Chapter One

 

Getting a scholarship to a really top notch private school was great, in a way, but it had its downside too. St. Christopher's Academy in northern Massachusetts offered these scholarships mostly to both salve its conscience and as public relations against people who called them a snooty factory for the rich.

But they were a snooty factory for the rich. The tuition was usually about twenty thousand a year. And that's for a high school, not college. A guidance counselor at my own school applied. I had been going to a public school, and not a great one. It wasn't in a rich area, and didn't have all the stuff a place like St. Christopher's could afford.

It had thirty-five kids per class, for example. St. Christopher's had ten. It had a lot of burned-out teachers going through the motions. St. Christopher's only hired the very best teachers and fired any who didn't work at it. It had some computers, but not that many, and they were mostly old. St. Christopher's gave every student a laptop to use while there, and it was cutting edge.

St. Christopher's had an indoor swimming pool, a professional quality gym, and a top-notch athletic program with personal trainers.

The quality of the education you'd get at St. Christopher's was just unmatched. And given it also was a boarding school, it was ideal for me.

I'm an orphan. My parents died when I was young and I've been bouncing around foster homes since then. I'm also a nerd. A huge nerd. I'm not fascinated by fashion and guys and Hollywood celebrities, but by atoms and quarks and protons and DNA. I wanted to be a scientist or something like that. I even loved math!

Which was how I got the scholarship. Four years of free living at St. Christopher's too!

It was, however, lonely. Then again, that was something I was used to. Being a big nerd didn't make me a lot of friends at school anyway. Being a poor nerd didn't make me any more at St. Christopher's. These were all really well-off kids, and they mostly didn't even understand that others couldn't afford the stuff they took for granted.

So what I mostly got from the girls there were sneers and taunts, when I was unlucky, and ignored when I was. The boys, well, they mostly ignored me. I didn't smile and flirt and flatter them. I'm not blonde. I didn't wear stylish or revealing clothes. And I'm just... I guess, boring, and boring looking.

I much preferred being ignored, being left alone with a good book. Given a choice I'd spend most of my free time in the library reading, or surfing the internet. And I don't mean going to social media sites. I went to science sites.

And that was how I met Bryce.

Bryce was a typical rich boy. He was good looking, athletic, and popular with the girls. He didn't tease and taunt me, just ignored me. Which was fine. But then he started getting in trouble for mediocre grades in Science.

Everyone in a small class knows who has all the answers, and that was often me. I mean, I rarely put my hand up. But whenever I got called I gave the right answer, and people noticed. The teacher sure noticed. So it was him that suggested I tutor Bryce.

I declined.

What persuaded me was simple. Money. Bryce had a lot and I had none. It was our senior year and I was starting to wonder about what was going to happen afterward. I was probably going to get at least a partial scholarship to MIT. But how was I going to support myself over the summer? Where was I going to live? I'd have to leave St. Christopher's in June.

We wore uniforms at school, but not on our own time. What I usually wore were corduroys and t-shirts. My t-shirts weren't particularly tight, and didn't have any stylish names or logos on them. Mostly they were brown or black or beige.

Being a teenage boy, Bryce couldn't be alone with a girl without doing or saying or acting in some way sexual. He kept staring at my chest, for example, which was embarrassing. I always wore my uniform jacket to classes. The fact I was... comfortably endowed... wasn't really that noticeable.

I finally got cross. "Pay attention to the formula, Bryce, and not my chest," I said.

He grinned, not the least embarrassed.

"I didn't know you had a chest like that. Or I would have paid attention to it a long time ago."

Now I was embarrassed.

"They're just breasts," I said firmly. "Every girl has them."

"Yours look.... big," he said.

I glared at him, exasperated, and folded my arms across my chest.

"Do you want to go back to your room?"

He beamed.

"Alone!?"

"Sorry."

We focused on the formulas again, but I again caught him looking at me, and not even at my chest.

"What?" I demanded, frowning.

"Nothing."

I scowled.

"You have nice hair," he said. "I mean, it's too short and it's not very fashionable or well-styled, but I like the color and I bet it's soft."

He reached out and slid his fingers through my hair, until I jerked away and pushed his hand back.

"The book is down there," I said firmly, pointing.

I did little with my hair, to be honest. It just brushed my shoulders. I parted it on the right, so the thick bangs cut across my forehead, kept out of my eyes by my glasses.

Which was the next thing that distracted him.

"Have you ever considered getting laser surgery?" he asked.

I was startled and looked up at him from the passage I'd been reading, then sighed.

"You have really pretty eyes," he said.

"Bryce," I said. "You are not getting anything out of me but tutoring in science."

"I'm not coming onto you," he said. "I'm just saying something that's factual."

