"Father I love him!" I screamed as father spoke to the bodyguards. "You will understand when you are older jane. You may think I am doing something wrong but I am actually doing right by you. You are just too young to understand it" he said without even sparing a glance in my direction. "I am twenty-one and you still treat me like a child!" I screamed at him.
"Enough!" he shouted. I usually could sense when he was going to hit me but this backhand was completely unexpected! I fell to the ground holding my cheek and fighting back the tears that threatened to brim over. I will not let him see me like this- I thought to myself.
"That young man you insist you are in love with is a womanizer! Yes he is rich but his reputation speaks plenty" he stooped down to look at me. "jane he is all over the news everyday and each time with another woman! You insist you love him but does he share in your feelings?" he asked looking me squarely in the eye. "I-I don't know. I never asked" I replied shyly.
"jane you are still too young to know what love is let alone understand it. Now I expect all this talk about love to cease. I also expect you to stay away from Demetrius. You are not to leave this mansion without a guard or so help me I will make your life a living hell!" he said as he slammed the door behind him as he left.
The thing is my life was ALREADY a living hell! All my life I had to live up to my father's expectations! Even when I thought I did he would still find a way to make it seem like I didn't. Gertrude and Antonio were by my side as soon as he left. They were from my mother's country, Hispaniola. "Don't let him get to you little one and my son may be many things but he knows how to treat a woman with respect" she said as she brought a wet towel to my cheek.
"H-he doesn't understand" I started crying. "jane I should have helped! How did he find out you were meeting Demetrius? I thought you were so careful" Antonio asked. "I think I know who told him" I replied dryly. "I think I know also. That Malik is a nasty piece of work. I don't know how he found out about you and Demetrius but it was none other than him who told your father, hija" Gertrude said as she pulled me into her arms for a hug. Gertrude and Antonio had one son, Demetrius. My mother and my eldest sister, Mia, left when I was five years old because they could no longer take the abuse my father was dishing out. I still hated my mother for not taking me and mark, my older brother, with her. But Gertrude and Antonio gave me the love and tenderness that my father didn't or was incapable of giving.
They may have only been servants but to me they were my parents. On occasions when life got too unbearable at the mansion I would go stay with them at their four bedroom house. Antonio told me when I was about ten that one of the rooms always stayed locked because he would let no one enter my room other than me. They may not have been as rich as my father but my father paid them well enough that they could live comfortably and even send Demetrius off to Princeton. Antonio even designed my room at their house with lots of pretty colors.
My room here at the mansion stayed a boring white because my father thought it symbolized 'obedience' while Antonio disagreed he said a child needed a colorful room to develop imagination and creativity.