THE BILLIONAIRE EX-CONVICT BRIDE

CHAPTER 13: TO THE HOUSE

Allison's POV

Dylan's house was simple, yet beautiful. In a neighborhood of affluent houses, each of them with very unique and beautiful design by the personal taste of their owners, his seemed to stand out, but by not standing out. There was a dullness to it that seemed as well to be profound as something I could not really wrap my tongue around and explain.

"So this is your house," I said, loudly, this time sitting on the front seat as he was, observing the hedge that acted as a wall around the vicinity. In the middle was a gate, black barred.

He gave his signature chuckle once again, my heart fluttered and seemed for a minute as though it was about to fly off my chest.

"Are you nervous?" he asked.

His question made me nervous instead. "What? Why would you think I am nervous?" My hands were already shaking at his question. What could he possibly have seen to make him think I was nervous?

"Nothing. I just wanted to let you know that you should not be. My mom is a simple woman. When you are around her, you just have to act nice, and she would be nice to you..."

I heaved a sigh. "Of course I am nice," I said to him. "There should be no problems here then."

"And also, you have to be able to make pudding or pretend to know how to make pudding," he added as he drove through the gate. It was automatic so it opened by itself.

We got in and I stepped out. In the hotel room, I had changed from the raggedy old clothes I had into a body-hugging red gown with spaghetti shoulder straps. It was the only dress I could think of when he said I should dress in something fancy, but not too fancy.

I knew from intuition that Dylan telling me his mother was a very simple woman was, more or less, a fad. Women are never simple beings. They might appear so, but they really are not. Of course, I was a woman, so I can testify about my own lack of simplicity.

The yard in the house was huge. So huge the building itself only took a little space within the yard, and even it in itself was pretty humongous in size.

I looked around and saw just how neatly kept the surroundings were. The hedges and lawn were trimmed, the pavement towards the house was clean, it even seemed like it had just been done in the morning, and the walls were neat. But it was strange. If only he and his mother lived in the house, then where were the servants? If there were no servants, how could he even be capable of keeping all of this neat and well-kept?

"So where are your servants?" I asked.

"That's a sudden question for you to ask; why, if I may ask, are you asking? What do you really want to know?"

"Well... The surroundings look really well-kept. It would be weird if you did all of this yourself and still made time for work. Because I do not see any servants around."

"Mom doesn't like servants. Strangers living in the house cause her great suspicion and raise her blood pressure. It's been like this ever since my father died. Instead, we higher workers. They don't sleep in the house. We don't let them too.

Hearing him say that, only served to convince me that she was not really as calm and friendly as he had tried to paint his mother in the first place. More reasons to be nervous.

Before we could get into the house, a woman had opened the front door. I could not see her face clearly, but I knew she had a smile on it. But the more steps we took towards her, the less the smile was apparent. And at the end, with us just a little distance away from her, the smile I thought she once had was now a straight line darting through a curious face with old eyes that searched me in and out.

"Good morning, son" she greeted, the smile she once had becoming visible in a split minute as she stared radiantly at her son. "You did not come back last night, and you promised to come back. I was so lonely I fell asleep waiting for you."

"I'm so sorry, Mother," he said softly. It was the first time I had heard him sound soft-hearted to anyone. He must have really cared about his mother. From staring at them, I could see visible but very tiny cracks in the invulnerable personae that he put on. "I really have some explanations to do."

"You know you do." Her eyes glared at me, suspicious and unrelenting.

Swiftly, Dylan held me by the hand and said "Mother, I introduce to you, Allison. She is the woman I told you about."

In a brief moment after that second, I noticed the woman's eyes. There was no excitement to it. Just a cold stare that had me freezing inside.

"And Allison, this is Mother. Now, although the sun and the air outside do feel really beautiful and alluring, I think we should take our business inside, where we can better understand ourselves."

The woman gave a smile. I knew it was fake. She extended her hands to me for a shake. I was apprehensive of it at first but decided to take it.

"Welcome to our home," she said.