Saul stepped out of the elevator and walked toward his friend’s apartment door. The door was partially opened as he had to use the buzzer downstairs to inform them that he was here. When he entered into the apartment, he immediately noticed the girl knelt on the floor scrubbing the carpet with a white cloth.

Vaughn was standing in the kitchen, drinking some coffee while he watched her work. He had a sadistic grin on his face whenever he pulled the cup away from his lips. “Don’t miss a single spot! I swear if my carpet is stained…”

“I know!” Adrienne snapped, “When I am done with this I am leaving! It’s getting late and I have a life beyond this, you know?”

“I own your ass for a year, this is your life.”

She didn’t have a retort for that, so instead she inhaled deeply which caused her chest to puff out, before she quickly returned to scrubbing the carpet. “That’s as good as it’ll get right now. I’ll bring some better cleaning supplies tomorrow.” She stood up, put the cloth back on her belt, and grabbed her backpack from the floor, before she noticed the man in the hallway. “Your guest is here.” She snapped as she walked past him and out the door.

Vaughn raised his coffee mug to Saul and grinned, “Coffee?”

“What is she twelve?” Saul asked the moment the door shut.

“She’s of drinking age, so at least twenty one.” He shrugged his shoulders, “Why?”

Saul walked into the living room, “Please, please, please tell me that you aren’t thinking of sleeping with that girl or any other perverted ideas.”

“I was actually thinking about treating her like crap until the last month. Then I was going to woo her a bit, fuck her, and toss her out the door on the last day.” He put the coffee cup down, “She needs to learn that not everyone can be trusted and stop being so fucking optimistic all the time. Pisses me off.”

Saul covered his face with his hand, “She’s ten years younger than you!”

“I’m not marrying her, Saul. I’ve slept with younger women. What does it matter to you, anyway?”

“It just does.”

He chuckled, which was something that was almost unheard of when it came to Vaughn. “Look, she’s a free maid and errand girl. With her running all my errands, I can do the job of my assistant while at work and everything else is getting done around here without me. When the year is up, I’ll hire an assistant, I just want my father to sweat a little.”

“But you still said you were going to sleep with her and toss her out.”

“I am thinking about it. I’ll tell you what, it never gets old tossing them out on their asses once you are finished with them. Why do you think you’ve never found a woman here in the morning?”

Saul crossed his arms, “You’re sick.” He stormed off toward the front door, “You are a sick, sick man, Vaughn! You need to get yourself some help!”

“I’m not sick. I’m just extremely cruel, because I find it entertaining.” Vaughn continued to grin.

“I hope that one day you fall in love with a girl and she treats you like you are a contagious disease. It would be more than you deserve.”

“Too late.” He took another sip of his coffee.

“Bastard.”

Vaughn waved his hand at him which was his way of telling him to get lost. Clenching his teeth together, Saul slammed the door behind him as he stepped out into the hallway and made his way to the elevator.

Lucien placed several boxes of rice and noodles into the cupboards of Adrienne’s apartment. He had brought several bags of groceries for her and always dropped them off when she wasn’t home. There was no way in hell that Adrienne would ever accept them from him or any of the other guys. She was just too proud to take help when she needed it.

However, everyone would always deny that they left it for her, so she could never figure out who to return it to. He knew that she eventually ate it and that was all that mattered to him.

Wade sat on the couch as he shook his head at his friend’s attempts. “Do you realize how degrading it is for Bleu to come into her apartment and see things she didn’t buy? She knows that at least one of us thinks she is so poor and incapable that she can’t take care of herself.”

“I could care less if it degrades her. She has too much pride as it is. It’s beyond ridiculous that she is working for this guy, when we would have all helped to pay whatever she owed him. She’s too stubborn for her own good.” Lucien snapped as he opened the fridge to shove in some juice and vegetables.

“Her pride is her downfall, I give you that much, but you aren’t helping matters.” He sighed, “Why do you do this anyway? What if in the end you put in all this effort and she still rejects you?”

Lucien turned to look at his friend in the living room under the hanging cupboards. “Even if I wasn’t interested in her that way, I’d still do this. Bleu is my best friend and has been for a long time. The question is why aren’t you and the rest of the guys helping?”

Wade crossed his arms and sat back on the couch, “Fair enough, but when she rejects you will you continue?”

He had returned to putting away the groceries. “I don’t think about her rejecting me.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“I realize that, but it’s not something that I think about.” He folded up the paper bags and walked into the living room with them under his arm. “I’ll probably continue out of responsibility. She does rely on this food, but I have to admit that I’ll probably feel a bit bitter about it.”

