Eleanor's life is not exactly pleasant. She works for rich men, has to do all kinds of odd jobs, and if she does anything wrong she gets beaten, or worse. The men tell her that her parents left her, and they had debts to them and therefore Eleanor h...
----------- TW: self harm, please dont read this chapter , if this can trigger you or you just can't read stuff like this.
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I look at Valentino and then look at my plate. Stupid me stupid stupid me, why did I say that? Now Valentino is mad at me. Now I'm going to be punished. Fear overwhelms me. How is he going to punish me? No food? Slap my face? Lock me in the basement? Hit me with the belt? Clean the house with my toothbrush?
Suddenly I feel a hand on my knee. I startle and follow the hand to its owner. Riccardo. Riccardo is looking at his empty plate, in his left hand he holds his fork and his right hand is on my knee. He doesn't do anything, it's just on my knee. As if he wants to make it clear, that he is still there. That he is there for me, that he is on my side. That he listens...and protects me? And for some reason, this calms me down.
But then Riccardo gets up and his hand goes off my knee. With his plate, he walks to the counter where he rinses it out and then he puts it in the dishwasher.
"I'm going to work," Riccardo mumbles and without giving anyone a glance he walks away. He walks away and leaves me alone. I concentrate on my food and that I have to eat it as soon as possible.
As soon as my food is finished I get up and wash my plate before I put it in the dishwasher too. Quickly I walk out of the dining room, and once I'm outside I sigh with relief.
"I'm going to go to the bathroom for a minute," I hear Anastasia's voice. The dining room door opens and Anastasia comes out into the hallway. I look at her with wide eyes. Anastasia looks around the hallway until her gaze falls on me, then a smile appears on her face.
"Eleanor hey," she comes walking towards me, with that smile on her face.
"Hey?" I ask confused. Why is she talking to me?
"Come I want to talk to you for a minute," She smiles. She gently grabs my arm and pulls me into a room. She closes the door and stands against it. As soon as she looks at me the smile goes off her face and the dirty look is there again that she always looks at me with. She is still holding my arm.
"Listen Eleanor," she spits out as if it is forbidden to say my name. "I really do realize what you're up to," she hisses. I frown. Up to?
"You are planning to ruin my plan. Well you're not going to ruin my plan, I have all your brothers wrapped around my finger and they do exactly what I ask them to. They are all going to fall in love with me and argue with each other over who gets to be with me. They're all going to give me expensive gifts to tempt me and then someone is going to ask me to marry them. I hope, of course, Lorenzo and then he'll be able to send that irritating Emilio-" she rolls her eyes when she says Emilio. "And you to a boarding school in france so I can be rid of you," with big eyes and open mouth i look at the woman standing for me.
