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She pulled away the folds of the warm blanket, searching for the remote. Last night she’d binge-watched thrillers on the large TV in her room. Mr. Right had been by her side, like he always was, except this time they were in a huge room with bedding capable of swallowing someone, and a mansion with halls so grand she needed a map to navigate them.
The TV, wide as it was, stretched out from the ceiling like a recliner. It was amazing.
She found the remote and skipped through the major TV channels, all the while shaking her head over the call she’d just received. “So she knows I’m her colleague now, huh?”
Olivia was about to turn the TV off again when she saw her face on a news report. Her heart skipped a beat as the gigantic image of herself flashed brightly in front of her.
BOSTON WOMAN INHERITS BILLION-DOLLAR RUSU FORTUNE
She stared at the screen, her heart thumping fast, her hands trembling. Millions of people would be watching this right now. Her face would be all over the country. The room spun around her. She stumbled out of the bed and tore one of the doors in the room wide open.
“Damn, a closet!” she groaned and took a few steps back and repeated her motions with the door next to that one, which thankfully turned out to be the bathroom. She rushed in and leaned over the sink. Her knuckles were white as she held on to the bowl, staring at her reflection, the high-end white marble bathroom with golden finishes felt somehow threatening.
The caption was still in her head, the words flashing before her. She turned on the faucet, her eyes blurring again as the water rushed into the sink. Placing her hand under the water, she let the cold splash against her skin like an intense wake-up call. This was no dream. She splashed some of the water on her face and blinked away a few drops, exhaling slowly.
It’ll be over soon. It’s just routine news coverage. Pretty sure the world has more important things to talk about than Olivia Carter, rich or not.
Suddenly her phone vibrated again. Olivia rushed back into her bedroom and caught it just in time.
“Hello?”
“Olivia, hey, it’s Janice.”
Ah, yes, her flaky friend, always-sick Janice.
“Oh, Janice. I thought you’d forgotten me because you never returned my last text. Or the one before that.”
An awkward chuckle came from the other end. “No, I was sick, remember?”
“Okay,” Olivia answered.
“So, Olivia, I heard about, um, you know . . . Wow, the Rusu fortune! That’s crazy. We have to celebrate.”
She sounded excited, but that fake, thin-layered excitement one portrayed when trying to get something from someone else. Mr. Right purred and twitched his whiskers, glancing up at Olivia as if telling her to hang up.
“Oh yeah, that,” she answered casually. “Pretty crazy times we live in.”
“True that. Anyways, me and the girls were wondering if you wanted to hang soon? Maybe at your mansion? I realized we haven’t really hung out in so long. Especially since I’ve been, you know, sick.”
“You’re right,” she answered and smiled when she heard a quick intake of breath. “But . . .”
“But?” Janice asked, exhaling on the other end.
“But you see, Janice, I’m quite busy these days. I’ll take a rain check on that and get back to you. Like you said you would, pretty much every time I called.”
Before Janice could mutter anything else, Olivia ended the call and sighed deeply.
“Hang out at my place? Yeah right.” She got up and walked to her closet, pressing her feet into the lush carpeting and enjoying the softness caressing her feet, a feeling she was sure she would never get tired of.
She opened the closet door and walked in. It was like a hall on its own. It was almost funny how the wide space was empty except for the few items she’d brought along. Her gaze wandered to the worn blue wool sweater Mindy had gotten her for Christmas last year. She had worn it so often, it came apart at the bottom. Maybe it was time to go shopping. After all, was that not what tons and tons of money was for?
She ran her hand over the rough blue wool and along one of the threads that had become loose.
“You know what?”
Mr. Right meowed in response.
“I should offer Mindy a job. She’s always dreamed of working in a place like this. I’m sure we now count as rich people, don’t you think?”
