrs. Alder whom Chloe had taken an instant liking to since they had moved into the compound, the bungalow used to be a store for old reusable items in the mansion until her husband decided to convert it into a home for a housekeeper anytime he hired one.
Both Mrs. Alder and Mr. Alder were friendly people who catered to everyone that worked for them. Although, if Chloe were to be frank, the entire provision for workers were all for Mr. Alder. The sixty-one-year-old coal and gold merchant had over a hundred employees if you counted the workers in his home and those at his mines, and he was revered for treating each man with appropriate respect and responsibility.
Mr. Alder had personally hired Lynda Coleman as his housekeeper and had insisted that she live with her family in the bungalow, even though Lynda had been reluctant. Chloe remembered that it had taken her mother three days to finally decide she wouldn’t have a choice than to leave the little cottage she had lived with her late husband and move to a better one within the Alder compound with her children and new husband.
Since then, Chloe had to admit that coming to terms with her uncle as her stepfather had become a little bit bearable. He wasn’t always home since he worked at the mines during the weekdays and by the time he came home during weekends, Chloe did her best to spend more time in the mansion or play with Tia just so she could avoid him. She was grateful when Mr. Adler had also decided to cater to her education along with her sister’s, which gave her more time away from her uncle, even if he came home during weekdays.
She wasn’t thinking of either her uncle or her mother and sister an hour after she returned from school. She was back to her thoughts about Jacob Adler, especially since she had noticed him stepping out of the house for the second time that afternoon. He wore a shirt with loose buttons that exposed his slightly hairy chest. For an eighteen-year-old boy, Jacob had grown into a man. He was almost six-foot-tall and had curly hair in a sandy color that matched the color of his eyes. What especially drew Chloe to him was his broad shoulders, along with the way his pink lips twitched to become a thin line whenever he laughed.
Jacob always laughed with his eyes and Chloe couldn’t take her eyes off him as he paced the backyard of the house, speaking and laughing over the phone with one of his friends. She stood close to the window and stared at every inch of his body, wondering if she could ever get a chance to be held in his arms or have him draw her close and drop a peck on her colored cheeks.
The closest she had ever gotten to him – apart from the little time his family had spent with hers at the dinner table – was the two times he had stood up for her when his sister tried to bully her in school. The kids on the bus were angels compared to Marilyn, the Adler's youngest child. She tormented every junior student in school and had picked on Chloe the moment Mr. Adler had begun to sponsor her education. Marilyn never liked anyone, and she despised Chloe more because according to her, her father should never cater to any child unless they were his.
Because Marilyn was Mr. Adler’s daughter, Chloe always controlled herself from speaking back to her. She restrained herself more around Marilyn than she did with other kids, and this gave Marilyn more power against her. She wouldn’t stop pointing out in school that Chloe’s mother dusted their sheets in the house and that she married a man who looked just like her poor, late husband because it was what poor people did.
“That’s enough, Marilyn. You will speak of no such thing anymore.”
Merely thinking about the memory of the day Jacob had stepped in to defend her made Chloe develop more feelings for him. He appeared to her like her knight in shining armor when he had held Marilyn’s arm and had pulled her from the middle of the hall. A lot of students had gathered around to make fun of her, but they all kept quiet as soon as Jacob appeared to the scene. He was one of the final year students and popular, and no one dared to defy him.
“You shouldn’t speak to her that way,” she had heard Jacob argue with Marilyn.
“Or what?” Marilyn had spat in response.
“Or you will have to force me to report you to father once again about your behavior in school,” Jacob had threatened. “He wasn’t bluffing about sending you off to boarding school the last time.”
Marilyn's lips had clasped shut afterward. She stared heatedly into her brother’s eyes for a second and shook her head. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would.” Jacob insisted. “Now, walk over there and tell poor Chloe you are sorry.”
Chloe couldn’t believe her ears, nor could she believe her eyes when Marilyn turned to her with a grimace, and then slowly did as she was told.
“Sorry,” she muttered under her breath, with her eyes scanning the faces of the students that surrounded her. She stomped out of the hall afterward, and Jacob stepped towards Chloe with a smile on his face. He had a sweet smell on him at the time, and Chloe never forgot how his smile became broader on his face before he nodded and stepped out of the hall. A few months later, Jacob had graduated from school, and Marilyn had been sent off to boarding school nonetheless, since she wouldn’t stop bullying other kids.