“At least you’re honest.” Wade put his hands on his knees to help himself stand up from the couch. “Are we done here?”

Lucien looked around, “I’m going to do the dishes and clean the bathroom real quick.” He said as he walked past his friend and into the bathroom.

Wade shook his head, “You can’t be serious?”

“She doesn’t do it. If I didn’t do it, she’d have a mound of moldy dishes and limescale all over the bathroom!” Lucien had raised his voice so he could be heard in the bathroom, even though Wade was standing by the door. It was a small apartment that any conversation could be heard all over the house at normal volumes.

“Don’t you think you are taking this too far?” He looked around the corner at Lucien who was cleaning the toilet.

“I’m pretty sure that I have. It’s almost stalkerish, right?”

“Almost.” Wade sighed, “I’ll be on the couch taking a nap, let me know when you are ready to go. I’m starving.”

For the most part, it had been an uneventful day after her first encounter with Vaughn that morning. The bathroom, as disgusting as it was, had been easy to clean up and she had dumped enough bleach in there to ensure no smell could survive. The windows had to be opened and the vapors eventually ran her out, so she knew she would have to return later on.

After cleaning the living room and the kitchen, she had turned her attention to the study. Since Vaughn had been in his bedroom all day, or perhaps he had left when she was in the bathroom, she had found herself able to work without any distractions.

The shelves in the study were somewhat dusty, but it was obvious that they hadn’t gone for long without a cleaning. She used a moist towel to quickly gather the dust, before she would move on to the electronics in the room. As she was dusting, she noticed a photo album on the bottom shelf and pulled it out to take a look at it.

The front had a picture of the sun either setting or rising, which Adrienne decided couldn’t have been something that Vaughn had picked out himself. Opening the album, she looked at the pictures. All of them were of Vaughn and a beautiful blonde woman, both of which looked very happy. She didn’t think she had ever seen Vaughn smile until those pictures, except for his cruel smirk that he got whenever he insulted her.

One of the pictures caught her eye right away. It was of Vaughn sitting on the couch with wrapping paper in his lap. In his hand was a small brown statue that looked almost like a horrifying face that one would see in a horror film or perhaps on a totem pole. She couldn’t quite place it, but suspected that this was the statue that she had broken.

“No wonder he was so upset about it. Probably a gift from her.” She mumbled to herself and leaned forward to put it away. She doubted that Vaughn would want her looking through his stuff.

It was just her luck that he walked into the study at that moment. He rushed over to her and yanked the photo album out of her hand. “I said clean it, not look at every god damn thing that I own!”

“I’m sorry. It was just some photos of you and your girlfriend. It’s not like it was a porn flick that the two of you did together.” Her fingers burned from where the photo album had been pulled from her hands.

Vaughn looked down at the photo album and left the room with it. Adrienne followed him out in time to see him throw it in the trash.

“Why are you throwing it away?”

“They are my things, I can throw all of this away if I damn well please!” He turned around and snapped.

She shrugged her shoulders gently, “There was a picture of you holding a brown statue. Was that the one that I broke?”

He glared at her for several moments and she wasn’t even sure if he was going to answer her. “Get back to work!” He finally shouted, then stormed toward the hallway and back into his bedroom. The door slammed behind him causing some of the pictures on the walls to vibrate.

Adrienne sighed and shook her head, before taking the photo album out of the trash. “You’ll regret throwing this away later.” She spoke under her breath and took it back to the study. “Always so damn grumpy. Overreacts to everything. No wonder you have to bring drunk people home to have any visitors.” She continued to mumble as she put the photo album back on the shelf and returned to dusting.

Vaughn slammed his car door shut as he got out of it and stormed up the stairs of the mansion. His sister, Vera, had seen his car pull up and had come to the door to greet him. She was stopped mid-step when she saw the anger in her brother’s eyes.

“Vaughn?”

“Where is he? Where is that senile old man?” He snapped.

She pointed up the stairs, “What’s wrong?”

Without responding to her, he headed up the stairs. He knew that she meant he was in his bedroom and quickly made his way there. Not bothering to knock, he threw open the door and found his father, Dwight, in bed. He was sitting up and watching the morning news in his large bedroom that was about the size of Vaughn’s apartment.

The décor had been designed by his mother and Dwight had refused to change any of it. He had even had trouble when the room needed a new paint job, as his wife had painted the walls herself. The room was done up in light woods and baby blues, which was his mother’s favorite color.

“You shit! I should suffocate you with your own pillow!”

Dwight had a tray of food over his lap and had been biting into a biscuit when Vaughn had entered the room. He didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by his son’s dramatic entry, and simply finished his bite and then put the biscuit back down.

