Chapter 1 - The Clifford Heir Is Coming Back

Roselia’s POV

Do you know that feeling of dread when something you’ve planned for years on end, scrutinising, memorising every little thing, paying excruciating attention to detail, withholding patience you don't have just so you could be as sure of it as was humanely possible and then it was all finally coming together but you just couldn't help but wonder that what if someone noticed something unusual and I was caught before the ball dropped. What if Edwin Clifford wasn't where he was supposed to be at the designated time, what if i messed up my part, erego destroying the whole bloody plan?

The dread coiled up in my stomach like a snake, it growing more rabid and venomous with my increasing nervousness and anxiety. 

“Rose!!!”Romina, the Clifford mansion’s head chef yelled my name, snapping me out of my inner turmoil and almost making me slice a finger off along with the diced onions.

“Stop being useless over there and bring me the tortilla chips from the freezer, from the one downstairs. They need to be served with the dips and salsas NOW!!” 

Romina turns away from the table I was working at with a huff to yell at the sous chef next.

I glared at the haphazardly diced onions for no specific reason. Sighing, I realised I had to set something up at the ground floor anyway.

I gladly walked down the stairs, happy to leave the kitchen and the ultrasonic yelling of chefs, metal pots and cookers. There were over 25 chefs working at 9 different tables in the really wide hallway-like kitchen.

 I wiped my sauce-stained hands on my apron before I opened the freezer. Did the “thing” I was there to do and completely forgot about the tortilla chips.

********

“Everything is in place. There is nothing for you to worry about.” 

There was just the faintest hint of white in Abram’s hair, making him look a lot older than he actually was.

Abram fiddled with his watch, then picked up the newspaper, set it down on the round coffee table and then picked it up again, then looked over at the clock. And then did it all over again. This was not a good sign. Abram was nervous. 

“That's easy for you to say. You won't even be there when it happens. You'll already have crossed over to South Saudi for fuck’s sake!” The moment the words were out of my mouth, I instantly regretted them. I did not want to blame Abram for leaving me alone in this, this what we’d planned for years. But this wasn’t his fight, it was mine. Abram might’ve helped me begin but I was going to be the one to end this.

He looked guilty, too guilty even but there was something else…….. was it regret that I saw? But why would there be regret?

“When it's done..” Abram says and glances again at the clock, hesitation and worry clouding his eyes. It was 10 a.m. He had to leave within the next hour. He had the perfect cover. He’d been staying at the Clifford’s guesthouse for the past week to sort out some paperwork with Mr Clifford and it was done, fax and everything. So he could leave without arousing any suspicion.

He startled me when he suddenly grasped my shoulders with his bony hands across the narrow table, sitting at the very edge of the black velvet sofa. 

“You need to get out of the banquet hall as soon as it's done, don't wait for the poison to take effect. Don’t waste one second, not even one second, you hear me?! Not one second!!” Before I could get in a word or shake his hands off me, Abram stood up and paced from the small living room area to his bed for a while. 

I thought it wise not to say anything to him. This was the end of our knowing each other and I did not want to say anything I would regret later. So I nodded in agreement with him.

“I really hope you’ll be over a dozen water bodies and on another continent before tomorrow’s dawn because if you’re not…” Abram turns white as a sheet as he realises what he’s suggested. But there’s still the faintest tinge of regret in his eyes, regret for what I didn’t know.

Getting up, I collect his coffee cup and 2 more plates and walk over to the door, fully prepared to leave. But then turn back around.

“I do not want to consider that possibility, Abram. And it's not your job to do so either. You've done your part, you've done more than what was even supposed to be your part, the plan’s successful execution depends on me now. You can….. no, you have to go knowing that you did more than you could have.”

I gripped the door handle, not liking the heavy weight settling in my heart on the realisation that after today, I was going to be on my own, alone but free. 

“Goodbye Abram.” 

“Rose, I..” He starts but I turn away, even though I didn't want to.

I needed to focus, more than ever now if I had any hope of succeeding. 

Whilst fixing my apron, I accidentally bump into a waiter in the hallway. “Ah, shit!” A steel tray dropped to the floor along with its contents but luckily, nothing I’d been holding fell. The waiter caught me before I fell too and I would’ve slapped his hands off from my waist but then I realised it was Jeremy, the little boy I’d befriended 6 years ago. But the little boy wasn’t so little anymore.

