Chapter 28 - The House Warming (1/2)

If Gabriel Tan's crazy enough to lend her the whole building, then how about she matches his craziness?

”If this is really my residence, everyone is at my beck and call, correct?”

”Yes, Ma'am,” Dale says as he opens the door to her suite.

”And everything I want done, you'll accomplish?”

”With the exception of an order that points to the Residence's self-destruction, then yes, Miss Claire,” Dale says. ”Say anything, and we'll gladly do it.”

”Okay,” Claire says, a mischievous smile creeping across her face as she takes off her shoes and tosses them on the carpet. ”Then my first order is…”

Dale dutifully listens to her request, then he speaks to his earpiece. A moment later, the disco beats of Blondie's ”Heart of Glass” is heard throughout the ten-story hotel.

Claire lets her hair down as soon as Dale leaves, grooving to the music, her hɨps swaying.

”Oh, my god!” Claire mutters to herself. ”This is amazing.”

She lets the water run, turns on the jetted tub, and pours an entire bottle of bubble bath in the water.

She lets her clothes drop right then and there, enthralled by the sight of the city before her. The sky is clear and blue, with a few streaks of white—it's a picture she rarely sees from her former part of the city.

So this is what you get when you're rich, or when you can finally afford to buy the best things in life—a sight like this. It's all so beautiful. So why do most of the rich—like Michelle Alcantara and Gabriel Tan—such grumpy, angry people?

When she thinks the water's ready, the foam just right, Claire slips into the Jacuzzi. The delicious sensation is overwhelming—she never experienced luxury like this before. She never felt so sensually good like this. As a regular human being, all Claire had was a bathroom with four walls around it, and a dingy bathtub. There was no element of pŀėȧsurė—it was all practical, as taking a bath was just one of the things you do to ready yourself to face the world every single miserable day of your life.