C H A P T E R 3 8
Rachael's show was in a few days. Needless to say, she was a bundle of nerves.
I couldn't imagine a beautiful, confident woman like her who carried herself with grace and elegance be this nervous for her first show.
I knew that she was brilliant in her art and I knew everyone would love it but no matter how much I tried to convince her of it, she still considered herself a terrible designer.
We were all scheduled to fly to Paris the next day. The Jenson family invited Olivia too and if they wouldn't have, I would've definitely requested them to bring her along. No way was I going to go to Paris with them for an entire week without my best friend.
Everyone I knew here was going to be present for the show.
Olivia, Mr. and Mrs. Jenson, Antonio and I were going to take Mr. Jenson's private plane to Paris.
Rachael insisted she and Rebecca would come with us because she was too nervous for the show to fly alone.
Another reason for that she claimed was that I made her feel confident of herself, which I found really surprising and disbelieving.
It might be because I was the only one she had shown her designs to.
Her husband, Robert would not be able to make it a few days before the show due to work commitments but he was going to take a flight a day before the show and fly right back after it ends. Audrey had a few photoshoots and modelling contracts to sign so she was going to tag along with Robert.
Heather, Amelia and much to my dismay, Ashley too were to going to be in the private plane with us.
Ethan was going to fly there with his family.
We were going there a few days in advance for a little fun.
The girls had all decided to go shopping for a bit as none of them had shopped in Paris for over an year now.
I think there were also plans to go sightseeing, which I knew these girls have done plenty of times there and still wanted to do it now.
I was in the kitchen with Keith. He was cooking along with the other cooks and I was just talking to him, not really in the mood to cook myself.
At one point we had a little food fight.
He was the one who started it by grabbing my cheeks with his flour covered hands.
I shrieked and jumped off the kitchen island where I was previously sitting comfortably on.
In return, I dumped a little juice on his shirt.
He started chasing me around the island with flour n his hands.
I lunged forward to escape when I saw he was ready to attack and that was when I bumped hard into someone. Looking up, I saw it was Ethan.
I burst out laughing at his face when I saw it was covered with flour, even his precious hair. I looked back at Keith and he looked like he was about to wet himself in fear.
"I-I'm so sorry," Keith said and ran back into the kitchen.
Ethan stood silent with a furious look on his face. If he didn't look like a cute snowman right now, I would've been scared of his burning glare.
"Stop laughing," he gritted out, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me a little away from him. That was when I realized I was practically glued to his chest before he decided to put some distance between us.
"I can't. You look too funny."
He was dressed in a nice blue business suit so maybe he was going to go to work.
He didn't say anything and walked away. Suddenly remembering that I had to talk to him, I ran after him.
"Wait, Ethan." But he didn't stop. Just like last night, he ignored me.
"Wait, I have to tell you something," I grabbed his arm and turned him to face me.
"What is it? Make it quick. I don't have time," he said coldly, taking me aback by his response.
"I-I just wanted to thank you for those gifts. I loved the dress and the necklace, and I loved Plowy even more. It was one of the best gifts I've ever received. Thank you."
A small smile formed on his lips, mirroring mine. "Plowy?"
I shrugged. "That's what I named him."
Taking me by surprise, his hand reached for my cheek and cupped it. His thumb lightly brushed across my cheek. "Get this flour cleaned off of you." His other hand started to rub off the flour on my other cheek. I caught his hands and lowered it from my face.
"Okay. I can do that myself. Besides you're the one who needs more cleaning than I do at the moment."
"Right," he said, dusting his hair off right on my face.
"Hey!" I said as I felt little flecks of flour hit my face.
"Now you need cleaning as much as I do."
"Shut up. Are you going somewhere?"
"Other than going to go clean myself up, I have to be at a meeting in fifteen minutes."
"Oh."
He sighed. "I think I'm going to be late thanks to your Ratatouille boyfriend."
"Hey! His name is Keith, he's not a rat and not my boyfriend either!"
"Whatever. Just tell that stupid cook that if this happens ever again then he'll have to start looking for a new job."
"Keith is not stupid! He's a really talented chef. And you don't own this place so you can't have a say in who works here and who is fired. " I crossed my arms over my chest and regarded him appraisingly.
"Trust me, I can."
"But you will not fire him!" I said, pointing a threatening finger at his nose.
"I said if he does anything like this again, then I will fire him."
"No, even then you cannot fire him."
He suddenly stepped too close to me for my liking. "Why do you care?"
"Of course I care. He's a very good friend."
"Right," He said sarcastically.
"Oh my God. Are these for me?" I asked, dumbstruck.
