When we finally landed at Heathrow, six hours later, a man was ready and waiting for us with a placard saying “Mary and Julianne Reeves”. I was borderline exhausted. The plane trip had lasted forever, and now it was early in the morning in England, but late at night back home in New York. I was ready for bed, and followed in a daze, my two suitcases on a trolley carried by the driver, as he led us out of the terminal and into the waiting Mercedes sedan.
As soon as I sat down in the plush leather seat of the car, I fell asleep. I have no memory of us even driving outside the airport, and only woke up an hour later when my mother shook me awake.
“Julianne, we’re almost there,” she whispered. I looked out the window to see the view of the perfect quintessential English town. Wendover was home of the Alcott family estate, which I was told was remarkable. Nerves started to fill my stomach. This was really happening. I was going to meet the man my mother was going to marry, I was going to live in his home here in England. This was definitely going to be something new, and I hoped I liked it. I didn’t want my life to be like on Downton Abbey, as much as I loved the show.
We continued driving outside of town, and I had to admit, the rolling hills of the countryside were gorgeous. I saw a few horseback riders and even wondered if maybe that was something I would be able to do. At least we weren’t too far from London, either. I’d looked up the train timetable, and it would only take an hour to get into the city.
The sedan finally turned into a long driveway, and my jaw dropped to the floor.
Towering before us was the home I was going to live in. Looking exactly like something out of Pride and Prejudice, the Alcott estate building was a long, stone rectangular building, with huge windows, ivy crawling up the grey stonework and mahogany accents in certain areas that gave the house a bit of a modern touch. The driveway circled around to the front of the house, like you see at luxury hotels, with a fancy fountain featuring three dancing dolphins spitting water out as a feature in the middle of the driveway.
The perfectly manicured lawn seemed to stretch out for miles, and I think for the first time I really realized just how much money my mother’s fiancée really had.
As if by magic, a woman suddenly came bustling out from the mahogany front door that was at least twice as high as she was.
I stepped out of the car in shock, while my mother immediately turned into the charming woman who snagged the guy who owned this place as her future husband.
“Hello, you must be Ms. Reeves,” the woman announced as our driver wordlessly went to the back of the car to fetch our suitcases. “I’m Anita, the head of the household.”
The head of the household? Seriously? What is this, the 1800s? I asked myself as I looked at the plump woman’s cherubically happy face and decided she was probably quite nice, and almost certainly had children of her own.
“Thank you Anita, I’m Mary and this is my daughter, Julianne.”
“Ms. Julianne, welcome,” Anita greeted me.
“Just Julianne is fine, please,” I replied with a smile, and my mother stared daggers at me. Apparently I’d already committed some kind of social faux-pas in her head.
“Well ladies, if you’ll just follow me, Michael will take your suitcases to your rooms, and I’ll give you a tour of the premises.”
Glancing at Michael and wondering if I shouldn’t offer to help with the suitcases, I quickly realized that Anita and my mother had already gone into the house, and I hurried in after them.
As soon as I walked into the foyer, my jaw dropped. This was just too much. While the outside screamed “old money”, the home’s interior screamed “new money”. First of all, what kind of house has an actual foyer? When I was growing up, Regina Stuart, the local rich girl, lived in a six bedroom apartment, and even they only had a bit of an entrance hall in their place.
The foyer alone was bigger than my mother’s apartment back in New York which we shared. With a grand chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a marble staircase lined with plush carpet leading up to God-knows what kind of rooms, furniture that obviously cost more than my whole degree was going to and Corinthian columns here and there, I was just shocked.
I knew the other half lived well, but this was just, well, straight out of a Disney movie or something.
I followed as Anita led us through room after room of luxury and opulence. A huge games room with a full size pool table in the middle. A home theatre with thirty seats and a fifty foot projector screen. A library with books from top to bottom. We hadn’t even gotten to the bedrooms yet and I already knew I was never going to be able to find my way back to the front of the house without help.
“Do you happen to have a map?” I asked Anita when she took us past John Alcott’s study and into the home gym area.
She laughed at my joke. “I don’t, as much as it does seem daunting at first, you get used to the layout pretty quickly. I can draw you one in the meantime, if you really want. But basically, go right from the entrance hall and you reach all of the leisure rooms. Go left and you’ll find the staff quarters, the kitchens, that sort of thing. Up and to the right are Mr. and the future Mrs. Alcott’s rooms, and up and to the left are the guest rooms, of which yours is one.
“I suppose I can remember that,” I replied, and hoped I did.
Eventually Anita left me in the library while she went to go and show my mother her rooms, with the promise of coming back to get me to show me mine when she was finished.
I wasn’t really sure if I was supposed to touch any of the books on the shelf. After all, they all looked horrendously expensive. Was that a first edition Voltaire I saw on one of the shelves? I was pretty sure it was.
Finally, I got bored enough that I decided I didn’t really care. I looked for the newest book, for something that might have cost less than $100, and gingerly took the copy of Wuthering Heights off the shelf.
