Chapter 30: If Given a Choice, Forget the Bed and Sleep Out on the Lawn

Octavia’s eyes fluttered open, and she greeted the sunlight spilling through the window with her usual reaction to morning light.

“Fuck,” she mumbled into the pillow. She shut her eyes and yawned, resettling herself against the plush goose-feather pillow.

She cursed herself for not having drawn the blinds in her room before she slept. Also for having opened them in the first place.

Suddenly her eyes shot open. Even through her blurry vision, she noted the massive size of the room she was in.

Octavia bolted upright and stared about herself in a daze.

“This is not my room…,” she said slowly, looking around.

Glancing to her left, she saw a dash of red sitting on a bedside table and reached for it, relieved to feel the familiar smooth plastic of her glasses frames.

She hurriedly slid them on her face and took a second, clearer look around.

Definitely was not her room. For one thing, the room she was in was much bigger, her entire apartment could fit in it.

One wall of the room was completely made up of glass sliding doors with motorized blinds partially lowered over the top of the panels.

The bed she was in looked like it was the size of her own room. It sat on a slightly raised platform and had an enormous leather headboard attached to the wide wall behind her.

The entire space was done in shades of gray, black, and white, and although every item around her seemed to sit in its perfectly allocated spot, she felt her surroundings gave off a sort of tomb vibe.

Octavia sighed and threw back the thick blanket and gray Egyptian cotton sheets around her body.

As her socked feet touched the soft carpet on the floor, she realized her shoes were lying on the floor by the bed. But her sweater was gone.

She had slept the night in the same pair of slacks and T-shirt she’d worn the day before. The question was, how had her shoes and sweater come off?

A soft knock on the door made her jump. She whirled around to face the doors on the far end of the room, staring at them in wide-eyed shock.

“Ms. Octavia, may I come in?” Mrs. Santos’s pleasant voice said from behind the door.

Octavia sighed in relief. “Yes. Please.”

Mrs. Santos drew open the doors to reveal the same warm, smiling face Octavia had met the night before.

She stepped into the room and walked toward Octavia holding a folded garment in her hands. Octavia recognized her sweater.

“Good morning, dear. How did you sleep?” Mrs. Santos asked.

“Fine. Thanks,” Octavia mumbled. Her focus was on the clothes in the housekeeper’s hands. “Is that my—?”

“Yes, here you are.” Mrs. Santos handed the sweater to her. “Freshly laundered. Even got the ice-cream stain out.”

“Oh!” Octavia exclaimed, then gave a sheepish laugh. “Not sure how that ended up on my clothes, but I think I have a pretty good idea.”

“Would you like to freshen up before breakfast?” Mrs. Santos asked.

Without waiting for Octavia’s answer, she moved past her in the opposite direction of the room to yet another set of doors leading somewhere else.

Octavia followed her through them and found herself walking through a short hall before stepping into a wide circular room with yet another spectacular view overlooking the ocean.

There was a deep soaking tub in one corner, a wide rain shower in the other, and a hot tub opposite both of them.

“Whoa,” Octavia remarked.

“Shall I run a bath for you? Which would you like, bubbles or salts?” Mrs. Santos asked.

“No, no,” Octavia said hurriedly, “I’ll just take a shower, I guess.”

Mrs. Santos nodded politely before turning to the high shelves at one end of the soaking tub and taking a few white towels from the third level.

“What would you like for breakfast?” Mrs. Santos asked, handing Octavia the towels.

“Umm, really, don’t trouble yourself,” Octavia began.

“Nonsense. It’s my pleasure. Would you like pancakes? Eggs, sunny-side up? Bacon? A breakfast quiche?”

“Well…I guess…um…bacon and eggs would be nice,” Octavia said.

Mrs. Santos nodded. “Coming right up.” She walked out of the room, and Octavia soon heard the bathroom doors closing behind her.

She sighed and stepped toward the glass enclosure of the shower. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen.

