Chapter Twenty-One: Mr. Hart

I looked at the clock that was sitting on the huge mahogany desk surrounded by dozens of drawing sheets that were scattered all over the desk.

A sigh left my lips as I realized that it was already eleven in the morning.

Meaning that I needed to tidy up the mess that I had created. The bed, the floor, the desk, everything was covered in drawing sheets, pencils, colors, and brushes.

Yep! I was trying to draw a unicorn the entire morning and ended up drawing a treehouse with a little fairy playing with the ivy leaves that were decorating the treehouse.

It really was not an easy task to clean up the mess that took me only a few minutes to create.

Within ten minutes, the room was looking exactly how it was around three hours ago, tidy and boring. 

I was really careful with whatever I did in that room from the very day I realized that my new room actually belonged to Domenic.

I seriously did not want to end up ruining something in his precious room since I had no confidence in surviving through his cold personality.

Just then a knock on the door disturbed the silence of the room as well as my thoughts.

"Come in." 

I softly said, loud enough to be heard by the person standing on the other side of the door, as I arranged the books sitting on the desk.

The door opened and Mr. Hart entered the room along with Leo.

I wanted to roll my eyes after seeing the youngest Alessandro brother. However, I controlled my sudden urge and just kept standing there beside the desk with next to no emotion visible on my face.

For Leo, the lack of emotions in my expressions was not something new. He had been trying to do weird stuff throughout the past week to make my cold and indifferent expression crack even a little bit.

For example, the very first morning after I had that nightmare, I found one of my hands tied with his hand with a silk ribbon.

According to him, I had started sleepwalking and I almost destroyed all the precious posters of his favorite band.

That's why he tied his hand with mine so that I won't end up sleepwalking again and destroy something else.

Even though I had no idea what he was trying to do but I was damn sure that the sleepwalking story was a complete lie.

I would never dare to enter any of the Alessandro brothers' rooms, not even in my dreams.

That very same day when I was about to retire to bed, he was again there with a storybook in his hands and he wanted to tell me stories.

Then there was the incident early in the morning two days later while I was having my breakfast when he placed a glass full of some weird kind of mixed juice which both liked and smelled disgusting enough to make me puke.

Moreover, he wanted me to drink that poison because he thought I would love that juice since I did not like sweets.

These were just a few of his weird actions that I had suffered through the past few days. Almost every time I encountered him, he started speaking out completely nonsense things.

As he entered the room along with Mr. Hart who was surveying the interior of the room, I just waited patiently for Leo to leave me alone with Mr. Hart as soon as possible.

I was already nervous about the next few hours where I had to learn about the advanced subjects that I was supposed to take the coming semester.

If Leo stayed with us then there was no way I would be comfortable enough to pay attention to anything that Mr. Hart would teach me.

The fact that I had started feeling uncomfortable in the presence of the Alessandro brothers made a sad smile appear on my lips.

"Miss Alessandro, do you like this room? I mean how it looked?" Mr. Hart suddenly asked me out of nowhere.

The question was so sudden that I was left completely anxious as I tried to reply in a calm tone.

"I...I'm.....Well, I think..." 

I wanted to say no. Who would like a room with nothing but darkness in it? 

The walls were painted dark forest green while the ceiling was dark grey. Even the floor was covered in black tiles with a dark forest green colored rug covering most of the area.

I never entered his walk-in closet which stood right beside the washroom. And the room only had a bedside table and a desk.

The bedsheets matched the color of the ceiling and except these, the entire room had nothing else in it.

No shelf with his important documents, not a single painting as the walls were left completely bare.

The room gave such dark and lonely feelings that even if I would switch on all the lights, I could not forget about the emptiness that it made me feel.

To be honest, I felt like the room was a replica of my own life. It represented me very well.

And that was how I ended up changing my answer as I replied to Mr. Hart's question.

"Yes. It's pretty good. Suits my taste." 

I was damn sure my voice sounded as indifferent as it could and as I turned my rues to look at the two men in front of me, I realized that somehow they were already expecting my answer.

While Mr. Hart's eyes bored into me like he was trying to understand something deep, Leo was looking at me with soft eyes.

And I hated both. I did not want anyone to look past the facade that I had created but most importantly, I did not want the Alessandro brothers to show me any kind of concern or sympathy.

It was like Mr. Hart knew that Leo's presence was making me anxious because the very next second he looked at the Youngest Alessandro brother as he said, "Thank you for your assistance. I will like some peaceful time with Miss Alessandro."

Leo rolled his eyes but then stormed out of the room without a single word.

But of course, he did not forget to ruffle my hair before leaving.

A brand new hobby of his that was driving me insane.