Black Rose

Chapter 19

"Mom, there's a letter here addressed to me," Grace said as she shuffled through the mail, walking into the kitchen.

"Well go ahead and open it," I told her.

"It's from UCLA," she pointed out.

"I know where it's from sweetheart. Open it," I said eagerly.

She gave me a suspicious look as she opened it. I was super excited about what it had to say, and because she's evil, she knew I wanted to know, so she read it in silence. I had to rely on the look on her face as she read, and when she lit up, I knew it was good news.

"You signed me up? When?" she asked.

"The test Fabio and I gave you a while back was the entry test. We sent through the test and your results. They needed me to provide papers that I was qualified to be a home school teacher, and luckily those arrived just two days before we gave you the test. You did better than the average student, so Fabio and I were really hoping that you'd get in," I explained.

While she's only thirteen, her IQ level is pretty high, so we sent through some application forms for a programme for smart kids that UCLA runs. The programme lasts six weeks and we'd promised ourselves that we'd figure everything else out once she got in.

"I can't believe you did this for me. I'm so excited! I want to tell dad. Is his phone still off?" she asked.

"It is," I lied as I nodded.

"Aaaw man! I guess I'll tell him when he comes back, whenever that is. In the meantime, I'm going to tell Nina," she said before running off without giving me a chance to say anything.

I shook my head and got around to finishing up the cake I was baking. I was trying to keep myself distracted, but being alone never worked out well when that's what you're trying to do. Instead, my mind travelled to the very person I was avoiding thinking about.

Olivier Myron Black.

I felt a chill run over me, goose bumps decorating my flesh. My thoughts travelled back to seeing him three weeks ago with that woman. I still don't know who she is, simply because I didn't care enough to find out.

I just left.

I didn't know what else to do, and he didn't bother coming after me. He'd only bothered to call me three hours after I left, but by then it was too late- I didn't care at all about whatever scenario that was.

At first, I was mad at Castro for taking me there, until he pointed out that the intention was never to hurt me. Instead, he was truly hoping that he was wrong about his suspicion, and that's when I learnt that I was right to think that he and Olivier have some sort of deeper history.

Especially since the woman knew who he was, like he was close to her and Olivier.

I came home to find that Richard had left with my mother. Apparently, she was refusing to go home, so he put her in a guest lodge that I knew I had to settle the bill for. What pissed me off even more was that my brother was missing precious school time because he was babysitting a grown ass woman.

Grace, Ethan and Fabio came back to the house, so it's the four of us here. Kristaline had to go back to London for business, but not before she tried to interrogate me about the whereabouts of her brother.

It's safe to say that she could tell that I wasn't ok and she wanted to kill him for it.

I lied and told everyone that he's away on business. I knew that if they called Rowena, she would back up my lie in a heartbeat, but I also knew that Fabio wasn't buying any of it. I didn't expect him to anyway.