Highmore Manor

The Gala Dinner was so unbelievably boring. I mean the palace was absolutely stunning, with gorgeous views out over the Meditterean Sea and the setting sun, it was gorgeously decorated as well. But that didn’t stop me feeling like I was going to fall asleep every five minutes, and if it weren’t for Chase’s hand in mine and those amazing reassuring smiles her gave me that made my head spin I probably would have collapsed.

I had managed to sit through the dinner, the food was delicious but the talking was all about politics and business and half of which was in French, which was hard enough to understand with my school taught French.

Then there was the dancing: ballroom was never quite my thing. Chase persuaded me to one dance and then we proceeded to walk around the room getting bored by a bunch of old, rich men and their wives talking about their businesses, grand estates and recent profit endeavours.

I would’ve happily swapped places with Callie on her date with the hot French boy she’d met on the beach yesterday. She had all the luck, and all the excitement. The only good thing about this was seeing Chase in a tuxedo. But that didn’t even make up for my boredom after a while.

That’s why Chase and I just had to escape when the first chance came up.

As soon as the last old couple thanked us for the chat and walked away Chase squeezed my hand and leaned down, his breath tickling my ear,
“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered. I nodded slightly and let him lead me over to the closest of many doors.

We emerged into a small sitting room with a few oriental looking sofas, a fireplace and two doors leading out of it.

"Have you been here before?" I asked in a hushed voice, feeling like if I spoke any louder I would get found out and told off.

"Nope, this is the first time I've ever been invited. I've been in the public parts but not up here," Chase whispered back, obviously thinking the same thing.

He let go of my hand and went over to one of the two doors.
"I wonder what's through here," he said mischievously, placing his hand on the door handle.

"Chase, I don't think we should go through there," I hissed catching his arms before he could turn the handle. He turned to look at me and scoffed slightly.

"Why not?"

"I just don't think we should. We probably aren't supposed to be in here - maybe," I said, feeling kind of silly for stopping him.

"Don't worry, babe, if they catch us I'll just get my dad to bail us out. And don't you think if they really hadn't wanted us to come in here they could've just locked the door?" he said with small smile.

"Well they probably weren't expecting teenagers to be at their dinner; everyone else is old and probably wouldn't want to sneak out of there!" I pointed out.

"Old people are allowed to escape somewhere private to get it on, too," Chase grinned. I whacked him on the arm playfully.

"Too?” I raised my eyebrow at him, “What, exactly, were you planning on doing with me in here?" I laughed. He turned and smirked slightly at me.

"Oh nothing really," he said teasingly, leaning noticeably closer. I laughed softly, feeling his breath on my nose.

His lips connected with mine more forcefully then I was expecting, taking me by surprise. I gasped and he immediately took advantage of my parted lips.

I felt dizzy as his hands pulled my hips closer to him; I reached up and entwined my hands in his hair. Then suddenly he was pulling the door behind him open and dragging me in after him. It was a bathroom. Obviously this was one of the suites they gave to guests, I guessed the other door would’ve led to a bedroom – it was almost a shame Chase hadn’t gone over to that door instead of the one he had.

Chase pushed me up against the edge of counter, leaving my mouth for a second to kiss my neck instead. It suddenly became hard to concentrate on anything with the shivers running up and down my spine, sent from every place his lips touched my skin.

The feeling of his body pressing against me, the weight of his hands on my waist – warm even through the fabric of my dress – was completely new to me, and it felt good. I made a weird noise in the back of my throat which made Chase laugh lightly against the skin under my jaw.

He suddenly lifted me up and placed me on the counter, pushing the skirt of my dress up so that he could push my legs apart so my knees were on either side of his waist. I was glad that the skirt wasn’t a hoop skirt because that would’ve been awkward; instead it just bunched slightly in between us and flayed out around the sides.

With me sitting on the counter I was now his height so he didn’t have to bend down so much to reach my lips. I leaned back against the mirror as he pushed me back, placing his hands on the wall either side of me, trapping me. I started undoing his jacket slowly, ignoring the voice in my head saying we were going to fast and that there was a room full of old people, who were bound to frown upon, this just a short distance away. He bit my lip as I pulled his jacket off and then –

Bang.

The door was flung open and slammed hard against the wall. I jumped in surprise, made a weird noise and pushed Chase away slightly, he turned angrily towards the open door. I looked over Chase's shoulder and found my gaze connect with the gorgeous green of Jesse’s eyes. Camilla was standing behind him looking smug and just a tad curious.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Jesse snapped, his hand still on the door.

"Well now that’s none of your business," Chase said crossing his arms over his chest.

"You better not have touched her," Jesse hissed.

"And what if I have? Are you going to beat me up?" Chase taunted, holding his arms away from his body like he was asking to be hit.

“Chase –” I started but was interrupted by the smack of Jesse’s fist hitting Chase’s face. I screamed and ducked away as Chase came flying backwards, towards me. He lay sprawled where I had just been sitting, blood pouring out his nose.

“Oh my god, Chase –” I started again, attempting to get down to help him but the next thing I knew someone had grabbed my arm and was pulling me out of the room.

