The Countess and the Beast

"Scotland?" Mami yelled, jumping from her pink puffed chair, which I find horrendous, her voice turning more high-pitched than usual, in angry French. "Have you lost your mind, Selene? What in actual hell are you going to move to Scotland for? You barely stayed in Lyon, after staying abroad for 11 years studying for your bachelor and masters' degrees."

When she is in angry-French mode, she speaks too fast, but it's not a bother to me, as I'm far too used to that.

"Your mami is right on this Lea," papi joined, with that stern and cold expression that takes over his pretty face every time he does not agree with something, like now, he definitely doesn't agree with me moving out of France, after I finally moved here to be around them, even though I have to constantly travel around.

"And in a village?" Mami gasped horrified. "You want to move to a village, 81 minutes away from Edinburgh, in an abandoned haunted castle, in the middle of nothing, surrounded by a forest?"

"Mami," I said softly, in French, but keeping the habit of calling them the German way like papi and his familie taught me growing up. "It is not haunted, and I bought for a good price. You always knew I intended on settling down in Scotland, to root myself where I was born, and to learn more about my birth parents and their death. Besides, my secondary work is in the United Kingdom. I only have to check in once to twice a month in London, and for that I can just drive to Edinburgh, and get a train to London from there, which is only 5 hours long. It's perfect!"

"No. No, it's not. It's absolutely madness!" Mami hissed. "Yes, we do understand that you want to learn more about Catriona and Lachlan and all, but why don't you just stay there for a while until you learn everything and come back to us? Life here in Lyon is better, and you also works here, you have two lines of work in here, Selene. Besides, why move to a village and not directly to Edinburgh? That's where they were from, and it's where you were born, damn it. Jesus Christ, you could get murdered in that middle of nowhere of a town, and it would take us ages to find your body, and by then, it'll be dismembered and buried all across that damn forest!"

I'm telling you, she talks fast.

Sigh, "Callander is not in the middle of nowhere, mami. Callander is a bustling tourist town situated on the River Teith, 27 minutes away from Stirling, and is often described as the gateway to the Highlands. It's a small town, not a village, with a population of 3,080 people. And it's 78 minutes away from Edinburgh, not 81. Well located, it's 51 minutes away from the port city of Glasgow, 49 minutes away from Perth, and 94 minutes away from St Andrews. It's a peaceful town with everything one needs."

Mami let out a incredulous feral sound.

"Lyon is home to more than half a million people, compared to it, that is a fucking village. How are we going to contact you in that hellhole? What is in there even? Nothing. There is nothing. Why don't you move to London instead? We've lived in there from your 3 to 10 years, then we came to Lyon, but since you had to get into MIT at 12, we moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the US, with you. And we stayed there until you were 19, when you graduated from your master in Harvard. Then you moved back to London for another master, for a year, and we came back to Lyon. But your hyperactive ass couldn't stay down and move here with us, and you moved to the US again, for more 4 years, for 2 master degrees in MIT again."

"We stayed 5 years away from you. Then, you finally came back to Lyon at 24, and now, after barely staying with us, you want to move out again?" She crossed her arms over her chest, fists and jaw clenched, and that feral glare burning in her big navy blue eyes. "You just managed to spread your name as an architect here, you're getting lots of big projects, and you also have your other work in here with us. If you decided to move to London for good instead, we would totally understand, since you do have another work in there which we trained you for years so you could land it at 17 and a half years old, but a village in Scotland?"

I knew she was going to freak out, which is why I waited 2 months to tell them about it. I landed the deal with a big real estate company in Edinburgh two months ago, for just £9.000.000,00, which is amazing as it's not just the old manor but a huge piece of land with part of a forest and a river in it. The manor by itself needs reformation, but it's worthy, it's from the 18th century and has 12 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms, with many other rooms, it's three stores tall above ground, containing a rooftop, and also an underground.

Sure, it's a lil big for just me, but it won't be just me in the future. That is… when I find myself a boyfriend, merry him, and have kids. I'm nowhere close to any of those steps, but I'll be.

"Not a village," I corrected and she gave a me death glare.

"A small town am arsch der welt," [at the arse of nowhere], papi mocked, cursing in German, as annoyed with me moving as mami.

"Will you feel better if I buy a place in Edinburgh too?"

They shared an hesitant look, "You have your birth parents' place in there," papi spoke after a long silence.

"I have 87 real estates that inherited from them, all over the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Austria, papi. 17 of them being all over Scotland, 10 of those 17 solely in Edinburgh," almost all of them are being rented though, gives me lots of money, and I love money. "But I'm asking that because this entire fight began after I told you I bought that manor in Callander, which again, is a manor, not a castle like mami called," she has a thing for dram, always had.

Her pale skin turned strawberry red and she averted my gaze, a pout on her small heart-shaped lips painted pink with her favorite raspberry lip tint from Sephora. Licking them, she brought her blue eyes to me again, "You aren't moving to Scotland just because the girls are there, are you, Zalea Selene?"

By the girls, she means Cassandra Raelynn Baumgartner and Ivory Seraphina Blanchet, my childhood best friends from London, Cassie being the daughter of mami and my birth mom's friend Eliza Gray-Baumgartner, and Sera being the daughter of papi and both dad's friend Kingsley Blanchet Parsons, all friends from work, and part of the same unit in it.

"Nein. Besides, they moved there because I told them I was going to move there," I countered and she narrowed her eyes. "And if you check, you will see that I landed two of my townhouses in there for them. The 8 and the 6 Doune Terrace, in the New Town neighborhood, in Edinburgh."

"And the middle one?" Papi raised his dirty blonde eyebrows at me.

They really only pay attention to what they want, don't they? "I had told you, before mami freaked out, that I am going to live in Edinburgh for as long as the manor in Callander is reforming. I'll be in the townhouse in between theirs."

"Why don't you just live in it then?" Mami sighed annoyed.

"Because I don't want to live in a big city, and Edinburgh is as huge in population as Lyon. I want a small town, well-located, and close enough to a big city such as Edinburgh that I'll be able to go there daily to work when needed, and close enough to London that I'll go in the morning and come back at noon."