As I opened the cover it practically heard the cover creaking. I cringed inwardly, and considered putting the book back, but I had already gone this far.
Instead, I just kept an ear out for footsteps and started reading. I had never read anything by Emily Brontë, and found myself quickly caught up in her addictive writing style. So much so that I never heard the footsteps coming to the room, or the door opening.
“Excuse me, you must be Julianne,” I heard a man’s voice say from the doorway, and I let out a squeal and dropped the book.
“Oh my God,” I cried out, quickly picking up the book. The man quickly came over and helped me with it, before placing the cover back in my hands.
I looked up at him. He was in his early fifties, probably, with a thinning head of brown hair that was losing its battle with the grey taking over. Still, I guessed that back in the day he would have been quite a good looking man. With his obviously expensive suit, I figured I knew who I was talking to.
“You must be Mr. Alcott. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to drop the book. Or really take it off the shelf. I wasn’t going to, but then I couldn’t resist, and…”
I was rambling, and I knew it, and John Alcott smiled kindly and raised his hand.
“Books are meant to be read, Julianne. And yes, I am John Alcott. Please, call me John. It’s wonderful to finally meet you.”
“You too, John,” I replied, finally able to smile a bit myself. I had expected the owner of a place like this to be draconian, the stiff upper lip type, but John didn’t seem to be that way at all.
Just then Anita came into the doorway.
“Mr Alcott!” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t expecting you for hours, I apologize for not being at the door.”
“Not to worry Anita. The meeting in town was cancelled, so I don’t have to be at the Gherkin until two. I thought I would come say hello to my fiancée and her daughter, and help them settle in.”
“Well Ms. Reeves is in your room at the moment, being helped to unpack her things by Gina. I was about to take the younger Ms. Reeves to see to her room now.”
“Alright, well I’ll go see Mary, and leave Julianne here in your hands. Take that book with you, Julianne, and enjoy it. Every book in this library is at your disposal.”
“Thank you John,” I replied as I left with Anita. I was so relieved that Mr. Alcott was just a normal person, and that I hadn’t been sent to the Tower of London for reading that book or anything like that.
Anita led me back down the giant string of hallways and rooms, and eventually we were back in the main hall. This time she led me up the stairs, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I could slide down the railing like a princess one day. When we got to the top landing, Anita led me to the left down a hallway leading to a series of rooms.
“Mr. Alcott Jr is arriving tonight, and will be staying in the room next to yours, as it is where he grew up, and where he stays whenever he is around,” Anita told me, indicating a closed door to my right. We went slightly further down the hall to the next door, which Anita opened for me, then held for me as I entered in front of her.
I was going to have to get plastic surgery to fix my jaw if this kept up. These were guest quarters?
The light poured in from a bay window covered in the most comfortable cushions I’d ever seen. The pastel green shade of paint on the wall was absolutely gorgeous, and my eye was immediately drawn to the King size bed that looked like I needed a ladder just to get onto it. My suitcases lay off to one side, near a nightstand with a phone on it. Against the near wall was a desk and chair, perfect for studying.
The door to the walk-in closet on the other side of the room was open, and I could instantly tell it was bigger than the kitchen was at our old place.
But even more impressive was the en-suite. I walked on the marble-tiled floors and looked at the Jacuzzi tub, the huge shower with a rainwater head, the double sinks and toilet. It was huge! And gorgeous.
“Wow,” was the only thing I could say.
“If you need anything, at any time, just press number 1 on the phone on the nightstand and someone will come see to your needs,” Anita told me kindly.
“This is insane. Who lives like this?” I whispered, almost to myself.
“Mr. Alcott does. You’re very lucky,” Anita told me with a smile. She seemed to be enjoying my shock.
“Yes. Yes, that I am. Wow.”
I was never really the type to be in love with material things, but I’m not going to lie, I was already in love with this place.
“I’ll leave you to your things, Gina will come over to help you unpack when she’s finished with your mother’s things.”
“Oh, that’s ok Anita, thanks. I can unpack myself,” I told her with a smile.
“Alright, up to you. Gina will be bringing by a TV however, and in the next couple days it will be hooked up with satellite so you’ll have a number of channels to choose from.”
“Thanks so much, Anita,” I told her.
“Not a problem. Be ready for dinner at seven. Someone will come and get you to show you to the dining room. If you want anything to eat before then, don’t hesitate to use the phone and ask.”
“Ok, I will, thanks!”
With that, Anita left, and I stood in the middle of the room, looking around, still not believing that this was real life. This was my life.
I spent the next couple hours unpacking, then settled down on the giant bed which was even more comfortable than I had expected, and continued reading Wuthering Heights.
Unfortunately, the jet lag caught up to me, and I ended up falling asleep, letting the book fall to my side. I woke up to the sound of tires squealing outside. I sat up in bed with a gasp as it took me a few seconds to remember where I was.
