Chapter 3: Selling Souls
"Did you kiddos have a good day?" Alec asked the siblings as they piled into the van at the end of the day.
"About as good as it could have gone," James replied, buckling his seat belt. "It is a pity that it has to end though."
"Indeed it is. I for one am going to miss carting you guys off to school." Alec replied, starting the engine. "Now, you didn't hear this from me, but your parents have something big they are going to tell you when you get home. I cannot give you specifics, as I didn't hear much, but it has something to do with the luncheon they had you prepare this morning." He told them, turning out of the school. Esmee, Savannah, Claudia, Jeremy, Joshua and James looked at each other with wide eyes.
The rest of the ride was buzzing with conversation and concern as the siblings tried to figure out what their parents had discussed and with whom.
"Maybe they were meeting with orphanages, trying to pawn us off of them?" Joshua suggested.
"I doubt it. Them? Willingly giving away six servants for free? Not likely." Savannah pointed out. "More likely they sold us off for a high price."
"Well whatever they have done," Alec said, drawing their attention. "You should find out soon. We are about to turn into the driveway." The car went silent.
"Oh good, your home." Sadie greeted them coldly as they entered the dining room. "Have a seat." Hesitantly, they sat down. Whatever this was, it couldn't be good. It was never good when she wasn't giving them orders right when they first came in. "You may be wondering why we asked you to prepare for a luncheon this morning." That was discussed, Esmee thought. Where is this going?
"The luncheon was for a group of our friends." Jonathan, who had been hiding himself in the office adjoining the dining room, said as he came into the room holding a stack of folios. "And some of their associates. It was a very productive luncheon, in which we managed to secure each of you a spouse." The silence that hung in the air was so thick, one might have thought it was a block of butter as he placed a folio in front of each sibling. "These are the profiles of your future spouses. Read them carefully. You will all meet your betrothed later tonight." Both him and Sadie left the room as Renee came and laid down the afternoon snacks for them.
"Did we even discuss the idea of our parents selling us off to be married?" Jeremy asked, wide eyed.
"Not for marriage, but otherwise yes." Esmee replied, looking down at the file in front of her. "And he isn't playing around, either. These are the same type of folio Dad uses when he is either going into court or signing a deal." She brushed her fingers across her name embossed in gold on the black leather surface.
"He must have gotten a lot of money from this deal," Savannah said, opening hers. "And that would make sense, since I am apparently going to be the housewife of a Billionaire CEO." Everyone else opened theirs.
Esmee couldn't believe her eyes. Not only was her future husband very handsome and successful, but whomever wrote his profile also described him as the kindest man they had ever known.
"Does anyone else have a Mafia as their betrothed?" Claudia asked. "Or is that just me?"
"I think it might just be you." Joshua replied. "Mine is a farmer and heiress to a fertilizer fortune."
"Well, mine appears to be the daughter of Eric Vanguard." James said. "One of Mom's friends from when she was a journalist."
"What about you, Jeremy?" Esmee asked, trying to avoid the question herself.
"I am betrothed to the one and only Peia Jet." Jeremy said, eyes wider than they had been in the car. "I have no idea how I managed to pull that one off."
"Wasn't her manager one of Mom's close friends?" James asked.
"Yeah, she was."
"Then that's how you managed it." Claudia replied. "What career does your betrothed have, Esmee?"
"Under the career section, it just has a part time investor and fulltime philanthropist, so I am assuming that either he has some kind of money or he just lives very frugally." Esmee replied, slightly ashamed that her betrothed didn't have an exciting career like a media personality. "But the profile does then go on to say that not only does he have a massive real estate portfolio, but has also 'started his own restaurant management company, which has acquired many high end restaurants'." She finished as Sadie and Joshua entered the room again.
"So, what do you think?" Sadie asked, holding her hands in front of her like she was a server in a diner.
"We will take them all." Esmee replied just as brightly, closing her folio"and looking up at her father and stepmother, smiling.
"Excellent!" Jonathan cheered as he looked at his wife. "That's 4.5 million more dollars in our bank account. Now, we might be able to hire decent staff." Esmee tried her best to hide her discomfort, but wasn't sure how successful she was.
"I will go and inform our dear friends that their presence will be required tonight for family dinner. Also," Sadie turned back to the table. "We will be having twelve guests over for dinner tonight, a barbeque because we cannot fit twenty people in our dining room. Girls, you are to prepare dinner and dessert. Boys, I want you to clean the entire garden, scrub the patio and restock the bar, as well as collect firewood for both the firepit and barbeque." She said, before they both walked out of the room.
"Well, people, there are our marching orders. Do everything that you did this morning all over again, but for more people." Esmee said as she deflated at the amount of work her stepmother wanted her to do. "Hopefully our betrotheds are kinder to us than this, and that we can get married off fairly quickly."
"Is anyone else seriously considering telling their fiance/ fiancee everything that goes on behind closed doors tonight?" Savannah asked. "If only to put a rush on this whole marriage thing?"
"If we do that, then there is a chance that the marriage gets called off." Jeremy warned. "If we want to escape here with our heads, then we had better be on our best behavior tonight." Claudia groaned.
"I hate it when you boys are right." She complained. "But since whining isn't going to help us, we might as well get started on our tasks, so that we have enough time to get showered and changed before the party."