“Hey, you aren’t staring at Jacob Adler all evening again, are you, sis?”
Chloe jolted out of her thoughts, trying to hide the fact that she was still staring at Jacob as he ended his call and began to step back into the mansion. Kelly stepped into the house a few seconds ago, and she hadn’t noticed.
“No, no, I wasn’t.” she stuttered, frowning at her sister, who was straightening her curly black hair with her fingers and sauntering towards her at the same time.
Kell
y frowned and stepped towards the window. “Well, it sure seems as if you were,” she insisted, seeing Jacob in time before he disappeared into the house. “He is a handsome one, isn’t he?”
It was apparent Kelly was teasing her. It wasn’t the first time she would anyway, and Chloe always had to sigh and give in. “Yes,” she whispered. “Sometimes, I wonder if he notices that I stare at him a lot.”
“Well, if he does, he is definitely very good at hiding it,” Kelly muttered.
Chloe bit her lips nervously and stared at her sister. “You weren’t home when I returned,” she said, trying to change the topic.
“Yeah. I was helping with the tables and dishes in the mansion with Mr. Adler back and insisting we have supper with his family as usual. He has been asking about you.”
Chloe’s eyes went wide with excitement. “He is back? I didn’t notice his car in the compound!”
“Maybe the driver left to get him something important,” Kelly said, already inching away from her. “And I have got to bath and change into a nicer dress for supper. I hate it when he insists, we dine with him!”
“Wouldn’t you do the same?” she asked, stopping in the middle of the room.
Chloe stared at her jacket and leggings and shook her head. “I look perfect.” The look in Kelly’s eyes disagreed with her even though her older sister only shook her head and stepped into the bathroom, leaving her to her thoughts once again.
Chloe stared out the window at the Adler Mansion, always excited to be invited into the Adler Mansion whenever Mr. Adler was home. She was also looking forward to sitting across Jacob and spending the rest of the evening staring at his young, handsome face.
∞∞∞
The supper was shorter than Chloe had anticipated, but she couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity to speak to Jacob over the table. While Mr. Adler had seemed interested to know if she was studying well and if her mother was getting all the help she needed from the rest of the maids, Chloe had kept her eyes glued on Jacob. He had concentrated on his food as well and only spoke about his admission to Yale when Mr. Adler had asked him to tell everyone about the good news his son shared with him immediately he returned.
“Could you pass the jar of water, Chloe?” He smiled at her afterward.
Chloe froze on her chair, controlling herself from staring at the other faces at the table to check if he was talking to someone else. When Jacob raised an eyebrow as if to question if she had heard him, she quickly lunged to her feet and passed him the jar. It was a second later that she realized that everyone was staring at her as if she was nuts. She could easily give him the jar without standing to her feet.
“Thank you,” Jacob said, making it less awkward for her.
She sat and nodded courteously at him while wondering if it was perhaps time to tell him about her feelings if he would be going to Yale anytime soon. Before she could think hard about it, supper was over, and she and Kelly were asked to clear the table along with their mother.
“You should have worn a dress, Chloe,” Lynda muttered under her breath on their way to the kitchen, but Chloe ignored her. She hardly paid any mind to her mother in the past few years, and she had no intention of starting anytime soon.
Instead of helping with the dishes in the kitchen, she slipped back to the bungalow and laid on her bed for an hour, staring at the ceiling and thinking endlessly about telling Jacob about her crush on him. She played the supper scene over and over in her head until she was forced to launch to her feet and hurry out of the house with the hope of reaching Jacob before he went to bed.
It was getting very dark outside, and she ought to be at the Secret Lounge with Tia, but she knew her friend would understand the reason for her absence if she told her the next day that she had summoned the courage to tell Jacob everything.
Chloe was close to the front porch of the mansion when she noticed that Jacob’s windows were widely opened as they always were every evening before he rested for the night. She paused in her step, reconsidering her decision and glanced up at the windows again.
“Think about this, Chloe,” she thought to herself, already inching back from the front porch. She noticed Jacob appearing close to one of the windows and paused again, hoping that seeing him could motivate her.
Something wasn’t right. She saw Jacob turning his back to the window and smiling at a figure who had stepped into the room. What she saw afterward happened briskly, but it changed everything. It changed her understanding of love and her feelings towards one of the few people she trusted in the world.
That evening, she had seen Jacob wrapping his arms around Kelly and kissing her passionately…and she ran as fast as her legs could carry her.