“I assume this is over your mandatory vacation?”

Vaughn threw the file that had been delivered to him that morning on the bed. They had purposely waited until the day that Dwight wasn’t at work, so that his son wouldn’t make a scene there. “This isn’t a vacation! I am being suspended! Don’t try to fucking sugarcoat it!”

Dwight sighed and took a sip of his coffee, “You can call it whatever you want to. Either way, you should look at this as an opportunity.”

“An opportunity for what?” He crossed his arms as he waited for his father’s response.

He shrugged, “To relax and maybe come back to yourself. Since the day that Dawn left you have grown worse.”

“Before that, you used mom’s death. I’ve always grown worse to you. Maybe this is just who I am.”

“I use Dawn now, because she had made you tolerable. I know what it’s like to need a woman to make you feel better about yourself.” He looked over at the picture sitting on his nightstand. “The difference between us, boy, is that when she left I kept all her love and teachings. You chose to be everything she didn’t want you to be.”

“Mom didn’t steal your credit card, charge up an exorbitant amount, and then run away.”

Dwight chuckle, “You didn’t know your mother very well, did you?” He could see that this was getting them no where from the look on Vaughn’s face. “Go on vacation. Have a good time. When you get back, I’m going to guarantee you’ll feel a bit better.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere!”

“Then stay locked up in your apartment and spend the extra time bringing home the bar sluts that you are so keen on. I don’t care, but don’t you come into that office building or you will be fired on the spot. Hear me?”

Vaughn pressed his lips together, “One of these days, you are going to find yourself in the worst nursing home I can find, old man.”

Dwight simply smiled as his son shot out the door, then returned to his breakfast.

“Bleu!” Lucien ran out of the apartment building behind her after he had locked her apartment. “Don’t put yourself through this.” He grabbed her arm.

Standing on the broken concrete of the apartment’s walkway, she pulled her arm from his grasp. “Lucien, why are you being so forceful about this? It’s my decision and…” Her cell phone began to ring. “It’s probably that jack ass!”

Lucien rolled his eyes.

“Hello!” She tried to sound cheerful.

“Jack ass wants to know why his stupid assistant is late again.” Vaughn growled.

A chill fell over Adrienne’s body as she walked toward the front gate. Lucien followed behind her and when they both got to the gate, the looked over it to see Vaughn leaning against his black sport’s car.

“Stupid assistant wants to know how you found out where I live and why you are here.” She continued to speak into her cell phone, even though he could hear her perfectly without it.

Hanging up his phone, he shoved it back into his pocket. “You are over an hour late and you gave me the address when you signed the contract!” He snapped, “As if I have all day to investigate what hell hole you live in!”

“Hey, don’t fucking shout at her!” Lucien barked back as the two walked over to the man in the business suit.

“It’s alright Lucien.” She hit his shoulder. “Vaughn, this is my friend Lucien. Lucien, Vaughn.”

“I don’t remember giving you permission to use my first name.” Vaughn snarled.

Clearing her throat, she lowered her head briefly. “Sorry.”

Looking over the larger man that stood behind what Vaughn considered his property, he grinned. He could already tell that this guy was protective of her and it wasn’t just that he yelled at her. The boy seemed puffed up and glared at Vaughn as if to prove to him that he was superior. He knew that move as one of intimidation, but he also knew there was nothing he could do to back up his puffing and strutting around.

“Get in the car.” He opened the passenger side door for her.

“Huh?” Adrienne looked at the gray leather interior.

“This is a car and that is a car seat, you sit down in it!” He yelled, which caused Adrienne to rush into the car as quickly as she could manage. He slammed the door shut when she was in, but Adrienne had to open the door again to release some of her pants that got stuck.

When the door was finally closed again, Vaughn turned to the large man. “She’s mine. At least for the next year.” He smirked as him before walking around to the other side of the car.

Lucien’s nostrils flared, but he chose not to say anything in respect to Adrienne’s decision. Had this been any other situation, he would have gladly gotten himself suspended from the team for being arrested or faced any other consequence to blacken that man’s eye. Other than the fact that Vaughn was rude to her, there was no real reason to hate him. There was just something about him that rubbed him the wrong way since the moment he heard about the man.

Getting in the car, Vaughn continued to smirk as he started the car. He tried not to look over at the enraged and no doubt full of steroids demon on the side of the road.

“Buckle up for safety!” Adrienne chimed beside him.

Out of the corner of her eye, he glared at her. “What?”

“Safety.” She mumbled barely audibly as she tugged on her seatbelt, but let the subject drop as they pulled into the street.

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