Page 33 of Take My Crown

My eighteenth birthday.

As I wake up, I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling for a long time like the plain white paint can tell me the answers I’ve been searching for. If someone had told me I would spend my eighteenth birthday living in a mansion, the prisoner of my father who is a gangster of some kind, I would have wondered what they’d been smoking. But here I am, in a bed that probably cost more than Katy earned in a year. I have so many questions that all lie in the mind of my mother.

Oh, how I wish she was here.

There is a knock at the door that snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Come in!”

The door opens and Isabella walks in, followed by a servant pushing a food trolley. I pull myself up to a seated position, as the servant picks up a tray from the trolley and places it across my lap. There is a vase with brightly coloured gerberas to one side and a large cloche in the middle of the tray.

The servant picks up the cloche to reveal a large plate beautifully laid out with a variety of exotic fruits cut into delicate little flowers as well as a selection of Danish pastries. In addition, there are three glasses, each with a different type of juice – orange, cranberry, and apple.

“Tea or coffee, miss?” the servant asks, holding up a pot in each hand.

“Er… coffee, I guess.”

The servant pours out a cup of coffee, placing it on the tray along with a little jug of cream and a dish with sugar lumps. Then they take the trolley and push it out of the room, leaving me alone with Isabella who I still don’t trust.

“Do you want some of this?” I offer, trying to build a bridge between us. If I am going to see her every day until my dear dad dies and I can escape here, I might as well get to know her. “There’s no way I’ll be able to eat it all by myself.”

“No, thank you,” Isabella replies. “It would not be appropriate for me to share your food.”

Better than letting it all go to waste,I mutter under my breath, but I knew not to push the aide by now. She is surprisingly strong willed, for all her calm demeanour.

“Now your father has asked me to tell you to take your time with breakfast,” she tells me. “He says everyone should enjoy a lie-in on their birthday.”

“How generous.”

Isabella ignores my sarcasm. “But when you’re ready, he asks that you join him in his study. He’s got a surprise for you that I think you’ll love.”

“What is it?”

“Now if I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”

Isabella smiles enigmatically and leaves me to eat my breakfast alone.

I take my time, happy to make my father wait for once. The pastries are amazing, no doubt home made in our kitchen. Just as I suspected, there is way too much food for me to eat on my own, so I placed the cloche back over the plate to keep the pastries fresh so I can snack on them later.

Eventually, I decide to go and see what this surprise is my father has lined up for me. No doubt it is some dumb present, another attempt to buy my affections.

I knock on his study door and wait to be summoned before going in to find my father and Isabella deep in conversation.

“Ah. Ivy. You live!” My father seems to be in a jovial mood, so I don’t risk ruining it by responding to it with sarcasm. I have seen enough of him to know how mercurial he can be.

“Isabella says you had something for me?”

“First, let me take a good look at you.”

My father gets up to stand in front of me, holding my shoulders to straighten me out.

“You’re the spitting image of your mother.” He smiles, a hint of a tear in the corner of his eye. The cynic in me wonders whether he has put in eye drops when he heard my knock to create the effect. “She would be so proud of the woman you’re becoming.” He looks into my eyes for a moment longer, his eyes glazing for the briefest of moments as if he is lost in a memory.

Starting to feel awkward, I clear my throat the tiniest bit. That seems to break him of whatever moment he was having in his mind.

“Isabella and I are just finalising the details for your mask ball tonight. I think you’ll be very happy with what she’s planned. She tells me you don’t want to be involved in any of the decisions so she chose things she thought you’d like and I have to say, I think she’s surpassed herself. It’s not every day a girl turns eighteen, so you’ll have to indulge a father for wanting to make a fuss over his little girl.”

I was never your little girl. I bit my tongue, knowing it is best to play along with his delusion until I can escape back to my room.

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