☘︎ Jᴇɴɴɪғᴇʀ Rʏsᴏɴ ☘︎
My father had always been an art enthusiast.
It was evident in every millions worth paintings hanging in display on the off-white walls of the endless hallways of his villa and the artifacts Samuel Davidson had collected in his prime years.
The Davidson Villa itself is a marvelous architecture of ivory stone and floor-to-ceiling windows situated in the very center of a hundred-acres land. Golf club, swimming pools, gym, flower gardens and greenhouse, theater and hunting grounds, you name it and everything housed within this land.
I hated this place.
It was a fucked up image of a dreamland, and yet these lands burried more secrets than a graveyard.
Standing here at the doorstep of the Davidson Villa, my father's villa, after twelve years of not stepping foot here, sent equal parts displeasure and deja vu into my system.
The old housekeeper Samantha, one of the few staffs my father hadn't changed after the incident, takes one look at me upon opening the front door and raw recognition shines in her features.
I don't know how I felt about that.
Thankfully, whatever shock she felt, Samantha seals it in, addressing me as Miss Ryson instead of Davidson and politely leads me towards Mia's room when I tell I'm her I'm here to visit Mia.
"This place is like a freaking museum!" Viviane sighs dreamily, her eyes turning googly at the sight of a Monet painting, "If only I could be good at painting more than stick figurines, I'd have been a self-made millionaire who sells paintings worth millions."
Viviane is my newly appointed personal secretary by Sayeed since he decided to take an out-of-nowhere one year leave to attend to his pregnant wife. Ayesha is barely two months in, but Sayeed wanted to spend his days with her in her maternity duration until the birth of their baby. I understood him, really.
But the problem is, Viviane is a chattering creature who wouldn't shut up for the love of heaven. I had a major headache building with the amount she'd talked from our eight hours journey in the jet from London to New York.
Samantha halts in front of a beautifully designed wooden door with Mia's name carved in studs over it, "Miss Mia is resting here. Mrs Davidson is with her."
I turn to Viviane, "Could you stay with them here?" I gesture towards the four stoic as a robot bodyguards.
Viviane nods her head like a bobblehead, "Sure." She answers cheerfully, going as far as raising both her thumbs up in my direction.
Her enthusiasm was a bit. . .unsettling. But who was I to have a say.
Taking a deep breath, I push open the carved door and step into Mia's room.
Even in the loose blue hospital gown and the fatigue lining her features, my step-sister is beautiful as ever. With the IV jutted in her hand, Mia is sitting with her back against the headboard of the bed, a royally bored look plastered all over her face as the doctor droned on about some diet plan to keep her condition stable.
We had found out about Mia's Artial Septal defect a few years ago when she'd fainted from a sudden loss of oxygen in the middle of a gala event. It was a heart condition where a person had a hole in the upper part of their heart. The hole caused increased blood to flow to the blood vessels of the lungs which might result in high blood pressure, shortage of oxygen or even heart failure.
Technically it's a birth defect but Mia had been diagnosed with it later on in her adulthood. The doctors claimed that the hole would usually close up on its own with adequate medication and time but in extreme cases, she might need a surgery. We'd stalled it up until today because Mia had seemed perfectly fine.
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The Secret Heiress | ✔️
Romance---▪︎ A Wattpad featured story ▪︎--- Twelve years ago, an incident changed my life. I was sent to London by my father with a new identity; all alone, away from my family and home, away from everything that was me. With a new persona as Jennifer Ryso...