Instead of a faucet, an electric touchscreen panel was embedded in the wall. She glanced upward and saw slits in the ceiling above the showering space.

“This is going to be an experience,” she said to herself.

She got undressed, setting her clothes on one of the two matching metal stools standing on either side of the shower. They looked like a cross between an egg and saltshaker.

And then she gingerly stepped into the crystal cage.

It took her a full ten minutes to figure out how to get the contraption working. She pressed buttons and heard beeps, then waited and nothing happened.

When water finally started flowing, it poured from overhead in a raging torrent, blinding Octavia as she fumbled for the panel before her.

“Why can’t rich people just have normal things?” she wailed, furiously tapping on the screen.

Eventually, she was able to get the water down to a non-hurricane-like volume, and she actually enjoyed the warm water running down her aching body.

Twenty minutes later, she was showered and dried. She dressed back in her clothes, figuring she’d stop by her apartment to change before heading to work.

She then made her way back out to the room she had been in.

She stepped out of the room into a long, empty hallway and looked around in confusion. Then she noticed the middle-aged man in a formal black suit walking toward her with slicked-back gray hair.

“Good morning, Ms. Octavia,” he asked with a small bow. “I’m Jameson, Mr. Kentworth’s butler. How do you do?”

~Of course, he has a butler,~ Octavia thought. “Hello, Jameson,” she replied.

“Allow me to show you to where you will dine.”

Jameson led Octavia down the hall, down the staircase, and off to one side of the great waterfall foyer to what looked like a morning room done in shades of blue and gray.

The hexagonal wall was lined with windows that looked out onto vast, well-landscaped lawns.

At the head of a set table, Raemon Kentworth sat with a newspaper open before him and a large mug of coffee by his hand.

“You’re awake,” he said without looking away from his paper.

“Yeah, no shit,” Octavia said.

Octavia moved in the direction Jameson pointed her to with the sweep of his hand and took a seat at a chair on one end of the table.

A place setting was laid out, and several dishes lay covered under silver domes. He lifted the domed food covers to reveal a rich spread of everything Mrs. Santos had promised and more.

“Nice!” Octavia exclaimed with a grin, wasting no time in picking up a strip of crispy bacon and biting off one end.

“Please let us know if anything is not to your satisfaction,” Jameson said with a bow before he left.

“Great guy,” Octavia remarked, cutting into the bright-yellow yolks of her eggs. Golden liquid burst from the tender yolk and dribbled over the whites.

She speared a piece of the egg with her fork and lifted it to her mouth. “Perfect. Just how I like my eggs,” she mumbled between bites. “Mrs. Santos is my new favorite person.”

“She’ll be thrilled to learn that,” Raemon said.

Octavia helped herself to several more slices of bacon. “I’m glad she made so much—I am starving!”

She glanced over at Raemon who was still studiously reading the newspaper before him. She noticed he was seemingly already dressed for work, wearing a deep-plum shirt, gray tie, and dark slacks.

“Don’t you eat breakfast?” Octavia asked.

“This is my breakfast,” Raemon answered, lifting his mug in response.

“You are missing out on Mrs. Santos’s cooking,” Octavia said, shaking her head.

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Oh, I won’t. Your loss is my gain.” Octavia spent the next few minutes devoting herself to clearing her plate and taking two more servings.

She finally sat back in her chair, taking the cup of orange juice before her and sipping contentedly from it.

“I guess I fell asleep last night, huh?” she said.

“Good thing for you there were no pressing questions with the files that I needed you to answer,” Raemon responded.

“So I could have just gone home last night?” Octavia demanded.

Raemon looked up. “Yes, I suppose you could have.”

Octavia rolled her eyes. She frowned and then asked, “How the hell did I get from your study to…that bedroom?”

Raemon was once again perusing the paper. “I carried you,” he said simply.

Octavia’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“But…how?”

“In my arms, Octavia, the way most people carry things.”

