Chapter 12 - The Journey to the Unknown (1/2)

What's the Palace? What's the event? And what is her role in it?

So many questions, but so far, Lopez is not so forthcoming. All he does is grunt and nod in ȧssent to each of Claire's conjectures. ”It is not my place to provide the details, Madam.”

”But I thought you were sent to actually 'enlighten' me about it,” Claire says.

”I was sent to merely prepare you, Madam. And to safely escort you to the Palace.”

”And what is this Palace, anyway?”

”It's just his house,” Lopez says.

Claire makes a face. ”The last time you said we were going to a 'house', what a house it was!”

Lopez shakes his head and smiles. ”Apologies. I didn't know you were actually serious when you said you didn't know anything about Balenciaga.”

Claire is silent for a while. They are now outside the city, and in Claire's estimation, they're in the vicinity of what is considered the country's most posh village. High walls on both sides of the road, and usually the only people you'd see are either maids walking their master's dogs, or security guards manning the main entrance or the gates of individual mansions. Claire wonders how do people in this area actually live? They're trapped in their own cocoons of wealth and affluence. They don't even speak to their next-door neighbor. They live here, but is any of them actually happy? Do they feel fulfilled?

She'd rather live in her apartment—that is, if possible, without her annoying flat mates. She'd rather live at the heart of the city, right next door to food trucks and wet markets and everything else. Not here. Not in this kind of place. Claire realizes that even if they offer her a truckload of money to live here, she'd choose not to. She won't live her life according to other people's expectations. Especially not these kinds of people.

It's already deep in the night. Claire tries to see anything outside the window, but it's getting darker, the mansions getting farther and farther from one another. The Bentley makes a turn to what seems like the last road of the posh village, and to her surprise, they proceed deep into the darkness. They're traversing a lonely country road now, which is actually well-paved, maybe a private access built by whoever owns the mansion at the end of this road. That would be Gabriel Tan or his family.

They really must hate people, Claire thinks, to choose to live so far away from the rest of the world. No wonder Gabriel Tan has no empathy, his emotional cues a mismatch to those of a regular person. His preference for that complicated coffee, for example. Or his nasty reputation. She wonders if all of that is well-deserved, or part of that is just myth that has grown around him.