C H A P T E R 1 8
?Use things, not people.
Love people, not things.?
The next day at breakfast, I couldn't contain my giggles when I saw a groggy looking and I'm-going-to-fall-asleep-any-second-now-so-don't-piss-me-off Ethan.
He still hadn't noticed me sitting silently at the table when he walked in rubbing circles under his eyes. He looked tired and as if he hadn't slept at all. That was pretty obvious from the bags under his eyes and him yawning twice every minute.
His eyes fell on me a minute later and he jabbed an accusing finger in my direction.
"You little-"
"What?" I quickly cut him off before he could call me something unpleasant, widening my eyes innocently. "What did I do?"
"You very well know what you did," he growled, lowering his finger.
I stayed silent, struggling to not let hysterical giggles escape my lips.
He narrowed his eyes at me. "You owe me a phone," he stated.
"What?" I asked, genuinely curious now.
"You are the reason why my phone is probably still somewhere in the garden.
It's most probably damaged by now because I'm pretty sure it didn't survive when I threw it out of my window.
Of course, the gardener must have watered my phone along with the plants by now and oh, you have to get the window in my room fixed cause I didn't notice that it was closed when I attempted to throw my phone out of the window at 4:45 in the fucking morning.
And did you change my phone password?!" he demanded angrily.
I burst out in uncontrollably loud guffaws at this. "That...was...the last alarm on your phone," I said in between laughs.
He cursed under his breath. "I can't believe this," he muttered looking really pissed which made my smirk widen. "That was my second iPhone in less than ten days, all because of you. My first phone was damaged because you pushed me into the pool with it on me and now this?!"
I snorted in reply. "Like you even care. Money isn't a matter for you. You probably spend even more every day buying useless things."
"No, that attitude is more like you.
And you're going to pay for this," he gritted out.
"No actually my dad will. I don't have any money and all of it belongs to my dad so he'll get your window fixed and I don't know, he'll probably also buy you another phone," I shrugged.
"That's not what I meant. I'll get back at you for this," he warned with a finger pointed at me again and then without waiting for my reply, turned around to leave. I burst out laughing loudly, making sure he heard me which I know he did.
I knew he would get back at me. It might probably be worse than it was last time. But I didn't care. I was not going to be the first to back off. It was not even me who started it in the first place.
Breakfast was a quiet affair with Mr. and Mrs. Jenson. They were going to leave this evening for Paris, for which the maids and cooks were told to plan an elaborate goodbye dinner for them.
"We are going to be in Paris for about two weeks. So for the time being, you're responsible for the business here," I heard Mr. Jenson say to Ethan to which he assured him that he wouldn't disappoint him and congratulated him for their wedding anniversary.
After breakfast, both my parents went off for their work after promising me that they will make it early to dinner as they want to spend more time with me before they leave.
Mrs. Jenson had to wrap up the photoshoot of some model for her clothing line before she left with Mr. Jenson, and Mr. Jenson had to finalize some business deals in partnership with some well-known companies.
So both were going to be busy for the majority of the day.
"So what's the plan for today? What're we going to do?" I asked Olivia who looked up from some fashion magazine she was going through.
"I feel lazy today. How about a movie marathon with popcorn and pizza?" She asked.
"Sounds good to me," I shrugged.
Just then, Ethan emerged into the living room and plopped himself down beside me on the sofa. I groaned internally.
"Don't you have somewhere to be other than here?" I asked acidly.
"I'm free today," he shrugged.
"What? Aren't businessmen like you supposed to work their butts off 24/7?"
He raised his eyebrows. "What would you know about business when the only useful thing you've done in your life was probably put cold food into a microwave to heat it," He retorted.
I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest as I tried to calm myself down.
He's talking about Juliet.
Not you. You are very hardworking, smart and beautiful and you know that.
Thankfully, Olivia interrupted things by asking me what I would like to watch.
"Something light hearted," I shrugged. "You choose."
"Um...how about Monte Carlo?" She asked, holding the movie DVD up.