Jeremy gives me a lopsided grin as he lets go of me to pick up the fallen steel stuff. I am stupid enough to blush, but I quickly shake the red off, internally slapping myself into remembrance that all the guests had almost arrived and were settled in the humongous guesthouse. Edwin Clifford, the guest of “honour” would be here in the evening. I take a deep breath, a warm satisfaction alighting me for I knew that it would be Edwin Clifford’s dead body leaving this mansion.

“Rose, Rose….. Uhmm, Rose? Are you listening to me?” Jeremy looks worried as he tries to balance the huge tray with one hand. He looked funny, his huge, bulky frame was not meant for kitchen work or waitressing. He towered over me and I had to tilt my head up a bit to look at him. Damn me and my midget height.

“Uh, yea,” I reply, trying to tame my wild and greasy red hair but it was no use. My hair was and would remain a nest made of red twigs.

“Head chef wants every chef and waiter in the storage room. There need to be some more specials made and the preparations have been kicked up a bit since instead of one, two guests of honour will be arriving.” I fist my hands in my apron, not liking this one bit. 

“What guest of honour? Who else is coming?” 

“Derek Clifford.” Jeremy’s smile dims a bit, he’d never liked Derek. You’d think he’d let go of his stupid grudge against him(but then again, every poor man held an unspoken grudge against the rich). It’d been over 6 years since Derek or Edwin had stepped foot in the mansion.

 I try not to look apprehensive, this change certainly wasn’t welcome. 

Jeremy stares at me, clearly trying to measure my reaction to the fact that the boy who’d brought me here, practically saved me from dying on the streets, was returning. After a very, very long time. 

If the circumstances weren’t what they were, I might’ve actually been excited or even a bit nervous about Derek’s return.

“Well, what’s one more Clifford right?” I knew the one I wanted to kill.

I try to laugh but it comes out as a very unpleasant cough.

“Don’t try to act so nonchalant, Rose. It makes sense if Derek’s coming back excites you. He’s a pretty, rich, white boy, now man I suppose, who was incredibly attentive to you for the short while you knew him. Of course you would want to see him, especially now. So now you have a reason to look forward to the banquet, eh?” Jeremy tried to sound light-hearted. But the careless shrug of his shoulders couldn’t fool me into thinking so. 

Jeremy takes my silence as a cue to continue his mildly taunting charade.

“Remember when you used to follow him around like a puppy,” Jeremy lets out a malicious laugh. His hand clenched the tray in a death grip, his knuckles getting whiter by the minute. “Lord was it cute! I’m sure Derek was annoyed to have a 12 year old trailing him around 24/7 but I guess he didn’t have the heart to send away adorable-little-rose. He paid attention to you and you just lapped it up. All he had to do was glance once at you and it was enough to make you keep grinning for the whole day.”

I try to keep my composure, I really do. But still feel my cheeks heat up.”I was 12 for god's sake. Of course I liked Derek and his attention. He took me in, not on his own, but he must have had to go against his father. I'm sure Mr Clifford certainly wouldn’t have appreciated his son bringing in an orphaned beggar straight from the streets. This is a home after all, not a charity!” I fix Jeremy with a hard glare but a slight taunting grin stays on his unreasonably handsome face.

“I was just joking Rose, don’t take me this seriously!” 

His grin suddenly drops. He frowns, looking at me intently with a foreign heat in his eyes. He leans toward me, I stay in place, raising an eyebrow at him.

His one hand reaches out to me and he very softly rubs something off my cheek with his index finger. I groaned when I noticed it was dough. Who knew for how long that had been there? I instinctively rub my free hand up and down both my cheeks, almost forgetting Jeremy was still standing there.

“Any more taunts you’d like to throw at me?” I sneer at him. It wasn’t that Jeremy was always like this, snarky and malicious. 

To be honest, we rarely ever fought, we actually got along pretty well, he was in actuality, my only friend in this huge, luxurious but cold place. It was the mention of Derek that made him act like this, and the topic of Derek had arisen after a really long time. For what reason Derek’s mere mention made him behave like this, I would never know.

I gave him a pointed look. Both of us would get chewed out for gossiping during working hours if we were caught.

His gaze started trailing up and down my body, making me feel weird and uncomfortably conscious about my messy red hair tied up in a bun and my curveless body in the apron which was at least 3 sizes too loose for me. 

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind looking now.” He mumbles somewhat incoherently, giving me a small smile that fails to reach his eyes, then he turns around and walks away. 

Leaving me to wonder what the hell was up with him.