Bittersweet Expectations (Hate at First Flight #0.5)

2. 3860 Diamond Circle

A week's passed since that horrible day and life couldn't be more different.

And by different I meant both in a good way and a not so good way.

Bad: I moved to the big city, that is the 'Big Apple' and a new as many people as I owned Gucci bags. That is a big fat zilch. I had to sell the rat hole of an apartment I'd managed to pay off just last year and for next to nothing. And oh, did I mention that I didn't even know New York that well, so there went the endless number of hours since I'd arrived trying to navigate this maze of an overcrowded city.

Good: One of mom's old college friends had contacted me, Leah, and she had offered to let me bunk at her place for a couple of weeks until I could find a new job. And as of yesterday, she'd arranged a job interview with one of her 'club friends'.

And what was this interview for exactly?

As a maid.

Beggars can't be choosers, right? And currently, I was a beggar, bunking at one of mom's old college friends from back in the day.

After chugging down the steaming mug of decaffe I'd made, I tugged on my weathered black knapsack and rushed out of the door of Leah's mansion of a house.

According to her, she was a lawyer at Davidson and Florence Co, one of the top law firms in the country. She was single and liked it that way, unattached, nervous around kids and remembered mom as the kind soul that helped her cheat her way through law school.

She claimed that she had attended their funerals but was in a rush to catch her flight to Seoul that she couldn't meet up with me. But she said that she always kept an eye on me and found out that I was moving to New York, so she'd offered a helping hand.

I stared at Leah's messy scrawl on the paper she'd handed me before running out of the house this morning.

Katherine Clarke
3860 Diamond Circle.

° ° °

My parents passed away when my freshman year college.

It was a boating accident.

They'd been out celebrating their twentieth anniversary at a Lake three hours out when a storm came in and... that's where history took place.

I lost my parents on the same night.

And ever since then I stayed away from anything boat related.

Cruises, fishing trips, or just a simple kayak.

Prior to their deaths, we'd lived the life of a well-off middle class family, without the whole 'filthy rich' act.

Mom and dad had well-paying jobs.

Mom worked as a solicitor at one of the few law firms in town, whilst dad worked as an engineer.

The drive to 3860 Diamond Circle took about twenty minutes out of the city center and Leah's house.

When I read the number... that is 3860, I'd thought there would have been many houses in Diamond Circle.

But when the cab turned into the street, only one huge black gate met us at the end of the road.

One big, big, black gate with its own security guard outside and all that.

Maybe I had the wrong address.

But it takes me one glance at the marble wall surrounding the vicinity that I literally drop my jaw.

There in stainless gold lettering read : 3860 Diamond Circle.