"The book, Bryce," I said, doing my best to not show that I was flattered.

But I was. I wasn't used to people saying nice things to me, except teachers congratulating me on acing tests.

We turned back to the book, and I was able to improve his grades through several more tutoring sessions. He was always nice, though, and flattering, and outrageously flirty. But he didn't really pressure me because, I think, he was a really good-looking guy with obscenely rich parents and pretty much had his choice of hot, sexy, rich blondes.

Anyway, through the normal back and forth conversation we had during those sessions he knew I was going to MIT and knew I was an orphan, and knew I wasn't sure what I was going to do with myself after I graduated.

So when we were near the end of the year, he very kindly offered to let me stay at his place.

I snorted and shook my head and he grinned.

"It's not what you think," he said.

"Uh huh. It's always what I think."

"We have an estate north of Boston."

"Not interested," I said.

"I won't be there."

I raised my eyebrows.

"I'm going to Europe this summer. My mom and sister are going separately."

"How come?"

He gave me a look. "You think I want to spend my summer with my mom and sister? Seriously?"

I shrugged. I could only wish I had a mom and sister.

"We have these two Samoyeds," he said.

"What?"

"Dogs. And they need to be exercised every day, and brushed and cleaned and fed and all that stuff."

"So what? I'm sure you have lots of servants."

"Not really. My father doesn't like strangers hanging around the house. We have a cleaning service that comes, mostly in the middle of the night. We have a butler and a chauffeur, but they stay in the garage or in rooms over it. Neither of them much likes dogs."

"I'm still not getting the point of this conversation."

"We have a girl who exercises and takes care of the dogs and does a few other odd jobs, but my mom has come to like her a lot, so she's taking her to Europe to take care of whatever she and my sister need doing while they're there."

"You want me to look after your dogs?!" I asked in disbelief.

"The job comes with an apartment, free room and board, in other words. And it's not exactly hard work. Run around with the dogs. Get them to swim in the pool. And it pays a thousand bucks a week."

"For taking care of dogs!?"

"My father is... comfortable."

"Duh."

"These are expensive dogs; pure breeds. I think he paid something like twenty thousand for the pair."

"For dogs!?"

He shrugged. "It's only money."

I was dubious, to say the least, but the thought of free room and board, and a thousand dollars a week were awfully attractive. I suspected he was just making it up and it would all be some sort of joke between him and his friends, though.

So he had me talk to his mother over the phone. Or someone who said she was his mother... She didn't sound like a teenager, though. She was crisp and businesslike, asking my age, my social security number, and other stuff. And she wasn't exactly inviting.

"You will be expected to conduct your duties with careful attention to details, Miss Warren," she said in a kind of haughty Boston accent. "We will be unforgiving if Mindy and Mandy are not properly cared for."

I blinked into the phone, then realized that must be the names of the dogs.

Stupid names, in my opinion.

So that was why, after graduating, I wound up driving north in a chauffeured limo. Bryce himself went south to Boston to catch a flight to Europe. So it was just me in the back seat with the chauffeur, whose name was Anthony.

Anthony seemed a fairly ordinary kind of guy, medium height, short dark hair, regular complexion, and looked good in a dark suit. He was probably about thirty, I guess. And he didn't talk with the kind of haughty accent of so many of those at school. He talked with Bahhhston accent, which was kind of Boston's version of Brooklyn English.

"But you can call me Tony," he said.

"So... have you been a chauffeur for the Hunters for a long time?" I asked hesitantly.

"About three years. I'm not just the chauffeur. I do basically anything that needs to be done."

"How come you don't walk the dogs?"

He laughed. "I'm allergic, for one thing. Also, I hate dogs. And I can't swim."

I looked at him in surprise.

"Swim?"

"Yeah, you have to swim with them, you know."

"Seriously?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Seriously, honey. As much as the Hunters worked not to spoil their kids too much they spoil these mutts rotten. Or at least Mrs. Hunter does. Wait till you see their dog houses. And God help you if one of them has snarled fur. Mr. Hunter might not be as devoted to them as his wife, but he's not exactly easy-going when it comes to what he expects from employees."

"Well, I'm only here for the summer," I said uncertainly.

"Irritate Mr. Hunter and you won't be here a week," he said.

"So he's a dick?"

"Not a dick exactly. He's hard but fair. He'll tell you exactly what he wants as your boss, and as long as you do that you're fine. If you fail, and you don't have a good excuse for that, you're in trouble. Just remember, he ain't your daddy. He doesn't have to accept excuses, and he doesn't care if you cry. I say that cause you're kind of young and you millennials sometimes don't seem to get how strict some of these bosses can be."

"Well, I'm just taking care of dogs so I doubt there's going to be a lot of problems."