Break The Rules {JacksGap}

Alexia has a good life; daughter of the billionaire diamond businessman Franco Vendetta, clever, rich and funny. She couldn’t ask for anything more. Except she isn’t happy. Her life is carefully chosen for her, and she has never left the luxurious mansion that her parents had built deep in the Monaco countryside. Filled with more determination than ever and at the arrival of her 18th birthday with a marriage looming, she is desperate to live her own life and someone can help. When finally she reaches Britain, the first 2 men she has the chance to speak to are the one and only JacksGap. Things get explosive, in Britain and Monaco, and Alexia must make the hardest choice in her life.

Chapter 1

I smile at the mirror. I turn and smile at the window, watching the clouds roll themselves over the mountains. I smile at Ignacio, my kitten, a small bundle of sandy fur, as he bats around a toy mouse on the tiled floor. I smile for what feels like forever until in let my lips droop back into the lonely frown I wear constantly. Ignacio tips off the bed and crashes into the floor, letting out a defeated squeal. I feel laughter bubbling up but it never reaches my mouth.  A hot summers breeze drifts into the room and the scent of burnt sand and salty water floats in alongside, caressing my hair and bare skin until I begin to shiver. I turn, and walk towards the balcony, letting the thin white curtains rise into the breeze, floating like water against the shore.

 I stand. I watch the trees waver in the heat, I watch as the monochrome servants buzz about below, preparing and stacking plates, cutlery and tables. They trot from porch to porch, setting tables and aligning chairs until everything is so perfect it hurts my brain. The sun rises into the sky, glistening and reflecting of every surface.

I follow the harsh line of 10m sandstone wall as it curves around the house, dipping and rising over the stretches in terrain. It is my fortress and my prison. The wall encloses me so I cannot escape, yet they tell me it is for protection. I want to leave, but I can’t. The house is large and airy, hallways glide into ballrooms, kitchens, bedrooms, living space, bathrooms, pools, saunas, gyms. Anything you could possibly dream of is within this wall. Stables sit far back in 6 acres of lush green grass, and I can just spot the 4 multipurpose courts to my east. I can see tiny figures as they bat a ball between them, punching the air and falling to the ground in the humid air. I do not know who they are. To my west I spot the Vendetta Olympic sized pool, a delicate glass palace, vastly expensive yet barely used.

I do not usually leave the house. I like to roam the corridors, hoping I can get lost within the belly of the beast but I never do. I know the place too well despite its size. Once I discovered a corridor I did not recognise, it was simple and plain, a stark contrast to the ostentatious décor of the rest of the house, gold ceilings and gilded walls, lined with hundreds of expensive paintings. I must have liked the different look because I stayed in that corridor for hours and hours, exploring every room and being glad to escape the overview of my father and mother. Suddenly a harsh memory surfaces from my mind and I recall what happened.

I walk into one of the plain rooms, and find a king sized bed fitted with white sheets. 2 people are in the bed, moving silently and slowly. I didn’t know what was happening because I was so young but I can see them. Only a few weeks later did I realise that it was my mother with someone who was not my father. Need to say I never returned to that corridor, and never found it again.

The memory makes me want to vomit so I hurry into my bathroom. I lean over the sink but nothing happens, so I straighten up and catch my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

My hair is thin but a summery blond from the days I used to spend sunbathing and hangs below my shoulders. The ends are split and jagged, something I need to get sorted by the onsite hairdresser. My eyes are boring, a normal blue, lined with a few long lashes that I get from my mother. My lips are pale and rosy, yet chapped. I smile again, and my line of white teeth peak out. I am tanned and freckled, a deep brown that makes me fit in here. My mother always says that I am an English rose, and I get my looks for her, but I can see my father in me, tall and straight with a permanent distance and cold expression. I like to think I am neither. I am my own, neither voluptuous and British like my mother, wrinkled from days in the Monaco sun, or tall and Spanish like my father, the years of fine food making him fat and useless. I am thin but muscly, tall but the right size. Carefully clothed by my mother so I look more womanly than I am.