Chapter Four

Ella

“No, you can’t do that…. I understand, but….no, I understand your exams are…but I can’t…alright. Fine.”

I ended the call and tossed my phone angrily onto the couch, pacing across the living room floor for a few seconds before Molly came into the room.

“What’s wrong?”

“Flora just punked out on me,” I said. “She said that she can’t babysit today because she’s studying for exams.”

“Well, she is in college. I’m sure she’s starting to feel the pressure.”

“That doesn’t help me,” I said. “While she’s off being one with the library, I have no one to take care of Edmond this afternoon.”

“I can’t do it because I’ll be there with you.”

I slid my eyes toward my sister.

“Thank you for that analysis,” I said. I let out a growl of frustration and whirled around, stalking in the other direction before turning around to pace back toward her. “This is just perfect. I finally get an opportunity that could start digging me out of this hole and now I’m not going to be able to do it because there’s nobody that I can trust to take care of Edmond.”

“Oh, no,” Molly said, shaking her head as she took a couple of steps toward me. “You can’t not go. I’ve already told them that we’re coming. I’ve already gotten our uniforms picked out. You can’t just leave me now.”

“Uniforms?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Molly said. “If we’re going to be a company, we have to wear uniforms. It looks more professional.”

“I thought that no one was going to see us.”

“It will make us feel more professional.”

“Great.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes, trying to relieve the pressure of the tension headache that was building there. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, but you’re going to have to figure it out. We need to be there in less than an hour.”

I heard Edmond roar from the other room and knew that he had pulled out his favorite dinosaur toys. He had only a four-year-old’s understanding of the creatures, so all of the different types made the same noise and tried to eat each other, but it made my heart swell with love every time I heard him so happily in his own little world. I knew that I had to take this opportunity. It offered too much for my son. I had to do whatever I could to make this happen. I looked at Molly.

“I’m just going to have to bring him with me. You said that it won’t take long. I’ll find the biggest open space in the apartment that I can and put him there with his toys. He’ll probably even take a nap. It’ll be fine.”

Molly didn’t look convinced, but there was no other choice. If I was going to go, Edmond was going to have to come with us. I headed into the bedroom that we shared to get him ready, all the while hoping that maybe this could be the start of something that would give us the life that I always wanted us to have.

I held Edmond on my hip, running down the sidewalk toward The Avalon. The doorman looked startled as we approached, but Molly told him who we were and he let us in, barely getting us inside in time for us to not be late. I lowered my son to the floor and followed Molly toward the concierge desk, trying not to make my absolute awe of my surroundings obvious. I had only ever seen the building from the outside, and now that I was inside, I could see just how truly magnificent it was. It was already difficult for me to fathom a lifestyle that justified having a concierge downstairs from my apartment, but as we crossed the glittering lobby I noticed that that was just the beginning of the opulence and service that defined the lives of the billionaires who lived in this building.

To one side I saw the welcoming entrance for the Avalon Café and a smaller coffee shop designed to perfectly blend in with the subtle elegance of the rest of the space. A brass plaque on the wall ahead of us gave directions to the various services available on this floor of the building, including the pool and the spa.

If I lived here, I would never leave.

Molly finished speaking with the concierge and turned toward me. She held a key in her hand and her face held the type of smile that meant that someone had made her angry but she was trying not to show it.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Molly was already walking toward an elevator ahead of us and I fell into step beside her.

“Bitch took my driver’s license information,” she muttered.

I looked back over my shoulder at the concierge who had gone back to his computer, seemingly unfazed by the interaction with Molly.

“He gave you a key to this man’s apartment,” I said. “I’m sure that it’s just routine procedure. They want to make sure that they aren’t just letting people wander in and out because they say that they are professionals.”

We got into the elevator and started our ascent. I had never been the biggest fan of elevators and the thought of 57 stories was enough to make my stomach turn, even though it was moving at a far faster pace than any of the others that I had ridden in. Edmond, on the other hand, thought that the whole thing was one big adventure and was standing beside me with his little arms up in the air, cheering as we zoomed up toward the floor partly occupied by Mason Dupree’s apartment. When it finally arrived, the door glided open and we stepped out into a hallway that gave us two options. One direction led to the large front door of the apartment itself. The other followed what I could only assume to be the L-shape of one section of the apartment but had a sign on the wall that indicated that there was a library at the far end of this floor. As I had seen another such indication on the sign in the lobby I could only guess that this was a niche library, potentially something designed by Dupree himself though technically available to all those living in the building.

Molly walked up to the door to the apartment and inserted the key. There was a brief moment of anticipation before she turned the key and opened the door. Both of us gasped as we stepped inside the sprawling apartment. I would never have imagined that something like this would exist in the city.

“This is gorgeous,” I whispered, somehow inspired to keep my voice low within the environment much the same way that children do when they are somewhere they see as fancy.

Molly nodded, looking around.

“There’s a rumor,” she said as she lowered the armful of supplies that she had carried in with her to the floor, “that all of the apartments in the building are completely unique. Each one was renovated and personalized for the specific man who lives there to fit his tastes and needs. They say that there are 69 floors in this building, and that the entire top floor is taken up by a single apartment. The man who lives there is the wealthiest of all of the men, but is never seen. He never comes out and even when there are parties up there, the guests never see him.”

“Why?” I asked.

Molly shrugged.

“They don’t seem to know.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

“You know…they. The they.”

I nodded.

“They know everything.”

Molly nodded back.

“Alright, we need to get everything we have with us up here, so we can get started. The rest of the supplies should be delivered soon. The housekeeper and kitchen staff are out doing their errands for the day, but they’ll be back later in the afternoon. I would like to be gone before they get here.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“I’ve heard that while Mason likes his staff and has kept them for all of the years that he’s lived here, and some even before he moved in here, they aren’t the most people-friendly bunch. They have their routines and they like them kept that way.”

“Are you sure that that’s not just you?”

Molly shrugged.

“You are more than welcome to stick around and try to find out.”

I took another glance around the apartment. It was meticulously clean, everything so perfectly in its right place that a magazine could have shot it right then for the cover. I thought about the bubbles in the kitchen sink that morning and the relief that I felt when the dishes were all cleaned and draining.

“We should probably get going,” I said.

Anyone who could keep this place like this may not be someone I want to encounter.