Chapter 2
Seven Years Later…
“…then I said, you must be pretty dumb to think you could ever have a grand idea in that trashy head of yours!”
Chloe tried to keep her expression pleasant as the man across her laughed at his own joke – or whatever that was. He had dominated the conversation since she had stepped into the restaurant for their date an hour ago. It was one of the coldest seasons in Arvada, and although she was wearing her furry, warm coat, she felt uncomfortable around him.
First, he spoke very fast and paid little attention to how she felt about his unending discussions about his business and family wealth. Then, his eyes wouldn’t leave her cleavage, regardless of the several times she had stared into his eyes, just to make him know she had noticed his lusty gaze.
“You know, I grew up in a large house – it was almost like a castle,” he said, still grinning to himself. “And I have seen many people who think if they did something extraordinary, it would change what they are or probably change how people perceive them. Funny, isn’t it?”
Chloe forced another smile and smoothed her palms over her rough jeans. The fact that she had chosen to wear her usual t-shirt and pants, with a coat and some boots probably bothered Andrew Sanders, her date, but she was glad he didn’t mention anything about it. He had tried to caress her thighs under the table twice but had only been able to run his palm over her jeans.
“So, are you going to tell me how your day went?” he said after he noticed the smile slowly dwindling from her face. This didn’t stop him from staring at her cleavage again.
“Well, I have had better days,” Chloe whispered sarcastically.
“Not me,” he winked, returning the conversation to himself. “I feel as if being on this date makes the cold evening all too refreshing. It has always been business and meeting dumb people for me. I haven’t been on a date in a while, you see.”
You haven’t; obviously, Chloe mused, cursing herself for deciding to go on a date with him.
When he leaned back in his chair and smiled at her, she forced another smile at him and rose from her chair. “If you will excuse me,” she whispered. “I have got to use the restroom.”
“Oh, definitely,” he whispered nervously, and she wondered if he was finally seeing through her conceited smile. She didn’t bother to smile at him again before she turned on her heels and began to make her way to the restroom.
She was aware that his eyes didn’t leave her twirling hips as she stepped away from him. In the past seven years since she grew from the obstinate, gangly teenage girl that she was then into a stunning woman with fuller breasts, thinner waist, and broader hips, she knew many men couldn’t bear to take their eyes off her. To think that she seldom wore fitted dresses that ought to reveal her curvy shape and yet, a lot of them admired her and had never kept the admiration to themselves.
She heaved a sigh of relief as soon as she stepped into the restroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror. It was evident that she was bored out of her wits, along with the sleepless nights she had had in the past few days since she was working on a trade website for a client. At that moment, she wished she was still at her desk with her laptop, instead of spending her evening with Andrew Sanders.
She had met him durin
g one of the digital marketing conferences she had attended in London two months ago. He was one of the speakers who had spoken about social media influence in Europe, and she had respected his thoughts and views. If she had known he was self-absorbed, she wouldn’t have exchanged contact information with him or even get acquainted enough to have a first date with him.
Reaching into her bag for her lipstick, Chloe sighed again. She fixed her lips while thinking of the best way to get rid of Andrew and return to the comfort of her room. There wouldn’t be a man to keep her warm, but at least she had her seventy-inch TV to entertain her as well as her laptop to work on if she didn’t have anything else to do for the rest of the day.
She was already preparing to return to her boring date when another woman stepped into the restroom and rested her back against the door as soon as it clasped shut behind her.
“Having a terrible time in there?” Chloe asked, glancing at her with a sad smile.
The redhead closed her eyes and nodded. “I think ‘terrible’ precisely describes what it is,” she grunted and stepped in front of the mirror. She paused to glance at Chloe and asked, “Seems like you are here to clear your head as well?”
“Guilty as charged,” Chloe sighed. “They never understand, do they?”
“Oh, you mean condescending men who would rather talk about themselves all day instead of learning more about you? Yeah, they never do.” Her tone was sarcastic and harsh, making Chloe feel like she wasn’t alone with her thoughts.
Chloe couldn’t hide the grin on her face. “Chloe,” she said, introducing herself to the redhead.
“Matt, and before you ask, I don’t know why any parent would name their daughter Matt either.”
Once again, Chloe grinned at the woman. At least, there was a little bit more entertainment for her in the restroom than there was in the restaurant. “You plan to go back there and force a smile on your face again?” Matt asked.