"I've never watched it. Is it good?"
"Yeah, it is."
"What's the plot?" I questioned.
"Uh...it's about three girls who go vacationing in Paris and one of them gets mistaken for a British heiress and she goes along with it after incessant persuasion by her friends," My face fell at hearing that.
Olivia was smirking. She was doing this on purpose, testing the waters to see how far she can go while still ensuring that our secret would be safe.
"Does she tell them the truth?" I asked, looking over at Ethan to see if he was suspicious of us.
"No," Olivia said, wetting her lips.
"What's the end?" I asked, aware of Ethan looking at me from the corner of my eyes. "Good or bad?" I swallowed loudly.
"Well, it's a happy ending..." Olivia trailed off.
"Too good to be real. It's fictional. It will never happen in real life," I waved my hand dismissively. "Let's not watch that movie," I suggested.
"Okay. How about the Lizzie McGuire Movie?" Olivia suggested, still smirking.
Similar storyline. God. Does she want us to get caught?
"No," I gritted out, giving her a warning look.
She chuckled. "Okay then. You choose."
"Thanks," I said, still glaring at her as she passed me the DVD box.
"Please, for the love of God, no chick flicks," Ethan said with a pained expression.
"Why? It's not like you're going to watch it," I said, going over the movie collection.
"Mean Girls? It never gets old," I asked Olivia.
"We aren't high schoolers anymore, Juliet," Olivia reminded.
"I still love that movie." I said quietly.
Half an hour later, Olivia and I were immersed in watching Mean Girls with a big bowl of popcorn each, with Ethan being the uninvited, unwanted guest to our movie marathon. It annoyed me how he dared to eat the popcorn in my bowl after every five minutes while constantly being on his phone.
Another fifteen minutes or so later I saw Tristan casually stroll into the living room out of practically nowhere. We were all sprawled onto the sofa with the big flat screen currently playing Mean Girls.
"Ethan, man I didn't know you liked such movies," Tristan said, gesturing to the TV.
"I don't," he said, slipping his phone into his jeans' pockets.
"I was waiting for you get your ass here," he said, leaning closer to take a handful of my popcorn.
I shook my head and held the bowl away from his reach.
He rolled his eyes at me and muttered something under his breath which I didn't quite catch.
"We have a double date with Heather and Carissa. It was planned last minute," Ethan said, getting to his feet. A date? Who would date this monster?
"What? Why though?" Tristan asked after throwing a flirtatious wink at Olivia which she chose to ignore.
"I did tell you the reason," Ethan said sternly, grabbing his car keys and shades.
"Oh, okay. I've got no problem." Tristan shrugged. "Are we leaving right now?" He asked to which Ethan nodded.
"Okay, bye Juliet, bye Olivia!" He chirped, waving his hand over enthusiastically at us, which I returned with an awkward wave of my own.
They left immediately after and I finally relaxed, glad to be alone without any presumptuous billionaires around.
"Ethan called, he said he wouldn't be able to make it to the dinner tonight," Charlotte announced at the dinner table, just as I took my seat.
"Poor boy, he works himself so hard. He should take a break every now and then," Mr. Jenson commented.
Oh please, I thought.
If only you'd know the reason of his absence, then you'd like to retract your statement of him working hard.
He must probably be snogging Heather or Carissa or whoever the hell he had a date with.
I watched the servants lay down our plates in front of us and prepare to serve us.
I narrowed my eyes at a fish curry. Or maybe he was going around thrusting his little baby making stick in unwanted places.
I made a disgusted expression, my mind filling with unholy images, which were definitely not needed at the dinner table.
That was the problem with rich people. They acted like they owned the world, as if they coukd get anything they want with the money they have.
They act so supercilious and ostentatious that it made me sick to my stomach.
They had no compassion for the less fortunate whatsoever.
I doubted they even knew what truly was the meaning of love, care and-
"Juliet," I was brought out of my daze when Mrs. Jenson's voice broke into my train of thought.
