His Duchess [Completed]

Chapter 6- Curiousity [E]

It's been a week since the day Anthony and his family unexpectedly visited asking for Cici's hand in marriage. And it's been a week of torture and negative energy around the house and at work. Cici decided she had a migraine and called in sick, avoiding their father. Patrick has been blowing up at work, everyone dodging his harsh outbursts at all costs. Annie and Sonny have been picking up the slack for Cici at work and their father's wrath. Annie didn't know how much more she could take, she was at the end of her patience with both of them.

It hasn't been any better at home. It's been tense and unpredictable. Cici wasn't showing up for dinner, locked up in her room, sometimes talking or texting Anthony refusing to speak to anyone else. She stopped crying but was depressed, the lack of sleep evident from the circles under her eyes.

Charlotte tried to reason with Patrick every night trying to calm his inner turmoil. He was absorbed in his dark thoughts. He felt betrayed by his daughter and his friend Jonathan. Jonathan wanted to take his eldest daughter from him and Cici is blaming him for not agreeing right away. He was physically and emotionally drained.

Annie wished she could just fly away and disappear from it all. She knew something had to happen and fast. The current situation could not continue, something had to be done. It was hard trying to keep the peace, what's even harder is when nobody is making the effort to communicate and work toward a compromise or solution.

It was the weekend and Annie was in her room lounging in a chair watching outside her window with a street view of their neighborhood. She watched the big mansion across from them, hoping and waiting to catch a glimpse of the man that had constantly bombarded her thoughts. They finally concluded the moving process since the moving company's trucks cleared out the day before. She hadn't seen any of the inhabitants come in or out in the last few days. It was hard not to think about him or the brief conversation they had that day.

Recalling his penetrating gaze as he studied her, absorbing everything he can about her. A rush of goose bumps erupted on her skin as she recalled the feel of his eyes upon her. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms calming her emotions, she couldn't believe that this was her, falling for a man.

She always prided herself on her independence and never thought that she would succumb to the need of someone to share her life with. She always thought it was for girls with fairytale fantasies, dreamers, wishers. There came a time when she started to feel like she was missing a big piece of herself, just being single, friends, school, work and family just wasn't enough anymore. She wanted more in life. She needed to start a new chapter with someone...her destined.

It was slowly getting dark outside. The street lights lit up illuminating the sidewalks. Sighing, she shook her head at herself for looking so pathetic. As she was beginning to turn away her vision caught on to head lights coming from a car. Annie wanted to ignore it but something told her to look again. She followed the vehicle's movements as a black sedan slowly came into view and maneuvered it's way toward the St. James' mansion. Annie's heart sped up and her breath caught in her throat.

It was him. He was in there, she knew it.

The car pulled into the long private driveway. She got as close as she can to her window, her nose was practically touching the glass, waiting in anticipation. But as It slowly inched closer to their house, trees started blocking her view until finally the car vanished out of sight. Disappointed she turned from her window releasing a frustrated sound and banged the window with her fist in anger. Damn, Oh well.

To say she was mildly curious was an understatement. She was very curious about Julien and his family; What kind of people they are, why did they move, what do they do?

As she was about to lay on her bed she got an idea. She turned and walked to her computer on the opposite side of her large bedroom. Sitting down In her chair she turned it on. She decided to investigate and search the family, gathering as much information as she could. It was the only way without asking around arising suspicion of her intentions.

She wished she had thought of it days ago but her work load was strained due to Cici's absence. She started typing in Julien's first and last name hitting search. The links started to load and as she clicked the first link on the top of the page when she heard a knock on her door.

She looked toward her bedroom door which was slowly opening and then back to the screen. There was a picture of Julien, wearing a suit while sitting in a chair, paragraph after paragraph was displayed underneath his picture. Above at the header was written: 'BILLIONAIRE BUSINESS MAN, JULIEN ST. JAMES'.

"Shit," she said to herself, quickly clicking 'esc' on her keyboard, making the screen go blank. She stood up and walked away from her computer in the opposite direction toward her bed. Her nerves were in over drive as her heart sped up for nearly getting caught. The door fully opened revealing her mother.

She slowly closed the door and made her way towards Annie. She had stress lines etched upon her features.

"Hi mom."

"Hi sweetheart, how are you?" Charlotte asked walking toward Annie's lounge chair, Annie followed her sitting down.

"Fine, kind of. I was just relaxing after a long stressful week at work. Our family is torn apart from this situation with Cici and dad. Quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of it." Her voice coming out a little breathless.

Thankfully her mother hadn't noticed.

"I know that's why I'm here, I want to ask you a favor." Her hands were clasped in front of her on her lap. She looked up, Annie nodding for her to continue, "I need you to talk to your father. Maybe you can try to pull him out of this phase he's going through. I've tried talking to him and it seems to be making him angrier and more detached. He doesn't seem to want to listen to reason. It's partially your sister's fault by not informing us of the direction her relationship was going with Anthony. It would have at least paved the way a bit and sunk in easier.....I'm even upset about it. I'm just a little more realistic when it comes to the ways of the heart."

"I've been meaning to talk to him but I've been waiting until he's cooled off a little, it's been days and nothing's changed. But I'm honestly afraid to say something and he'll blow up in my face." Annie admitted.

"He won't, I promise. You always have a way with words. I know you can get him to open up, maybe if he saw your point of view of things he would understand that this is the way of life. Our children are not going to stay safe under our wings forever. They need to be free to live their own lives just as we did and our parents before that." Reasoned Charlotte.

Annie nodding in understand, "I understand completely and I'll do the best I can."

"That's all I am asking for, Thank You my dear. Meanwhile, I'll be trying to knock some sense into that crazy sister of yours. She can be so unpredictable," shaking her head. "She is so stubborn. I've been trying to get her to talk to your father, a heart to heart conversation but she refused and is sticking to living in her room like a hermit crab."

"Cici doesn't want to hear the truth because she doesn't want her illusions destroyed. Plus, I think she's just plain scared of dad too." Annie said sensibly. She didn't agree with Cici's tactics at times, they were ill thought and unorganized but Annie couldn't always hammer down on her every time she does something wrong. 

Charlotte laughed for the first time in days. Hugging her daughter she started to get up to leave, turning around she said, "Oh, and Annie your father is sulking down in his study."

Annie raised an eyebrow and nodded at her mother giving her a small smile as she left. She looked at her computer, her shoulders sagging in defeat. She will have to continue her search after she spoke to her father. She started walking in the direction of her walk-in closet and knew exactly how she was going to get to her father and feed her gnawing curiosity about the people that lived across the street...
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A lot more of the St. James's will be coming up in the next chapter!  Interactions between Annie and Julien in every chapter from here on out ...keep reading, it's going to get very, very tense and exciting.
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Thanks Shaz