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Nov. 10th, 2023 at 1:53 AM
Seb & Cam
Modern AU | A long time comingWhat if the way that we started made it something cursed from the start?
Social events were par for the course when you worked for the Alexanders. The kind of social events that proved to be part networking, part politics. Where people who could barely stand each other all showed up just so it can be known they were on the guest list for an Alexander party. She could remember being a little girl watching all the guests around in their outfits that probably cost more than her mother made in a month (or more). Imagining what it might be like to be on the inside, instead of spying on the festivities while her mother was busy at work. Now she was on the inside, she wished she could tell her younger self that she wasn't missing out on anything. She would have been much happier with beer and burgers over tiny morsels of fancy finger food and wine that people insisted was good because it was at least 3 figures a bottle.
She'd worked enough of these for the family by now that she was no longer impressed by the enormous rocks new fiances wore on the fingers. Nor was she surprised by the men with their winning smiles and gorgeous trophy wives who would take an opportunity to corner in the hopes of spicing up their evening. Screwing around within their social circle was taboo but a quick fuck with the help didn't count. Probably cause wives never had to worry about being traded in for a new model when they were comparing a Bentley to a Ford.
Cam, at least, knew better than to become entangled with any of this set. She wasn't easily charmed by those who tried to flatter and she'd become quite good at evasion. Especially in a house that she perhaps knew better than those who lived in it. The Alexander estate boasted more rooms than they had extended family to fill them. A symbol of the Senior Alexanders' success that existed mostly for other people to admire. It was a lovely house. Beautifully finished, impeccably furnished without being ostentatious but it lacked the kind of warmth that came with being a true home. Cam had been raised in the staff quarters and could honestly say that the communal building that had rooms enough for full staff - while being only a fraction the size of the Main house - had been warmer than she felt this house had ever been.
Today's event had made the house more chaotic than it usually was. A birthday party for the family patriarch that would host the whose who of the social scene. Every detail had been planned, right down to the colour of the champagne. No expense spared to ensure that the people would, as usual, be talking about this for the rest of the year. Cam was usually brought into these things after the family had been attended to but the harried-looking woman who was talking at speed into an ear piece was an absolute control freak. A social climber who seemed to think she was only a step away from being among the people she worked for. Never grasping that in this world, no matter what position you held - you were either born one of them or you were other to them.
The event planner had insisted on her being the one to personally see to anything the Alexanders needed. Instead giving Cam a list of jobs that needed doing that would see her thoroughly distracted right up until guests were starting to arrive. She'd barely had time to change into the formal server attire that she'd been told to wear. Cam regretted not trying it on before it was too late to make any changes. With her long legs, the skirt was shorter than the event planner would approve of. The crisp white shirt, a little too tight across the bust and while it complimented her figure, it would draw the eye rather than help her to remain in the shadows. A fact that would surely see her needing to utilise those evasion skills.
Cam tried not to growl at the disapproving cluck of the woman's tongue as she rushed through the back door and into the kitchen, where catering was hard at work. Servers collecting trays of canapes and drinks to take around the room. Cam raised her chin in sharp defiance in response to the woman's slow perusal of her appearance. The slight sneer saying more than any of the scathing remarks Cam was sure she wanted to make. She was not some slip of a thing who would blow over in a gentle breeze. If this bitch expected her to work for her while wearing something she was forcing her to wear. She only had herself to blame when she secured an outfit for a girl, not a woman.
"It seems you're much larger than I anticipated."
Cam had to literally bite her tongue so hard that she swore she could taste blood. Her body stiff as she straightened her spine, almost daring the woman to dig a deeper hole for herself.
"Never mind. Nobody will be looking at you."
"I imagine you'd know something about that." Cam shot back. Her dry tone was in contrast with the smile she offered, even though it didn't meet her eyes. It didn't matter that the event planner didn't take the bait. The silent fury in her gaze was enough to pacify Cam, who moved to collect a silver tray loaded with drinks. "I'll take these, shall I."
It wasn't a question and Cam did not wait for the woman to respond. The brunette already moving through the double doors into the main area of the house where the party would be held.
It was wall-to-wall people, a fact that was hardly surprising by she considered the possibility that with this many around, she could probably slip away and nobody would even notice. She might have been the hired help, but she'd been worked for the Alexanders, not the catering company or the event planner. She worked these events usually to deal with them directly or because working the event was preferable to being kept up by it. She'd never actually attended one as a gust, even if she had known the family for more than two decades. The closest she'd ever come to it was hiding under a table with Sebastian when she was very young. The two of them watching from the inside, instead of Cam with her nose pressed against the glass.
She'd stopped expecting or even hoping to see Sebastian in attendance. When he'd first gone away, Cam understood that it was a decision made by his parents and not him. A painful one that had caused her more grief and loneliness than she dared to acknowledge. While he'd been forced out of the home, his decision to never return was firmly on his shoulders. Boarding school turned into college and when it came time to settle, he hose to do so as from the family home as he could possibly manage. Far from his overbearing and controlling father, and in return, far from her. It took years for the hope and sorry she felt to evolve into indifference. Years for her to come to terms with the fact that if she ever did see him again, it would never be what it had been when they were teenagers. Yet as much as she tried to say she'd moved on, it wasn't lost on her that she now worked in the very place that he had grown up. That instead of walking away from The Alexanders and leaving the past where it belongs - she now spent every day in the service of the family he had walked away from along with her.
Perhaps the fact that her mind had wandered to thoughts of him should have been her warning sign. Perhaps it would have been, if being in this place didn't forever keep him in her thoughts. Yet she wished she had heard and heeded that warning as she walked around the room. Smiling at people who looked right through her as they took drinks from her tray. She would wish that she had recognised the back of the man standing with Theo as he summoned her with a swish of his fingers. Cam politely excusing herself from the group who had taken the last of the drinks from her tray before weaving through the crowd to see what he needed.
She should have known from the menacing delight she saw in Theo's eyes that she was walking into a trap. His chiseled features made cruel by the obvious glee she saw as he all but rubbed his hands together.
"Theo?" Her look expectant as she kept her attention fully on him. The empty tray tucked under her arm as she tried not to intrude on the conversation happening around him.
"Drinks. The line at the bar is too long and you know how I like it." None of this was out of the ordinary. Playing Theo's bitch was fairly standard for these sort of things. "Sebastian... would you like something." Grinning like a Cheshire cat as he waited for that name to penetrate the fog of shock. The smug bastard watching for the fallout as Cam slowly turned her head to see a ghost, standing before her.
