Dennis had arranged for Hauteshot's on-call pilot to pick me up in a Jet Ranger the company had on retainer and whisk me to L.A. for Katherine's series of meetings.

CHAPTER TWO

ONE YEAR LATER

This is my first attempt at both writing and posting a story. It's still a work in progress so please bare with me. Any "constructive" criticism and advice is appreciated. Thank you for your patience.

Synopsys

I was sitting at Katherine's breakfast station, savoring a steaming half-caf macchiato and watching Marta the housekeeper out of the corner of my eye. She was staring at me when she thought I wasn't looking. I considered having fun with this game of peekaboo, but I figured I'd already toyed with peoples perceptions of Katherine enough, and I definitely should not start messing with the house staff.

Still, something had to give. So I finally caught Marta in one of her stares and, by my stern look, dared her to look away.

Chapter *33*

La Romantica Como

 
 
“You do make a cute girl Drew.”

“So I'm told.” I allowed with a sigh.

“So do you do it often, dress up that is?”

Of course, at home I've got a full girly wardrobe, I even go to school as a girl.

“I got tricked for the dance right, lost a bet, I don't do it for fun.”

Nope just to survive day to day.

*Before…

I have never been in a public setting like this for that long in my life before, it’s completely blown any other times that I’ve done this out of the water as it were.
I feel happy and I feel actually like I’ve grown a lot just by getting past something like this.
We get settled in and we hug our driver and he even helps carry our bags with the porter to our rooms and say our goodbyes for the night as he leaves us his personal card for us to call him if we need him again.
That could be a definite thing.
I have a shower and get everything off of me from being out there…no I’m not a germiphobe but it just feels good to wash the day off.
I think that I might have stress sweated slightly.
Brandy’s looking at room service and I’m going over the things that I bought her from The Apple Store.

*And Now…

"Mr. Tyler, your resume is very impressive," Robert Marotte, chief recruitment officer for Soixante-Trois airlines, said to the young American man sitting opposite him. "Two years working for Belman airways in America, fluent in English, French & German, conversational in Russian and Arabic, you could choose any airline you want. Why do you want to work for Soixante-Trois?"

I believe I was genuinely surprised ...although maybe a small part of me went 'Aha!' when it turned out to be the gawky nerd I'd 'Kanyed' at the Piracy Conference.

Jared Kaltmarsh was apparently Valleywag's new 'it kid'. The darling of all the angel investors and 'the next Zuck' according to all the cool kids in tech bubble land.

For the officially anointed Golden Child, he was quite sweet and unassuming. And for a math whiz, he seemed pretty clueless about money.

My name is Claire Olivia Milton. Or at least… It used to be.

I was born on 2nd March 1990, the second daughter of three, to two loving parents. My father is a manager at a big investment firm, my mother- 15 years his junior- was his secretary until she fell in love with him, got married and had three kids. Growing up I wanted for nothing- I lived in a big house, was spoiled rotten, went to the best schools… And yet, from a very young age I knew something was wrong, not with my family, but with me.