25.
Anna nodded in agreement. School was fun. She got to reunite with her middle school friends and it was a beautiful reunion because they all missed her and she missed them too. It will be a pity if she gets back to being home schooled all because of a silly mistake.
"I am going back to my room good night," she said as she got down from Anna's bed.
"You won't sleep here?" Anna asked hoping for a positive answer from her sister.
"No. Good night," Rose did not hesitate to give Anna a negative answer since she was too busy with her thoughts to notice the pleading look on Anna's face.
As Rose closed her eyes on her bed to sleep, she could not keep the name Hart from her mind. Her mind kept chanting that name over and over again involuntarily. This night, she slept and dreamt of those hands that gave her comfort at her dying moment and that soothing voice. It was the best dream she had dreamt in more than two years.
She made Anna apologize to Jace the following day. "I am sorry," it was obvious that Anna was sincere about this apology unlike most of her apologies.
"It's okay," Jace accepted her apology immediately.
The truth is Anna apologized sincerely because of Jace's background. If he came from an ordinary family or perhaps even a family which was not the Hart's family, she would never have apologized not to talk of apologizing sincerely.
"But . . . but under one condition," Jace said just when Anna was sighing in relief that what happened won't get to her father through his father.
Both Rose and Anna turned to look at him surprised and Anna could not help but glare at him. She really wanted to punch his handsome face accept that she did not have the right to. "What condition?" she asked between clinched teeth with so much difficulty.
"Let us. The four of us become friends," he said with a serious tone as he pointed at Rose, Anna, his guard and himself.
"Oh, that is not a problem at all but we also have our own condition," Rose answered immediately when she noticed Anna was about to give a negative response with anger visibly written on her face.
"What condition?" Jace asked with enthusiasm as he was very ready to bargain.
"Don't tell your dad about what Anna did to you," she said hoping he was not too cheap.
"My father knows about that already," was his simple answer.
"Uh?" horror was boldly written on Anna's face.
"Then tell him not to tell my father okay?"
"I can't order my father around."
At this point, Rose really gave up reasoning with this boy. She picked a small white leather purse from her bag and walked out of the class without sparing Jace a glance. She was slowly beginning to dislike him.
"Why don't we try begging him to plead with his father?" Anna suggested when she ran and got to Rose who was about to enter the elevator.
"He should go ahead and tell dad. I really don't care. The last thing I will do is beg anyone," Rose answered immediately without room for a second thought.
She died in her last life begging for her life and little did she know that she had subconsciously made up her mind never beg anyone in this life even if it was for her life until she voice it out now. Yes! She rather die in this life with her dignity no matter how small it might be but still held in place than to beg for mercy and still get ruthless killed and made fun of.
"I accept your deal. I will talk to my father. I will plead with him not to tell your father okay? So, can we become friends?"
Rose only nodded slightly without sparing him a glance as she walked into the elevator.
Seeing he had pissed off his future sister-in-law, Jace turned to his guard and pulled him aside. "Don't tell my brother I offended Miss Rosaline," he ordered the guard.
"Yes Sir," the guard answered but had already planned how to put that in writing when writing his daily report.
"That's good then," he said rushing to enter the elevator but the door of the elevator had already closed. He sighed and decided to take the stairs to catch up. Pulling his guard's hand, he headed downstairs.
In the cafeteria, he paid for their meal with his meal card.
Rose noticed the guy's attention was on her and he was trying every way possible to please her and it made her confused. Shouldn't he try to please Anna who he was obviously having a huge crush on? Then why was she the new source of attention? However, after noticing his obvious efforts to please her, she decided to get rid of the little atom of dislike she had towards him.
And also, she did not want to get on the bad side of the great Hart family.
With the new development, the guard could finally sigh in relief. He was not scared of offending any of the Whitfred's Misses because they were all getting along now. He hoped hard that it would continue that way to prevent from caring out the plan he submitted to Mr. Hart.
***
After resolving the issue Anna had with Jace, Rose thought trouble was far from them since with Jace around as their friend, everything was easy although a lot of people could not help but envy them. The looks of envy simply came from far away and no one dared to come closed.
Things were going really easy and interesting. The more she got to know Jace, the more she felt he was likable. They got along pretty well and she discovered he was very intelligent and she found it interesting but something kept bothering her and that was how he knew her real name.
He stopped calling her Rosaline but she really wanted to know why he will call he Rosaline without even knowing her except if he knew her. She was a good judge of people's character and she could see that Jace meant no harm. So, she decided to ask him.
"Why did you call me Rosaline on the first day we met?" she asked as the waited for the arrival of their meal.
"I heard your name when you introduced yourself. You know Rose and Rosaline mean the same thing in two different languages. I guess that was why I called you Rosaline," Jace answered and tried to sound as truthful as he could. On the file his brother gave, it clearly stated that Rosaline was using the name Rose but he felt a strong urge to call her by her real name.
The reaction he got from calling her that was very important because the file he was given to study by his brother stated that she lost her memory after getting into the orphanage. She was not supposed to show such reaction if she did not have to hide the fact that her name was Rosaline. She had to have gotten her memory back.
"Why did you ask," he asked to get more reactions from her.
Rose disappointed him as there was no fluctuation in her reaction. She simply smiled and said, "It felt new and I kind of liked it."
"Oh," Jace said nodding. He did not feel disappointed again when he tried to connect her reaction when he called her Rosaline and the answer he got from her now. They were completely different. She looked as though she was caught doing something really bad. "Should I call you Rosaline from now onward?"
"No," Rosaline immediately gave him a negative answer without a second thought. It was enough that she looked like the late queen and things might just get worse if people begin calling her by the name of the late princess.
That solved it all, she got her memories back but she did not want to be associated with the late princess. He hoped he could give his brother this information and get something cool in return. But first he had to win Anna over to himself before helping his brother.
Anna had brought over her friends for an introduction to Rose. One of them was a boy of small stature who dressed in a stylish manner but his big glasses gave him the look of a nerdy and the other was a girl who dressed almost the same way Anna did. One of their friends moved oversea according to Anna's friend and that was the friend that was last seen with Anna before she was kidnapped.
Rose tried not to create a train of thoughts with that little clue but found herself going through when she glanced at Anna sitting close to her friends as they ate and talked together. What if the new girl knew something about her kidnapper and ran away out of guilt?
After a while of not getting anywhere reasonable with these thoughts, she decided to put that aside till some other time and dug into her lunch since the lunch break was almost over.
***
After weeks of avoiding trouble and having a peaceful time in school with their four other friends, trouble actually found Anna and Rose despite how hard they tried to avoid it. A rumor had been going around school about Anna and it caused their little gang to get different types of stares.
No one knew how the rumor got to school but somehow it did. Anna and Rose tried to ask their friends but they refused to tell them.
"Why won't you tell us?" Anna asked frustrated. She had tried since ever she arrived in school to get an idea about what the rumor was about but she made no progress and it was pushing her very carefree self over the edge.