“But…I mean, I know you’re like, really buff and all but—damn, I’m not that light.”

“I’ll take that as another one of your strange compliments.”

Octavia’s eyes narrowed. “How come I woke up with no shoes on? Or my sweater?”

“Shoes generally aren’t worn to bed, and you spilled ice cream all over your clothes.”

“So you just…took them off?”

“I’d rather not have melted ice cream on my sheets.”

“It wasn’t like it was your personal sheets. That was like your guest bed or something, right?” Octavia said. At the sight of his smirking glance, her frown became more indignant. “That was your bed?!”

“Yes.”

She stammered, “So…so I slept in your room?”

“Yes.”

Octavia threw her hands up. “Is there only one bed in this entire house?”

“I’m sure there are more; I simply can’t be bothered to locate them,” Raemon said, turning a page.

Octavia made a face. “Ew. I slept in your bed.”

“In the future, I’ll be sure to toss you out onto the lawn if you would prefer that.”

“Ha-ha,” Octavia retorted. A thought occurred to her. “Where the hell did you sleep, then?”

“I didn’t.”

“You didn’t sleep?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I rarely sleep.”

Octavia suddenly became solemn. “So. You are a vampire. This explains so much.”

Raemon glanced up at her with a raised eyebrow.

Octavia crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey look, if I ever catch you watching me sleep, I won’t hesitate to drive a stake through your heart.”

“What?”

“Forget it,” Octavia said. She began to drum her fingers on the table. “Is it insomnia?”

“That is the medical term,” Raemon said, his eyes going back to the paper. “But I prefer to think of it as maximizing my productivity.”

“You have to sleep sometime, though. Right?” she asked.

“A few hours every now and then will suffice.”

“Like how many?”

“Two or three.”

“Fuck. Seriously?!”

“I never joke, Octavia.”

She shook her head.

“I can’t even imagine that. I love sleeping. It’s like my hobby. I can practically sleep at any time, anywhere. Honestly, you could have left me on that chair in your study, and I would have been just fine.”

“Unfortunately, my carpet would not have been.”

“Oops.” Octavia chuckled. “Guess the mocha chocolate fudge ice cream was more chocolate fudge than mocha.”

Raemon didn’t respond, and Octavia resumed her frown as a few unavoidable thoughts churned in her mind.

~I slept in his bed.~ She got the feeling those words would haunt her for a good long while.

She still couldn’t believe she’d been relaxed enough to fall asleep in his study, with him sitting right before her too. Why hadn’t she been more apprehensive about being around him?

She wasn’t, she realized. In fact, it was almost like she was completely comfortable in his presence. In a weird way, she almost felt as if she trusted him.

Not in any sort of sentimental way, of course. But it was as if she knew he’d never try to take advantage of her. He simply didn’t see her that way. Maybe.

Though, there was that moment last night that made their previously purely professional (okay, mostly professional) platonic relationship seem like it was dissolving under the heat of something—different.

Octavia pressed her fingertips to her temple, squeezing her eyes shut and let out a small groan.

“Something wrong?” she heard Raemon’s voice ask.

She opened her eyes and looked back at him. His face wore his usual unreactive expression, but his eyes seemed to betray some emotion. Concern. That was a new one.

“No,” Octavia said. “Nothing.” She stood. “I should go. I need to get back to my apartment and change out of these clothes. Don’t want to be late for work,” she said jokingly.

“I think your boss would let it slide this one time,” Raemon said.

“I should hope so. Considering it’s his fault,” Octavia said.

Raemon folded his newspaper and set it on the table. “Caesar can take you. I’ll ring for Jameson.” He stood and walked to the intercom panel by the door.

“No Yosef today?” Octavia asked.

“I gave him the day off.”

Octavia looked impressed. “Really?”

“Don’t sound so shocked.”

“I’m not shocked. Just…surprised,” Octavia said.

Mr. Raemon Kentworth was turning out to have a different side to him than Octavia would ever have guessed.