"Uh...s-sorry, what?" I blinked up at her.
"I said stop glaring at the food as if it's poisoned because it's not," She said, a fork in her hand. Mr. Jenson and Olivia turned to stare at me.
"Um...sorry. I was just thinking," I said, shaking my head to get rid of those thoughts.
We had an early dinner with a wide array of delicious sea food where we were free to choose what we wanted to eat as we please. After a heavy dinner, Mrs. Jenson and Mr. Jenson left to prepare for their flight.
At around nine, both were ready to leave.
They exchanged heartwarming goodbyes and declarations of love with me and I almost broke down in front of them.
After a promise to return back as soon as possible and millions of kisses on my cheeks and forehead later, they left in their car, which was to be brought back at the mansion by the driver.
I felt a bit intimidated about living in a huge mansion with Olivia.
Sure, there was Ethan too, but that just seemed to make it worse and not to mention his pervert of a best friend.
I just hoped that his business would keep him busy enough to prevent any interactions between us.
As long as that would happen, we would be fine.
As soon as my parents' car disappeared out the heavy iron gate of the mansion, my face broke out in a nervous grin.
"I'm going to raid the fridge!" Olivia announced excitedly. "That thing is loaded!" She said, sprinting out of my sight in a second.
In five minutes, we were literally going wild.
Olivia had on a party dress which she liked very much from my closet with heavy makeup caked on her face while I was just in my pyjamas.
No one was around and the servants had mysteriously disappeared like they did every night.
We were having an mini party in my room, jumping on the bed like it was a trampoline.
Loud music of Olivia's taste was blasting through the speakers and Olivia was a little tipsy because of the four glasses of beer she had.
"We should probably tone this down a bit!" I suggested, yelling at her over the deafening music.
"Are you kidding?!" She shouted back, nearly losing her balance. "No way should we tone it down!" She giggled, dancing wildly to the tune of the music.
I shook my head at her. Such a party animal.
We, well more specifically Olivia was partying till the wee hours of the morning.
I didn't even realize when we'd fallen asleep on my bedroom.
I didn't realize when the music - that was if we could even call shouting and screeching music stopped.
I just remembered that I was a bit tipsy from drinking along with Olivia and had fallen asleep right after my second glass.
But I could never forget how we woke up.
It was a peaceful silence and I was half asleep, still quite aware of my surroundings.
The silence was slowly lulling me back to slumber.
Then out of nowhere the silence was gone and something really loud started blasting from somewhere near me.
I almost had a mini heart attack. It felt as if someone was hitting my ears with a hammer like they were playing the drums. My eyes flew open and I rolled to the side, not quite remembering the awkward half on bed and half hanging from the edge position I was in.
I crashed on the carpeted floor, landing right on my left arm which hurt like hell.
My head felt like it was about to burst.
I grabbed a pillow that was lying somewhere near my feet and used it to cover my ears which did little to help block out the unpleasant loud noises.
I groaned loudly over the noise and pulled myself to my feet, feeling my focus waver as my eyesight blurred for a few seconds before adjusting to the brightness in the room.
With squinted eyes, I scanned the room for the source of the commotion. My eyes landed on the ridiculously expensive Luvaglio laptop which was currently blasting a song I recognised as Shots by LMFAO at the loudest volume possible.
I stumbled my way to the laptop, cringing at the how incredibly loud the song was. It was going to be at the top of my least favorite songs for sure.
I tried to get the laptop to shut up, which took a while to do in my sleep ridden state. I sighed in relief as it became quite again. Looking back at Olivia, I was stunned to see that she was still sleeping peacefully, looking unperturbed by the disturbance. I wished I was a heavy sleeper.
I was feeling too lazy to get up so I just laid there and kept staring at the beautiful ceiling.
"What're you doing on the floor?" Olivia's muffled voice asked about five to ten minutes later.
"Nothing," I replied, deciding I would have to get up eventually.
Don't forget to vote, comment, follow and share if you liked it.