Charlotte had just showed me into a room half filled with wrapped gifts in colourful wrapping papers.
"Yes. I know it's less than what you used to get on your birthdays and that's mainly because not many people know that you have returned."
"Oh, still this is quite a lot."
"Yeah, you want to open your presents now?"
I shrugged. "Sure. I don't have anything to do anyways."
The whole afternoon and a bit of the evening was spent in unwrapping my presents. I was so tired at the end of it. I didn't know unwrapping presents, though exciting would be so tiresome.
I got a lot of gifts. Mostly they were designer gowns or branded handbags.
I got a lot of stilettoes as well and about four bikes and six cars.
I couldn't believe it. Who gifts bikes or cars on someone's birthday?
These people must be filthy rich if they are spending so much on such expensive gifts.
I didn't even interact much with most of them!
It was very hard to conceal my surprise, or rather shock while uncovering all those gifts along with Olivia. In my life back home, I didn't even get one-hundredth of the gifts I had gotten here even if these aren't technically for me.
After we were done with that, it was almost dinner time.
Heather and Amelia were invited to dinner and to stay over for tonight so that we all would be able to fly off to Paris next morning.
Rachael along with Rebecca and Antonio had drove straight here from the party last night and they were to fly with us too.
We and the rest of the girls had a lot of fun after dinner.
We talked about a lot of things, did girly stuff like applied nail paint, had a movie marathon, had a little ramp walk in our pajamas in the walk-in closet and then broke out dancing like crazy in the middle of it, then had a wild pillow fight with each other where I made sure my aim was nowhere near Heather because sometimes she could be too scary.
Eventually the fun ended right after Charlotte told us to stop because we needed to get some rest.
Everyone left my room to their respective guest rooms, except Rachael and Rebecca who occupied Rachael's old bedroom in the mansion. Antonio had grumpily walked to a guest room because his old bedroom was now occupied by Ethan.
Before leaving, Amelia stopped and winked at me. "You're a lot of fun. Olivia is so lucky to have you as her best friend."
I beamed at her. "Thank you. And Juliet and Heather are very lucky to have you."
"Of course they are. I'm awesome!" She said, flipping her hair and doing a superhero pose and taking off out of my room.
I chuckled at her adorable silliness before closing the door and getting into bed for some shut-eye.
We had to leave at nine so that we could at least reach Paris till seven to make it in time for a late dinner in some swanky restaurant where we had reservations.
We reached the private jet a little past ten and settled inside on comfortable seats whereas it took a little time until we took off. Once high up in the air, I couldn't help but marvel at the world down there. Everything look so small yet the world looked so gigantic.
I would've never dreamed that I would be sitting in someone's luxurious and spacious private jet with all that I would ever need presented to me on a silver platter. It felt so surreal that I wanted to pinch myself every now and then just to make sure I wasn't in some kind of a dreamland.
A few flight attendants were present to tend to our needs and I ordered some juice as I was feeling extremely thirsty.
There were books and magazines on the table right in front of me and with Olivia sitting on its other side.
I picked up a book randomly and it happened to be Nights In Rodanthe.
I wasn't much of a reader but Olivia was and a hardcore one at that.
She told me that it was a good book so I settled myself into my seat and opened the first chapter, reading and occasionally glancing down at the world beneath me.
I could say that I felt like I was on cloud nine.
After about five hours of continuous reading, with my butt feeling flat and numb despite changing positions various times I finally put the book down, having gotten through a little over half of the book and stretched in my seat.
The girls who had previously been in this compartment had mysteriously disappeared and upon inspection I found some of them in a bedroom, a nice one at that.
The theme was gold and just looking at the décor made me sleepy.
So I walked further and found an empty bedroom and plopped myself down on the bed.
It felt silky soft and I lied down on it, closing my eyes.
I didn't know when I fell asleep but when I woke up the room was still empty and everything looked just like the way it was so I assumed that I had been sleeping for no more than fifteen minutes probably.
With a yawn, I walked out of the room to search for Olivia and found her with her head buried in a book.
"Hey."
"Hey," she replied, not looking up to see me.
"What time is it?"
"Six."
"What?!" I screeched at Olivia. "Don't tell me I slept for like five hours!"
"You did."
"Wow really? Time does fly away quickly. I thought I only slept for fifteen minutes."
I looked out the window and indeed, it was getting dark outside but I could see the world below lit up. It was a beautiful sight.
"When will we reach?"
"After half an hour I suppose."
I nodded. "Okay."
I didn't feel like reading so I ate something as I was really hungry and the food smelled and looked delicious.
