Chapter 9

Elise

For the first time in weeks I felt clean, the smell of hot soap dissolved water filling my nose and patching on my skin.

The heat rolled off my skin like clouds of steam and left me satisfied and fresh.

The covers of the large bed envelopes my warmth, cocooning me in the radiance, eventually lulling me to sleep.

When I woke up a few hours later I noticed a stack of rectangular looking items on the end of the bed.

At first I decided to ignore them but eventually curiosity became me and I heaved myself towards the pile of books seeing they were all old fashioned hard covered romance novels.

Pride and Prejudice, Outlander, Sense and Sensibility and three more I don’t recognise. I have to say, whoever left them has good tastes. I pick up a copy of Pride and Prejudice and lose myself in the story and memories of my mother watching the film with me every time I was feeling sad and depressed because of my father.

A clearing of a throat brings me back to where I am, naked in my captor’s bed, reading debatably the best romance novel of all time.

“I brought you clothes and since I’ve noticed that you haven’t been eating, a few crackers, just to settle your stomach.”

The young maid said, placing her haul next to the pile of books still occupied there.

“I haven’t seen mistress read these in years,” I sat up straighter at this new form of information. “But she barely has time to read nowadays either I suppose.”

“You’ve known Miss Davies for years?” I ask, rendering the novel in my hand useless now.

A genuine smile pulls at her lips as she sits at the end of the bed. “It’s Miss Davids and yes, she found me when I was sixteen. I was abused as a child and so I never had much love or much to live for growing up.”

She sighed softly and averted her eyes from my own, almost as if she were going back to the events as she was speaking of them.

“When I was kicked out of my house, Miss Davids found me.” She stopped there almost as if she were trying to build up the courage to continue.

“It was the night I was planning to kill myself with a badly rusted razor blade I remember I had found in a trash can when I was searching for leftovers.” Her face scrunches up a little at the memory. “Anyways, as I placed the razor against my skin I felt a warm hand wrap around my shoulder and pull my hand away from my wrist. She saved my life, almost like a guardian angel and gave me a job here.”

She looks back at me, probably seeing the confusion and curiosity written on my face, before standing back up from the bed.

“She is not as bad as she wants to be perceived, she’s just trying to establish her dominance.” She walks back to the door before continuing. “I don’t know what happened to her, but I do know that her heart isn’t as entirely ruined as she wants it to be, she still cares and ever since you’ve arrived, I have seen more emotions from her than I have since I arrived here.”

She closes the door behind her and leaves me in the same confused state as before.

If she isn’t as bad as I have been led to believe then what is she planning to do to me, because the only thing that I have gotten from her is pain.

+++CHANGE POV+++

Lauren

“Yes,” I say nonchalantly to Mr Turner, who sits fuming across from me. “I did buy Saxon’s company.”

“Why?” He seethes, through clenched teeth which causes spit to fly from his muzzle.

“Because Mr Turner, I think it would be a good investment, don’t you?”

Hitting my desk with his hands, he stands up and bends over, trying to intimidate me through his invasion of personal space.

“You are a bitch,” he mutters, allowing me to smell the mixture of cigarettes and rotten eggs in his breath.

“And you are no longer welcome in this building,” says Mason who has been standing in the corner of the room silently.

I gestures to Jackson, who comes running gesturing for Mr Turner to leave, who storms out of my room and surely out of the building.

“Mason?” His attention averts back to me once Mr Turner has left. “Even though I am taking a month off, I want you to send everything worth noting about Turner Enterprises.”

“Of course Miss Davids.” I nod a thank you, before hanging my coat over my forearm and leaving for the month.

The drive back to my mansion was long, but given this morning's events and my lack of excitement to get there, it couldn’t last long enough. Surely enough, I pulled up to the driveway, dreading the confrontation I will be having with Elise.

I want so badly just to apologies, for everything, simply just to get this gut wrenching, guilty feeling away. It makes me miss the years I had just lived without emotions, of any kind.

“Welcome back Miss Davids, can I get you anything?” Asks Liz, taking my coat from me and closing the front door behind me.

“No,” I replied flatly, only curious about Elise now. She must see this because without any prompting she tells me everything that has happened today.

“She has stayed in our room, reading since she found the pile of books you left, also she’s eaten a few crackers.”

“Thank you,” I say before continuing up the stairs.

“Also,” She says hesitantly. “I know I was probably stepping over some lines, but I told her of how you found me.”

I stop midstep, not completely sure how to respond to that.

“Forgive me Miss, but she was looking at you as the person that I know you aren’t and I couldn’t let it continue. So I thought that if I could just simply put some doubt in her perception of you then it would all be worth it.”

“Thank you Liz,” I whisper, still too shocked to respond as I continue up the stairs to my room.

All I can wonder now is how does she see me now? I never cared before because I always just instantly assumed she sees me as the monster, but knowing Liz’s story, could that have changed? I seriously doubt it, but what if it did?