“What – let go of me!” I protested as Jesse dragged me over to the other door. The other door didn’t lead to a bedroom as I’d hoped but lead into a long dark corridor. Jesse pulled me along it ignoring my protests. We came to a door that led out onto a balcony; he practically threw me out the door. He didn’t even help when I stumbled in my heels and had to grab the balustrade to stable myself.

“Did he hurt you?” Jesse asked, seeming to be genuinely concerned even though he’d just almost hurt me himself.

“No, of course he didn’t! I wanted to be in there,” I scoffed angrily, brushing off my dress.

“You are so stupid!” he accused angrily. I turned and glared at him.

“Oh thank you, I do try!” I snapped angrily. “You are so annoying! Do you think you’re my father? Do you think you were ‘saving’ me or something? All we were doing was kissing –” I started heatedly.

“Oh he was going to do a lot more then just kiss you!” Jesse replied with a cruel laugh.

“And maybe I wanted him to do more then just kiss me! Did you think of that?” I challenged, crossing my arms over my chest and fixed my glare on him. He stared at me in silence for a while.

“Why him?” he asked finally.

“Because I like him and he likes me!” I exclaimed indignantly. I groaned and turned away from him. “Why do you even care?” I sighed, leaning on the balustrade with my hands. The night air was really cold; it whipped up under my dress and froze my legs. The view was amazing, the sea stretched out in front of us with the moon leaving a trail on the calm water.

“Because Chase isn’t who you think he is,” Jesse replied coming to stand beside me.

“Then who is he?” I turned and looked at him. The moon was shining on only half his face creating a silhouette of his features and twinkling in his eyes as they looked out over the water. “Jesse?” I asked quietly.

“I can’t say,” he said just as quiet. I stared at him, annoyance slowly bubbling up in my chest.

“Why can’t you say? You two say you hate each other but neither of you will tell me why you do!” I exclaimed, getting rather frustrated with both of them.

“Just take my warning; he’s not someone you should get yourself in too deep with. He’ll hurt you, Hayley, I know he will,” he replied finally looking down at me.

I glared at him and then growled slightly, “And why should I listen to a word you say? All you’ve done so far is ruin things and make my time at Highmore pretty horrible, how do I know you aren’t just doing that now? Why can’t you just stay out of my business?” It all came out a lot harsher then I had intended, but for once I didn’t actually regret saying it.

“You are so stubborn!” Jesse replied with an almost defeated sigh.

“I don’t care!” I gasped. “I just don’t want to be unhappy! And at the moment that’s exactly what you do, so why can’t you just – just leave me alone?” My tone sounded almost wounded, like I’d completely given up on life. Really I’d just given up on him, and that hurt. It felt like I was trying to rip a part of my skin off.

Jesse stared at me. I watched with dismay as his usually clear green eyes slowly darkened, like they only did when he was really angry.

“Good idea, I’ll just leave you alone to screw up your life. It’s not like I care anyway,” he hissed venomously bringing his face down close to mine.

“Jess –” I started.

“But don’t come running to me when he does something you don’t like, because I won’t be there,” he interrupted angrily. I stared at him with wide eyes; I should have known he would’ve reacted like this. He turned quickly and stalked back over to the door. I opened my mouth to say something but he overrode it again.

“Oh and also,” he said his tone almost brighter. I looked up expecting the worst. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but don’t speak to me again! Goodbye.”

And then he was gone.

And I was alone.

My legs didn’t want to hold me anymore so I collapsed onto the freezing cold stone. It felt, in some ways, like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders but had then been replaced by something ten times heavier.

♥♥♥♥♥

When I got back inside Chase and Camilla were sitting in the small living room ignoring each other. Chase was holding a bloody wad of paper over his nose and Camilla was sitting on a sofa with her arms crossed, looking miffed.

They both stood up when I came in.

“Are you alright, where have you been?”
“You’re back, where’s Jesse?”
Camilla and Chase asked at the same time. You’d be surprised who asked which question.

“I’m fine, I was just outside and I don’t know, he stormed off,” I said with a heavy sigh.

Camilla came over to me and looked closer at my face. “You’ve been crying,” she said kindly. “What did he say?”
“Where did he go? I’m not finished with him,” Chase said sounding almost childish.

“Um nothing, and Chase please just leave it,” I said wiping my face quickly with my hand. Chase must’ve finally noticed I wasn’t looking so good because he put the tissues down on the couch and came over to me, wrapping his arms around me.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” he asked against my hair. I laughed slightly, painfully.

“No – no he didn’t hurt me,” I half lied, he hadn’t physically hurt me. “How’s your nose?” I asked pulling away from him gently.

“It’ll be fine,” he said with a smile. “Do you think the oldies will notice? I wouldn’t want them to think I was a bad boy or anything,” he said with a joking roll of his eyes. I laughed at him and shook my head.

“They won’t notice a thing,” I grinned at him; he was already cheering me up. He grinned and kissed my forehead.

“Oh you guys are just too cute,” Camilla said in a fake voice with an equally fake smile, obviously going back to not caring about me. “But what am I going to do, my date’s completely ditched me?” she protested.

Chase turned and grinned down at me.

“Oh I don’t know, go find yourself a butler or something,” he said in a non-caring tone. He grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the ballroom with all the old folks.

I suppose at that point even they were better then putting up with Camilla’s whining.