So this wasn’t a dream after all I thought as I wiped the sleep from my eyes and looked outside. The sun was starting to set, and I heard a car door slam in the distance. I got up and moved toward the bay window. The sun was setting over the gorgeous green hills of England, but the sunset wasn’t what my eyes focused on.
There were skid marks on the driveway, the obvious cause of the squealing tires that had woken me up, leading to a Lamborghini convertible that still shone bright red in the dusky light.
Getting out of the convertible was the most gorgeous man I’d ever set my eyes on. Wearing jeans and a blazer jacket, with wavy brown hair and three days’ worth of stubble, he walked like the whole world moved at his feet. And God, with those looks, I bet it did.
My breath caught in my throat as I stared at the man, mesmerized. I wondered who he was, what he was doing here. I could see the tip of a tattoo on his chest above the neckline of his shirt. This wasn’t the kind of guy that would fit in here, I thought.
Suddenly I looked over at the clock. It was already after six, and I definitely needed to have a shower, wash my hair, and make sure I looked half decent at dinner.
Luckily I found some shampoo already waiting for me in the shower of my room, and I let the hot water pour all over my skin, rejuvenating me. The next day, I decided, I would go fill out some forms at Oxford that had to be filled out in person, and do a bit of basic shopping. Maybe even do a touristy thing or two in London.
Still, my brain kept wandering back to the gorgeous stranger in the supercar out front. Who was he? Did I have a shot with him? Of course the answer to the second question was no. I was raised by a single mom who made ends meet by marrying and blackmailing men, who had good grades but really had to get some strings pulled to get into Oxford, and without a single refined bone in my body. My mother knew how to act at charity events and that sort of thing, I definitely didn’t.
At exactly 7pm I was ready to go for dinner, and there was a knock on the door. Anita was standing there, smiling.
“Ready?”
“I guess so. I’ve never had this much of a fuss made over dinner before.”
“Well, don’t worry. It’s only like this for special occasions.”
“I hope so,” I mumbled as I followed Anita down the hall. I wasn’t sure I could live life where the act of eating was this much of a spectacle on a daily basis. Still, I supposed I would probably put up with it if I could keep all of the other luxurious facets of this life.
We made our way through the mansion until Anita left me at the entrance to the dining room, which, if it wasn’t for the giant table in the middle, I probably would have mistaken for a ballroom instead. The table had to seat at least thirty people, but instead there were only four plates put out.
Sitting at the head of the table was John Alcott, to his right was my mother, to her right was an empty plate obviously meant for me, but I really only noticed the man sitting at John’s left, the stranger from the driveway.
“Ah, Julianne, I hope you had a pleasant afternoon,” John greeted me in his clipped, upper class English accent.
“I did, thank you. I enjoyed Wuthering Heights immensely, then slept off the jet lag,” I replied, making my way to my mother’s side. I could feel mystery man’s eyes on me, and I was sure my face was glowing crimson.
“I’d like you to meet my son, John Alcott Jr,” he continued, and I froze.
His son? Oh my God. That means… that means this man’s going to be my brother?
Thoughts swirled through my head for so long, I don’t know how long before I snapped out of it and smiled at the guy.
He looked me up and down, openly. Then a contemptuous smile crossed his face. “I go by Jack… sis” he told me, and my temper flared. The way he said it, it was like I was so far beneath him, like I didn’t belong here. He was the sexiest man alive, and he just made me feel like I was nothing with just a couple words.
The worst part was, I was still super, super attracted to him. But I couldn’t be. He was my brother. Right?
I glared at the man and tried not to imagine what the tattoo looked like under his shirt, tried not to think about what he’d look like naked and on top of me.
“John Jr. goes to Oxford as well, I’m sure you’ll see each other on campus quite a bit,” John started, ignoring the obvious tension between the two of us. “He lives in an apartment near the campus, but he still comes by to see his old man from time to time. I asked him here tonight, I thought you should meet the man who will be your brother Julianne, and your son Mary.”
Luckily the conversation was interrupted just then by another staff member (I just could not refer to them as “servants”) came by with the appetiser, a cranberry apple salad and cheese soufflé.
The conversation was light and pleasant, with Jack participating in absolutely none of it. As far as I was concerned that was fine. He had been so rude, I didn’t figure he’d have anything nice to say. I mentioned my desire to try horseback riding and John was nice enough to tell me about the stables on the property, and that I was welcome to see the stableboy and learn to ride whenever I wanted.
When the main course was brought out I dug into my food, trying not to steal glances at the Adonis sitting across the table from me, the Adonis with an attitude. Jack Alcott. I was glad he didn’t live here, though it suddenly came back to me what Anita said about his room being right next to mine. Well, hopefully he wouldn’t stay the night.
At the same time, a part of me still found myself daydreaming about being alone in my room at night, and having him sneak through the empty halls, come into my room, and…
Nope. Stop thinking about that. Absolutely not. He’s your stepbrother now.
So why couldn’t I get him out of my head?