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Mr. Right stretched out on the bed. Olivia got dressed in jeans and her favorite blue sweater and headed downstairs to ask the driver to drop her off downtown.

But what was supposed to be a fun day at the mall, like the shopping scene inPretty Woman, turned out to be one of the most annoying days of her life. Every minute was filled with buzzing phone calls and texts and constant disturbances. It was unbearable. She received phone calls from people she went to high school with and even all the way back from kindergarten. How did all these people get her number anyway?

Of course, her pig ex was the frontrunner of the text harassments, talking about how she was always his true love and asking if they could talk.

At some point, Olivia decided to turn the phone off. She was at a shoe store looking at cute leather boots, without having to check the price tag for the first time in her life, when Olivia decided enough was enough and put an end to the show. It was not like she would miss an important call, and this sudden interest in her—no, not her, her money—made her sad more than it annoyed her. Did these people have no dignity at all? Think her an idiot?

She was on her way to the register, boots in hand, when for the first time she wondered if Mr. Stanley was right about quitting her job. Would it be as bad at the office as it was with all these calls and texts? But then, she loved to go to work. Not the job per se, but the part where she was out of the house, killing time. Work gave her purpose. Olivia sighed. There were only six other people in her immediate department. How bad could it be?

***

Olivia went back to work the next week—a tricky task, given the now-constant “plastic” attention everyone was giving her. She couldn’t walk down a hall, or into an elevator, without everyone trying to act all nice and interested in her all of a sudden. It was crazy, and it weighed her down. She’d walk into the hospital quietly, as she’d always done, but now the handsome doctors at the entrance hall smiled at her and greeted her—some even asked her out. This would have been a dream if it’d happened before her story had spread, but, sadly, she knew what all the sudden interest was about—her bank account, not her.

Then there were the unbearable, non-stop visits from her coworkers. “Just checking in to see how you’re doing,” they’d say, wondering if she would “like to hang out.” Elizabeth was leading the charge, even telling employees from other floors to leave her alone, rolling her eyes at them, totally oblivious to the fact that she was just like them—maybe even worse. Only Darren didn’t seem to care about her sudden fame and fortune, staring at his computer like he always did, his googly eyes reflecting the lights of the monitor like a mirror.

Nights at the mansion still reminded her of the nights she’d spent at her old apartment—just that they felt even lonelier. All she saw was huge, empty space.

The dining hall was a medieval-like room with a huge fireplace. Its soft yellow and orange flames threw a comfortable light onto the long table, which was set with a fancy candelabra in the center and priceless porcelain china hundreds of years old.

Like most days, she sat alone at this long table, silence ringing through the air, occasionally punctuated by the clanking of cutlery on her plate and the footsteps of a woman called Johanna, one of the maids of the house. Olivia had decided to keep all staff in the mansion. There was no point making them lose their jobs, although it felt ridiculous that someone did all her cooking and laundry. There was also the issue of how colossal and intimidating the mansion was; it was nice seeing people around now and then.

Johanna, a middle-aged and well-fed woman, approached her politely and cleared up the plates.

“Thank you, thank you so much for your help,” Olivia said, watching in embarrassment as Johanna cleaned up after her. She had tried to help before, but Johanna would refuse her help quite strongly. Johanna was about to turn and leave, but Olivia cleared her throat.

“Johanna, what was Andrei Rusu like?” she asked.

Johanna looked up at her and smiled. “I don’t know much about him, Miss Carter.”

“You can call me Olivia.”

Johanna gave her a polite smile. “Yes, Miss Carter. I know he was a very lonely man. He worked all the time, always serious, but he treated us well. I think he had a sister in Romania. But we never heard him talk to her, no. Never even mentioned her. I heard his lawyer talk about her with him once.”

“Hmm. I wonder why,” Olivia mumbled.

“I don’t know, I’m sorry,” Johanna muttered with another smile, then twirled around and left the dining hall.

Why wouldn’t he talk to his only sister?Olivia took a sip of her wine.

“Gosh, it’s really buzzing in here,” Mindy’s voice echoed through the dining hall. Olivia smiled and turned to the wide-open French double door. It was always good to see a friendly face. Olivia had hired Mindy and placed her on a salary equivalent to that of a hedge fund manager. She even told Mindy that she could just take the money and retire, but Mindy had gotten mad, growling something about not being a charity case and that she works for her money—especiallythatmuch. Sometimes Olivia wondered if she was more or less paying her for being her only friend for the last few years, as absurd as it sounded.

“You’re here late, Mindy,” Olivia said and Mindy nodded.

“I came in later and felt like pretending I had work to do, given how there’s next to nothing to clean; the other full-time staff leave everything spotless.”

“You’re not going to start a cleaners’ war or something, are you?” Olivia mused with a smile.

“The floors glisten like mirrors,” Mindy responded with a mix of admiration and disappointment. “It makes the place look sterile.”

She took a seat at the long wooden table next to Olivia and scanned the dining hall. Her silver hair was in a braid and glittering in the light of the fireplace.

“So, how has all this been? Must feel like a dream.”

“A wild dream,” Olivia added. “I’ve never imagined living in a place like this, but here we are.” She sighed.

“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing. Is something wrong?”

Olivia shifted her gaze to her fingers, scraping the nails together. “I . . . well, I don’t want to seem ungrateful or anything, and I’m not, really.” She paused and looked up. “But all this seems so . . . strange. It’s nice and all, finding out that you weren’t so alone in the world after all and that someone you’ve never met loved your mother enough to pass on their fortune to you, but the circumstances around it make me a bit uncomfortable.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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