"You don't look too good. What happened?" Rose asked after Anna returned from talking to Mara about the driving lessons.
"That red-haired guy was Claire's friend, the late girl that died. He said Jace got stabbed but I don't think he did it. He is a witness and I think he knows the person who did it," Anna replied sitting on Rose's sofa.
"Mr. Hart told us Jace is fine. I think we should believe his father. We can't go to his house again and request to see him because we have gone there earlier. Relax. I don't the guy is saying the truth," Rose assured her with a smile.
"Mara agreed to teach us together. I think we should start learning today. Let's go," she said excitedly although not as excited as she would have been if it was going to learn how to ride a motorcycle.
Thinking of a motorcycle, she remembered Jace warning about riding a motorcycle at her age and she frowned but decided to believe her sister and Jace's father.
***
"The king invited the family for his birthday party," a man told a weak looking woman as he sat beside her.
"He saw her on TV I guess. The king is not as powerful as the late Queen and there are many ways to prevent the whole family from going. You should think of something that will work well," the woman told the man as she moved her gaze from the man to the beautiful sunset before her.
"Can't we prevent Rose from going alone?" the man asked confused.
"That will only make him suspicious. We must stop them all from going to prevent all suspicion. It is for the best," the woman replied. She sighed deeply.
"I will make that happen," the man agreed.
"Let me know the idea you come up with. Don't make it too close to the birthday. If possible it should be carried out latest by tomorrow. Remember there father is always trying his best to please the king and his foster family. He will make sure Rose goes except he is down."
"I think we should just have him be at the hospital unconscious during the birthday party."
"Be careful not to kill him or the Hart family will come for our heads," the woman warned closing her eyes to enjoy the warm breeze on her skin.
"It will be done well. I will be careful. It is getting cold outside. I think we should go inside," the man suggested although not making any room for her refusal.
She sighed displeased but stood up obediently with the help of the man and went inside the house.
***
This year, there won't be a fashion show but some of the clothes will be chosen to appear on a magazine. She was granted the opportunity to write in a small portion of a magazine monthly to give teens fashion advice for that month.
The pay was good but nothing close to what she wanted but since she wasn't given allowance for an unknown reason, she had her own money to save up since she almost did not have anything to spend money on.
She applied to participate this year despite participating last year. Her teacher agreed totally seeing her desire to achieve great heights in the fashion world. However, her classmates thought it was wrong for her to do so.
"Do you really think I shouldn't participate?" she asked her only friend in the club.
"I think you should. You have every right to and from what I see, you don't want your achievement to be tied to your mother. If you want to succeed on your own, you have to use any opportunity you get," he advised her sincerely.
"I will participate in this year's competition. I see no reason why I shouldn't," Rose said aloud.
"Only three clothes will be shown on the magazine," a girl said frowning angrily.
"It is a competition. I will try my best and every other person have the right to try their best too. I might not even win the slot," Rose replied. This was one of the very few times she actually spoke aloud to so many people.
Most of the participants came from wealthy homes but just like her, majority of them wanted to proof to the world that they were talented and it was not only about their family's influence. They all wanted to win so that they could have something to boast of in the future.
She also wanted to win to add it to her list of accomplishments as the future Queen. It was not just in fashion designing. She also won a painting competition last year and she was the best student in her class for that year.
The competition was a zonal competition and this year, she will be moving to the national competition till she makes it to be the world best. For the junior art competition, she was not as excited as she was for the fashion competition.
It had a good money prize but she also wanted to make people know her in a lot of places before she comes out as the princess.
Although as an art student who shouldn't know much about mathematics as many said around her, she turned out to be the school's best mathematics student and there was a high possibility that she might represent her school for this year's mathematics competition.
If she had remained home school, she might have not been involved in any of the competitions. Anna was also doing good as the second best science student with Wayne being the best.
Rose could feel the look of hatred, jealousy and anger from her fellow club members but the fact that they were not happy about it did not mean she was going to back out.
"I am sorry if my participation might be an inconvenience but I really need to do this. It means a lot to me than any of you can imagine. I hope you will all understand. Just as much as you want to win, I want to win too," she tried to appease her fellow participants hoping to reduce the hate gazes she got from them.
"I think you should all act in a matured way. You all deserve to participate in the competition. If her participation threatens you then, it should drive you to do better," the head teacher told them with her soothing musical voice.
They nodded in agreement and most of them moved their gaze from Rose to their work tables but a few still felt it was unfair.
The head teacher smiled at Rose and nodded. Rose was a talent just like her mother. She could swear that Rose was not adopted but inherited her talent for Valerie and she could see that the girl wanted to do well on her own and she was willing to help her.
She loved seeing people with talent and a drive to succeed and do better than anyone else. Valerie might be her mother and sister's biggest competitor but she did not mind helping the interesting daughter of the competitor. The girl's fashion sense showed in her appearance.
Rose maintained an young elegant appearance that impressed her but her designs seemed to bring out the fire in the girl's soul. The fire was strong but she could not understand why the girl was hiding it.