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Henrietta is holding a vase in her hand, a delicate Chinese artifact that I know my father takes pride in and she looks wild-eyed enough for me to realize that it is the next thing to go.
Swiveling my eyes towards where the massive mahogany wooden desk lays, I see my father standing behind it, his face pale with anger.
“What’s going on?” I gape at the two of them.
“Get out, Zayn!” my father orders, strain in his voice, his eyes fixed on the slim brown-haired woman who looks dangerously angry.
“Henrietta?” I ignore Elijah, ready to defend the woman who was always nothing but kind to me.
She lowers the vase and glared daggers at her employer before saying, sharply. “No, let the boy hear this.” She turns towards me, gesturing wildly. “Your father,” her upper lip curls at the term. “refuses to let me take a two-month cruise, a vacation, on my own money! One which I had been planning for a year.”
She rounds on Elijah now, snarling. “I have worked my ass off and not taken a single vacation for the past thirty years. If you’re not going to give me a six-month leave, then you can take my notice and stuff it down your throat!”
I blink.
That’s what this is about?
The way my father is glaring at her, I feel like I am missing something deeper.
“It’s just a vacation, Elijah,” I start, uneasily.
“Stay out of this!” he thunders at me.
Never having seen him lose his composure in all the years I had known him, I freeze, my eyes darting between the two.
“I need you here!” he bites out at Henrietta, who just scowls at him.
“You always need me here! There are a hundred other maids in this house! There is a stand-in for me just waiting to take over! Don’t feed me your crap!” Henrietta’s brown eyes flash dangerously.
I could see Elijah struggling for control and failing.
“They’re not you!” he shouts.
This is starting to sound more and more personal. There is a deeper undertone to this, another conversation that I am not privy to.
“I can’t take six months off!” he grits his teeth, and I frown at that.
“Why do you have to take six months off?”
My father looks utterly pissed, and Henrietta looks satisfied. “See. Even he gets it. This is my vacation. Away from you and this house!”
Did I just imagine the sudden hurt in his eyes?
It is almost as if he feels rejected.
“You don’t want me to go with you?”
Henrietta’s face softens as if all the fight suddenly drains from her and she sets down the vase, before glancing at me. “Zayn, your father and I need to talk. Can you please wait downstairs?”
I nod mutely, horrified at the implication of what is going on.
Henrietta and my father?
As I walk down the stairs, numb with the realization of what I just found out, I try to shake the image out of my head.
I could never have imagined it!
Elijah is so cool and composed, and she is so, so, different.
