“Go get dressed, I’ll get comfy too.” The old man says, getting up from the chair while groaning. His old sore muscles ache with pain as he pats her shoulder.
“What is it?” Upon her freezing there without moving, he asks the girl.
“Where… i mean…”
“You weren’t born yesterday, darling. It’s your house too! Did you forget where you put your clothes like your old man too?” He asks Cassandra who grows red like a tomato.
“Silly girl. Mr. Andrew, please show her where she goes on a shopping spree and buys her clothes and collects them like trophies.” The butler laughs as he politely gestures for her to follow him.
“I’m growing old like you too, old man.”
“My bad. My habits are rubbing off on my children. Zayn asked me something along the lines too. It’s like you two aren’t from here anymore.” Framton only meant the words as joke, but Cassandra froze in her spot.
“Are you someone else?” His eyes wide with shock, he asks the girl. Cassandra thinks of the most casual reply a person can give in this scenario. So she says, “Haha! Stop joking around, papa! Like you said, your habits are rubbing off on me. L-let me see if the red one suits the night…” Saying, she wanders off.
Heaving the biggest sigh ever, she enters the room behind Mr. Andrew as he shows her the closet. She walks in, trying to act as normal as possible.
“Thank you, Mr. Andrew. It looks like I have to filter them out slowly now. Any giveaway centers you’re aware of?” She asks him.
“Yes ma’am, we’ll do that.” She makes a face at Mr. Andrew.
“Don’t call me that. I’m Cassandra, or Cassie. Please.” She scoffs with a gentle smile as the male leaves after replying with a humble, “Yes, ma’am.”
She changes into a light peach and pink gradation frock and pairs it with leather shoes and a beige bag for her phone. Walking out of the room, spraying some light vanilla flavored scent upon herself, she was assisted into the car as she puts on some lipstick.
“Now that’s like my Cassandra.” Framton says, patting and caressing her head out of pure fatherly love. She smiles at the older male, feeling the warmth she could never feel for her 17 years of life in the other world.
They reach the destination she shared to the driver as Framton raises his eyebrow.
“Sabana Hotel? The one with the swings?” He asks. Cassandra fetches her sunglasses and secures a scarf around her face.
“Yes! Oh wait, you don’t have altophobia right, papa?”
“Nope. Who do you think your old man is?” The two laugh as they make their way inside.
People recognise Framton right away, but fail to recognise the girl in sunglasses and scarf.
She confirms the reservation for two.
“Let’s go, pa- I mean, uncle.” Framton drops his jaw to the floor at his daughter calling him uncle- for the sake of protecting her own identity. Although, people weren’t fools.
The receptionist at the desk was a giant sucker for gossip. He asks the waiters assigned for their table to click secret pictures of Framton and the girl. They don’t know their relationship, yet. The world can be a wild place to live in.
“Thank you for coming, papa. I felt so bored at home.”
“You should have taken any of your brothers to dinner as well. Why me?” Asks the old man.
“You’re so dimwitted, papa.” She says, her elbow resting on the table as she looks at him, “I wanna spend time with my dad. That’s all. I… have my exams coming up too and I wanna shake off some stress. But I think you were busy-”
“Come on, I could never be busy for my children’s requests.”
“Thanks, old man.” She smiles hugely.
The food was ordered and served as well. At each order, the swing goes up and comes back down from the tall tower. It was a monitored system, something which required a lot of their employees focused on manual observation on their customers.
“Oh yeah. Somethings happened with me. I’m not sure if they said anything but…” the girl begins to gossip with her lovely fatherly figure about everything she wanted to let him know. He listens to his sweet daughter narrating everything, listening ardently and making youthful comments in between.
“How could he do that!? You should have broke his wrist or even his neck! Louis will take care of everything!” The old man says. Cassandra’s jaw falls to the table.
“You trust Louis a lot, don’t you?”
“He’s one of my main pillars of resistance. You don’t know how scary your brother is on the field, girl. You should see him at work, 10 on 10.” Framton blows a kiss from his mouth, pride for his eldest son flowing in excesses. Cassandra chuckles and shakes her head.
Over dinner, they proceed to talk about her future as she in a stupor lies about her future dreams. In the conversation however, she cleverly gets to know about her brothers’ dreams as well. She makes a mental note on their likes and dislikes, adding her own four day observations on them.
As dinner concludes, they wait for the swing to come back down as they remove their safety belts to get down.
Framton holds his baby’s hand and rubs it with his warm ones.
“Who told you to wear sleeveless clothes on a January winter night, Cassandra? So reckless.” Saying, he removes his own coat to give to his shivering daughter.
“Thanks, papa. You’re the best.”
“Ha! Tell me something new.” As they reach his mansion, the infamous Johnson Estate, he asks the driver to drop her back home but something in her tells her to refuse the offer.
“No! Papa! I mean, tomorrow is a holiday for me anyway. Let me stay here.”
“Okay, but are you sure you’ve prepared well? You’re stressed about these exams, right?” He asks the girl who purses her lips forward.
“I’ll leave back home in the morning, papa. I promise.” Even the driver laughs at how adorable the youngest was.
Soon, Cassandra changes into her pajamas she found in the closet and skips into her father’s room.
“I’m here!” She chirps to the man who was reading some text on the book. Cassandra settles beside him on his lap, snuggling into the old man’s warmth as he slowly pats her to bed.
‘Such a cute daughter I have…’ He thinks, pride and everything good filling his heart as he thinks about his adopted children. All of them were his precious gems.