Working. I wasn’t sure I’d call it that. Herline of workwas being an influencer and a reality television personality. Evidently, it required constant attention. Constant updates. Constant visibility.
After last year’s spectacularly drama-filled season of the show she’d starred in, one that had made her popular for all the wrong reasons, she’d doubled down on maintainingrelevance.I’d come to learn that meant documenting nearly every waking moment.
Our father, however, wasn’t having it. “We’re leaving.”
She groaned loudly. “Are you serious? I just started.”
The driver stood patiently in the doorway while Winnie argued, Father insisted, and I hovered uselessly in the middle, as always. Eventually, after much coaxing and at least one small but dramatic fit about being interrupted, Winnie ended the stream and allowed herself to be ushered out into the hall.
Once we were in the car, Father ignored us completely. Winnie slumped dramatically against the window, lamenting as if she thought that would change his mind. “I should be in Dubai with Mum and Eugenie.”
I kept my eyes on the passing streets, unable to see enough of this unexpectedly beautiful city. Meanwhile, I doubted Winnie was seeing a single thing.
“I can’t believe how much I’m missing for this,” she said mournfully. “I have meetings when I get back and I need to be in London soon for the next season.”
The next season of the same show that had nearly ruined her reputation the first time, yet she was absolutely serious about returning to it. As she continued her lamentations, I eventually let her voice fade into the background, wondering if I was ever going to get that break I’d been promised.
Just a moment of quiet. A few days where I wasn’t managing someone, smoothing something over, or fixing a plan that had gone wrong.
Finally, the car slowed, then turned. We’d arrived at Westwood manor and I found myself staring suddenly, surprised that such a stately home had been tucked into the city like it had simply decided to be there and the rest of world had been built around it.
Regal in its own way, it was elegant and polished. Old but without the historic air of our estate. There wasn’t much of a garden at all. At least, not compared to back home.
The driver brought us directly to the steps leading to the front door and I took note of the symmetry of it all as we parked. The stonework, the windows, and the columns. Winnie and Father swept past me without even noticing the house at all, disappearing into its depths long before I’d even reached the steps.
The front door swung shut just as I reached it, closing right in my face. I stopped abruptly, then sighed, but I was used to this feeling. Generally overlooked and not as pretty as Eugenie or as social as Winnie, I was just in the middle.
The quiet, busy one people only thought of when they needed something done. Letting this latest incident roll off me like water from a duck, I was reaching for the doorknob when footsteps behind me made me jump.
I turned with my hand still hovering in the air, finding myself face to face with someone I recognized immediately, even if it had been years since I’d last seen him. Jesse Westwood.
At least, I thought it was Jesse, but I never had been able to tell him apart from Will, his twin. Even so, my heart gave the slightest, traitorous little flutter and my palms suddenly got a bit sweaty.
In the years since he’d dated Eugenie, Jesse had somehow, impossibly, become even more handsome. Those sparkling, brilliant blue eyes were just as gorgeous as ever, but they also seemed different now, as if maturity since college had made him just a touch more serious.
That dark chocolate brown hair no longer hung in a sweeping lock across his forehead, instead styled back out of his face to accentuate his sharp jawline. He was clean shaven now too, no longer sporting that bit of five o’clock shadow.
All of which made him much more attractive, as far as I was concerned. He reached past me before my brain had managed to formulate a single thing to say to him, and he opened the door and held it wide.
“I saw what happened,” he said, sweeping a hand out ahead of him. “That was incredibly rude.”
His voice was warm, easy, and faintly amused, like this sort of thing happened all the time and he’d simply decided to intervene because it had happened to me this time. He offered me a lazy, rakish smirk that made my pulse trip.
“To be fair,” he added. “You’ll have to excuse my brother. Alex has got a lot on his mind.”
Alex? Which one is that, then, and why are we talking about him?
AlthoughIwasn’t really talking at all. For a moment, “probably-Jesse” and I just stood there, looking at each other, neither of us saying a word.
I remembered when he’d come to visit the estate all those years ago. He’d arrived in a blur of laughter, noise, and mischief, trailing after Eugenie like a co-conspirator. He’d always been handsome, of course. Eugenie wouldn’t have tolerated anything less. But there had been something sharp and restless about him then. Something sly and boisterous that had matched her energy in a way that had made the two of them together feel vaguely dangerous.
I was struck again by how different he seemed now, quieter and perhaps like those jagged edges had softened into something smoother.
He also didn’t seem to have a clue who I was. His expression was polite and open, yet entirely devoid of recognition, but that was alright. No one ever really remembered me.
“Thank you,” I said, finally finding my voice and stepping past him into the house.
I was stunned once again, this time by the beauty of the interior. It was much larger than I’d realized from the outside and grand, but in a way that felt lived-in rather than preserved.
