Chapter 40

ARIEL
I sighed as I knocked on Roseline’s door. We had arranged to meet here after the party but I haven’t had the chance to do that with Xavier’s family all over me for the past two days.

The rest of the dinner went smoothly after my talk with Xavier. I had to go back to my room to touch up my makeup and cover up the bruise his slap caused but it wasn’t a problem considering the fact that I would have ended up with far worse problems if he had told on us. In my opinion, that slap was the best possible outcome. Even though it was completely unexpected.

The door soon opened and I was greeted by a brunette servant who looked both nervous and anxious. She seemed to have a bruise on her cheek like me and a small trickle of blood at the side of her mouth confirmed it. She was slapped by Roseline, and Roseline wasn’t pulling her punches when she delivered that slap.

“Where is Roseline?” I asked as I entered.

“S-Somewhere around,” she stuttered as she cautiously looked around. “She’s been in a really bad mood for the past two days and is taking her frustrations out on us. Please help us calm her down, princess.”

“You know that I can’t make any promises,” I sighed as I looked upstairs. “She isn’t in her room?”

“I’m not sure. Princess,” she replied. “But if I must take a guess, I think you should try the terrace on the roof. She goes there a lot whenever she’s pissed.”

“Ugh,” I groaned as I dropped my back and started running up the spiral staircase that led to the terrace. “I’ve told this girl that it’s too much work to run up these stairs all the time.”

Xavier’s words struck me as I complained. His painful and degrading words emphasizing my weakness.

“A weak heir, huh?” I thought. “Why do I have to think about that shitty guy now of all times?!”

I gritted my teeth and decided to run up the stairs instead of just climbing as a statement to the bastard for calling me weak without knowing the first thing about me. “I’ll show him the stuff I'm made of!”

As expected, I was out of breath by the time I was at the terrace. Standing at the edge was Roseline looking out at the horizon, a lot calmer than I thought.

“I....have...told you...to get a fucking elevator if you wanted a terrace this high!” I yelled as I heaved deep breaths in between. “This shit is ten stories high! Why build a terrace this high when the rest of the house is just three stories! Who needs a watchtower in this present day and age?”

There was no response from Roseline which was unusual. I remembered that her servant said she was upset but this is still unusual. Whenever she was mad or upset, she would run into my arms the second she heard my voice. This was unusual unless she was mad at me.

“Roseline?” I called, fearing the worst.

“What did you say to him?” she asked, still not looking at me.

“What?”

“I asked you, what did you say to him?”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” I shrugged in confusion. “I mean-“

“Xavier wouldn’t talk to me,” she said. “He wouldn’t even let me see him ever since that day. What did you say to him?!”

“Nothing!” I replied, finally catching on. “I didn’t say anything to him! At least not enough for him to avoid you.”

“Then why isn’t he talking to me?!”

“You lied to and deceived him!” I retorted. “What the fuck did you expect?!”

“But you talked to him,” she replied, her voice lower this time. “He didn’t expose us. Why isn’t he talking to me?”

“Give him time, Roseline,” I sighed, relaxing a little bit. “He’ll come around. I think he’s in a bad mood at the moment. He actually agreed to not expose us because of you. He didn’t want any harm to come to you.”

“Then why doesn’t he want to see me?!” she yelled, losing cintrol again.

“Get a hold of yourself!” I yelled in response. “What do you think he would do after getting lied to? Of course, he’ll be mad. Even if he loves you more than anything in this world, any human will be mad.”

“Then what do I do?” she sighed, letting the waterworks out finally, and ruining her makeup.”

“Just give it time,” I replied as I let her into my embrace. “I’m sure he’ll come around soon. What we should be doing right now is thinking of a better way to go about this plan now that we’ve dragged Xavier into this.”

She looked up at me. “He agreed to help us?”

“Not exactly agreed to help us,” I said. “More like he decided to keep quiet about this for now until he decides what to do with us. I believe he is in the middle of making that decision. Talking to you would only be a distraction. One he doesn’t need at the moment.”

“If he agreed then what’s taking him so long?” she complained. “Isn’t it a no brainer that he is a part of the plan now?”

“Oh, come on,” I rolled my eyes. “You know he isn’t a part of anything yet. He’s doing us a favor and for now, we can only be grateful.”

“So what do we do now?” she asked as she moved away from the hug.

“Me?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“When do you turn to me for advice? You are the mastermind behind all of this. You come up with ideas, not me.”

“Well, I’m obviously not in the right frame of mind for ideas at the moment,” she sighed as she walked back to the edge of the terrace. I followed her as I was confused about what to do also. I wasn’t the best at coming up with ideas and the plan wasn't mine in the first place.

“I’ll try coming up with something.” I finally said. “I can’t promise that it’ll be great but maybe we can get somewhere from there.”

“Hopefully,” she sighed.