The Beginning (The Life 1)

“What will you do with me?”

“That my dear is the sixty-four million dollar question.” A sudden thought hit me as I pulled her along the back lawn behind me. “Did you eat?” The staff had left a while ago and I knew though they had lunch they never had dinner at the house. She ruffled through her bag and came up with a half eaten apple.

That shit pissed me off though I had no idea why. The amount of food my family and I waste on any given day is obscene. Seeing someone like her surviving on so little made me feel…something, and I’m not one for feelings.

As we reached the house I came up short. I had no idea what to do with her. We had a ton of spare rooms in the house, but mom would freak if I let one of the servants stay in one of them. Not to mention the staff came early in the mornings, and she was bound to be found out. But there was no way I was going to leave her out in the cold.

DRACO

I wasn’t into that sneaking around shit. At twenty-two I was a grown man who’d never had to do that shit even as a kid. But this was a delicate situation. Just because I felt something didn’t mean I was about to jump in with both feet. There was too much at stake for that shit to happen.

In the end there was only one thing to do. “Come on.” I took her through the kitchen and up the back stairs to my wing. Nobody dared come anywhere near here before noon. That was more than enough time for her to sneak back downstairs. “I won’t sleep with you.” She got stubborn right outside my door and dug her heels in.

“Didn’t ask you to.” I kept going with her hand in mine. “The bath’s through there, go take a shower, I’ll go find you something to eat.” She looked at the bathroom door and back at me. “You can lock the door Red, I don’t attack virgins.” She lost all the color in her face.

I was across the room in a flash. “What is it?” She recoiled like I’d slapped her and her body begun to tremble. It doesn’t take a genius to put that shit together.

“Somebody attacked you?” She pulled out of my arms and headed for the bathroom door. “I’ll take that bath now and th-thank you.” She went in and closed the door, leaving me standing there with more questions than answers.

I couldn’t go after her, so I turned and headed for the kitchen and food. Just as I thought, there was a shitload of leftovers that were either gonna go to waste or for the staff’s lunch tomorrow. I heated up a large bowl of stew and toasted some homemade bread with butter before grabbing a slice of cake and some juice to add to the tray.

Halfway back to my room it struck me that I hadn’t done shit like this since I was a kid. I shook my head as I carried on. If only the boys could see me now. The heir supreme playing nursemaid!

I placed the tray on the little side table under the window as I listened to the water running in the other room. She’d been in there for a minute, and that got me to thinking. If she’d been sleeping in the stables all this time where was she catching a bath?

I knew there was a sink in the stables and a pipe where the men watered the animals, but the thought of her using either, which I was sure must be the case, left me cold. What if someone else had found her?

I rested my head back against the chair as I contemplated my strange behavior the last few weeks since I’d met her for the first time. For one, it wasn’t like me, to give a fuck one-way or the other. Most of the time I was in my own little world.

I’d pretty much stopped caring about shit the day my grandfather was gunned down in the street right next to me. You get the brain matter and blood of one of your favorite people in the world splattered all over your designer shoes up close and personal, you get your shit together or you go soft.

Me I went fucking mental for like three years before pop reeled my ass back in. By then, at the ripe old age of seventeen I was a changed man, we both were come to think of it.

While gramps was alive pop had had more time to spend with me, and my little brother. He thought he had at least another thirty years before he had to take the reins, but it wasn’t to be. If I hadn’t known or guessed what we were into before that day I got a crash course.