The Devils Of Harvard

Chapter Three

I stood on the veranda wrap around balcony staring at the mountains from my bedroom.

In the renovation, this lone estate became much larger and more for the family my parents had rather than for just them and their friends who were now maritally family.

I could think back to last year when Lea Paris showed up to school and we had all discussed how our families were connected to dark history.

Scarlett had almost died because of my family as a little girl and she never once blamed me or my family.

I also remember her struggle of thinking about whether or not to attend Harvard with me. I understood Yale though, it was closer to home, and at the time there were places in Connecticut that held a lot of memories.

They'd haunt her now.

I could picture her face one that often brimmed over the edges with confidence and poise. The regent beauty I'd known and loved after so much time trying to mend what had happened before we officially met.

She'd likely have some form of comfort seeing me now standing in the wind while pained tears of loss followed microscopic ridges across my skin. Pulled by gravity onto the wooden surface under my feet, unable to strip me of my emotions.

There were days I felt at a loss for all of it. I wished that she didn't feel the need to break up with me; however I would respect her boundaries. My brain tried guilting me a few times into calling her, reaching out to check in. But that wasn't an option I had to leave her be so both of us could grow as people.

Suddenly I heard a knock from the door of my room and I looked up only to turn and see my dad standing in the doorway.

"May I come in?" he asks standing on the opposing side of the threshold of the door.

"Your house I can't stop you" I say meekly with a disconcerned shrug while turning back to the night.

I then hear him sigh before stepping into the room and shutting the door before coming over to where I was.

"Nathanial, are you and Scarlett no longer together?" my dad asks and I immediately look up at how forward the question was to be met by the harsher looking variation of myself. His tri coloured eyes piercing mine, and in the moonlight making it impossible to tell the steely storm grey out of black as it was often easier to call his eyes that.

My father was the peak of the Winters Family wealth we all knew it. No one would ever be able to replicate what the media proclaimed 'Devil Of New York' was. No one had the same success or class, he was so complicated that my own father was an enigma and considering we were a secretive family it seemed fitting. However he truly did look like me in this moment though the cleanly shaped beard made me look much younger and still like a child.

"Yes" I reply simply knowing that no one lied to this man.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" he asks while tapping the railing with his long fingers, before a thoughtful look crossed his face and the tapping stopped.

"You were worried that something would happen between the Louviere family and our own, along with heartbroken, and not wishing for the news to disrupt your siblings or your mother and I".

The addition wasn't a question, more of a statement that didn't need confirmation, and both of us knew it.

"It happened so sudden, and this whole time I've just been playing it back in my head maybe I should have gone to Yale with her" I exhale and my dad smiles softly, a rare side to Adrian Winters.

"You know there is nothing wrong with growing up apart. Believe it or not your mother and I had many missteps before settling together. All kinds of things happened that tested us, and if this next year will test you and Scarlett embrace it. Learn art, and culture, pursue your schooling, get Nexus online, with profitable sales. Do things for you is all I'm saying. If Scarlett is the right girl then you will find your way back to one another".