Heather, Amelia and Rachael with Rebecca on her lap were watching a movie.
Alistair and Charlotte were nowhere to be seen and Antonio was probably video chatting with his girlfriend because it was the only convenient time for them to talk.
Audrey was a very busy supermodel and she was even going to walk Rachael's last piece on the night of her show.
I couldn't wait for it. I was excited. It was my first time seeing such a show in real life and I wanted to know how it felt like to be sitting in the audience dressed in your finest and looking your prettiest while watching a fashion show.
We landed after forty five minutes and were driven straight to our hotel.
Although Alistair Jenson owned another mansion here but we weren't going to stay there as it was far away from where the show would be held in a few days so it wouldn't have been convenient.
Rachael had various rehearsals she had to coordinate and manage these days so she wouldn't be free at all until after the show.
She was the main reason we'd be staying in a hotel but I wasn't complaining because it was resplendent.
Everything in the hotel screamed out at me that it was meant for the rich and only the rich who could afford such kind of luxury.
Our rooms were so big, it almost was the size of my room in the mansion. Everything was spotless and clean and I had the whole room to myself. I was sure that Alistair Jenson had booked about two floors of the hotel for a few days for all of the members of the family.
After freshening up, I started to get ready for dinner. Although it was going to be in a nice restaurant, it was still going to be with family and a few of Rachael's model friends so I didn't mind dressing up too magnificently.
Ethan with his parents had landed here a little before us.
I only saw him at the restaurant when I walked in.
He was escorting his mother to a seat at a big rectangular table.
I sat next to Olivia and the others settled around us.
The dinner was scrumptious and the chatter was lively and entertaining.
I was introduced to a few mutual model friends of Rachael and Audrey.
We talked for a while after which they just maintained conversation with Rachael.
At one point Eleanor, Ethan's mother seemed too interested in talking to me. She couldn't attend my birthday party for some reason but she did send a nice pair of stilettoes.
"Did you like your gift?" She asked.
"Yeah, I loved it. The shoes were really beautiful."
"I'm glad you liked it. You've always loved footwear so I knew exactly what to give you on your birthday. And I'm so sorry I couldn't attend your birthday, I was too busy."
"It's fine."
"So tell me, is Ethan still a pain in the butt? Do you still fight like kids?"
I chuckled. "Oh, well initially we were, I admit but recently we decided to try being polite and friendly towards each other and so far we have made great progress."
"Oh!" Eleanor looked surprised. "That's wonderful. I thought you two will never grow up."
"Didn't Ethan tell you?"
"Oh, no he isn't a big sharer, especially with me."
"Really?"
"Yeah, he never tells me anything that goes on in his personal life. He didn't even tell me when he got together with Heather. Lovely girl she is. I just hope he's really serious about her. I was starting to wonder if he was gay-"
"Mom!" Ethan intercepted her, giving me time to control my laughter.
Eleanor ignored him completely. "-because his head was always buried in his books. Not that I would've had any problem if he really was gay."
"Mom. Stop talking."
"Oh shush, Ethan. I haven't talked to Juliet in ages, let me catch up with her."
"Can you at least not gossip about my sexuality!" Ethan whispered sharply. "I have a girlfriend. That should be enough to clear up any doubts you have about my preference."
"I don't have any doubts about it. I'm just telling her what I previously used to think."
"Can't you find any other topic?" He whined.
"Fine." Eleanor said, irritated. "It's your fault you don't tell me anything."
"I tell you everything that's important," Ethan retorted.
"Really? Then tell me if you're going to marry Heather? When will you marry her? When will I be a grandmother?"
Ethan groaned. "Please, don't talk about this."
Eleanor scoffed. "You tell me everything important? This is important for me."
Ethan looked extremely uncomfortable and although I was enjoying seeing him like that, I felt bad for him. I wouldn't want to be in a situation like that with my parents, that is, if they were still alive.
"So uh...what were you busy with on my birthday?" I asked Eleanor to distract her from the topic of Ethan's future wedding with Heather, their kids and their rainbow of a future.
It worked as she instantly launched herself into telling me all the problems with her company. Apparently she was the CEO of a major food company which dealt with all sorts of foods - healthy, unhealthy, processed, packaged and naturally grown.
Ethan looked relieved to see that his mother's attention was now occupied by something else. He silently ate his food while making little conversation.
Did you like the chapter?
Who do you guys ship?
Heather and Ethan?
Ether? Lol I think I've been studying too much chemistry lately.
Or Julie and Ethan? Ethlie?
Please suggest some more ship names because I suck at it.
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