The Billionaire's Authentic Daughter ▶️

8 6 | J U L I A

It was Sunday, a day when both of us had nowhere to be and nothing to do making it difficult for me to dodge Braxton and a lot easier for him to corner me into a conversation.

I considered going to the library and begging Jade for her shift but that would make it obvious that I was going to extreme lengths to not be alone with him.

"Julia."

His voice startled me and I looked around for where he was. He was leaning against the wall, his arms folded over his chest, looking at me questioningly.

"What?"

"What're you doing? You've been looking at the coffee table for quite some time now."

"And how long have you been looking at me?"

I wanted to slap at my mouth for speaking my mind. It was just something I thought of when he said that. But the words were out before I could do anything about it. Now I made things between us more painfully awkward that they were before.

He continued to look at me with an unreadable expression on his face. Just when I thought he was going to let silence answer my question so that we might move on from this moment as if I had never asked him, he spoke. "Quite some time now." The way he said sounded like he was talking about longer than a few minutes than what he implied with the coffee table.

I got up. "I was thinking of cleaning around the house today."

"You don't have to do that. The others can-"

"I'm one of them," I reminded him. "I want to repay you for giving me room and board in any way I can."

I went and got a rag to start wiping down the furniture. I started with the coffee table.

"It's my house," he said suddenly. I looked up at him, unsure at what he meant because that much was obvious. "So I shall help you."

Before I could protest against it he got a rag of his own.

"No, you shouldn't. I'll do it!" I reached for the rag in his hands but he held it away.

"I will do it. Don't stop me. I'll be in the kitchen."

Then he left. A few moments later, I heard the panicked surprise of the maids in there and then him insisting on cleaning by himself.

I couldn't help but smile. He was so kind, so perfect. How could he be human? Humans made mistakes and some were monsters in a man's skin. But Braxton was a different kind. He seemed too good to be true.

We kept to ourselves as we cleaned every inch of the house. He was dedicated to getting every speck of dust off of every surface. He would scrub at a spot for minutes until he was satisfied and would sometimes come back to the same place because somehow it had gotten dirty and needed to be cleaned again.

After a long time, we both find ourselves in the store room outside the house near the garden. I spotted our flowers growing nice and healthy, the ones we'd planted that one time when I was trying to cheer him up because all his bandmates but him were getting collaboration offers. I made a point to water them daily. They were blooming prettily and seeing it a fond smile found its way to my lips.

We started to sort through the things. Our previous streak of silently working without interaction ended in the storeroom where I needed to ask him about every item-whether it was junk or something useful.

After that came the cleaning up of the items which wasn't in the junk. He had an old book rack in the room completely covered in dust. It had cobwebs and spiders all around. It was obvious this room had not been opened in months much less cleaned.