Chloe could hear the sounds of laughter escaping the dining room ahead. She was late to dinner, but better late than never. 

     She prepared herself mentally and emotionally to fake a smile for this room of strangers. She could yell at Henry about it later. For now, she decided it was best not to embarrass herself in front of these people.

     The dining room table was set like a chef's table. The courses were laid out beautifully among fresh flowers and lit candles. The ambiance was warm and merry. White wines in crystal glasses, and table cloths made of fine linen.

     It was a far cry from the pizza nights she'd have with her mother and Tom.

     The guests were four individuals. One was a tall, stout man with a beard and stylish haircut. Another was a woman who looked the same age as Elizabeth, but with a dark hair and a much kinder disposition. The third was a very thin girl who looked like she was in her late twenties.

     That left the fourth person. It was a boy, who seemed to be the same age as Chloe. He had chestnut brown hair and brown eyes, he favored the tall man in the room, but a much younger and more attractive version of him.

     Of course, at the other side of the table was Henry and Elizabeth. It pained Chloe to see how much of her appearance she inherited from her father. She had his hazel eyes, his mahogany hair, his nose and his same stubborn jaw. He was a really handsome older man, he looked like he was probably very popular with women when he was younger.

     "There she is!" Henry was standing to his feet.

     Chloe stood frozen in the entryway.

     Henry approached her, wrapping his arms around her to give her a hug. He was behaving like they were close when that was far from the truth.

     "Everyone, this is my daughter, Chloe. She is staying here with me and Elizabeth. Chloe, this is the Price family. This is John Price, you could say he's like my employer, this is his wife Sara, his daughter Penelope and his son Prince."

     Prince Price. Chloe thought that had to be the cruelest name to give a boy.

     Sara seemed the most enthusiastic about the introduction. "Hello Chloe! Your father was telling us so much about you, it's nice to put a face to the stories. Look at you! You are so beautiful!"

     Oh yes, they had to be stories, because what could Henry have possibly even known about her?

     "Have a seat Chloe, you can sit by Prince." Henry insisted.

     Chloe numbly was obedient. She doubted she could even get a bite of food down her throat without it coming back up. Everything about this situation felt strange and wrong. Father's should be comforting their daughters over a loss, not expecting them to be used in some make-believe show for their bosses.

     Conversations resumed. The laughter and loud talking was back. Wine continued to flow, and the world kept on spinning even if Chloe's world had ended.

     "It gets easier you know," a voice quickly whispered into her ear.

     Chloe snapped her head to look at Prince. He was speaking to her. She didn't even know how to respond to him. He leaned closely towards her again and murmured, "Dealing with a new family. It gets easier. Sara isn't my mom either."

     Did he think that her parents had divorced?

     Maybe it was an act of temporary insanity, but Chloe calmly raised her voice and spoke at an audible level said, "I lived in Cairo. I got very used to sand. I told my mother for my birthday I wanted to see snow, so she and her boyfriend, who raised me like a father, granted my request and they died of suffocation—and likely hypothermia—in a freak accident avalanche off the mountains of Austria. So now I'm living here in a five-hundred-dollar dress. . ."

     The laughter had stopped. All that remained was deafening silence.

Chloe was back in her room; Elizabeth had made sure to have her quickly leave the table and return to the gray guest room. Chloe took off the five-hundred-dollar dress like it was a twenty-five-dollar dress and left it crumbled on the floor. She'd placed on a comfortable pair of track pants and a yellow hoodie.

     There was a soft knock at the door.

     Chloe quickly dived into the covers of her bed and pretended to be asleep. She didn't want to be scolded by Elizabeth again.

     "Chloe? It's me, Henry," at least he didn't call himself her father.

     She peered from under her comforter, and slowly lowered it down. "What do you want?"

     Henry stepped into the room, pushing the door closed behind him. He sat at the corner of her bed, looking uncertain of what to say, or how to even explain himself. "Look, this is new for both of us. I don't have any experience with kids or raising them. Your mother was an amazing woman, and I am sorry that she is gone and that you are hurting. I just wanted to get through dinner before having this talk with you."

     Chloe rolled in her bed to look away from him. "Basically you wanted to ignore everything I'm going through for the sake of your job. I told Abigail and Elizabeth that I didn't want to go to dinner."

     Henry hovered a hand over Chloe's shoulder, he considered patting her for a moment, but decided against it. "Elizabeth and Abigail understand how important my job is, and if I don't try and prioritize, we could risk losing everything. I want to try and make up for years we haven't had. I want to give you a good life. I couldn't do that before because of my marriage, but I can do that now with Elizabeth."

     Right, Chloe knew he couldn't do it before because he had to keep it a secret that he had a daughter through an affair. Henry's ex-wife was rich and Henry didn't come from money. He stayed in the marriage until he could make the appropriate job connections to catapult him to success.

     Now with the divorce far behind him, a fancy business and a wife who was a former actress, Henry Martin could finally play dad.

     "Please just go, I'm really tired. I just want to sleep." Chloe couldn't handle anymore talking.

     Henry stood and nodded his head. "Okay, I'll let you sleep. In the morning, Abigail will bring you a phone, it's yours to keep, my number will be in it if you need anything or to talk. You can have two weeks to settle in, cry and figure yourself out. After that we will have to talk about school."

     Was he serious? She couldn't even think about school! And how was two weeks enough time for Chloe to get over the loss of her mother?

     She let Henry know just how she felt about what he had to say by lifting the covers over her head. She welcomed the darkness and the silence that followed him leaving the room. With her eyes shut tightly, she willed herself to find a way to sleep, and she hoped that if she could it would be a dreamless sleep.

Morning came too quickly. There wasn't the smell of Tom's freshly cooked garlic omelets and toast or the sound of her mother singing the greatest hits from the 80's. 

     Only the sounds of a blender, and the scent of espresso. Chloe didn't like the smell of coffee, she found it bitter and the after taste to be too sour. She didn't understand why people would famously choose to drink coffee when there were tastier alternatives with assortments of chai teas and chocolates.

     Chloe showered in the unfamiliar stand-in-shower with the clear glass doors and then combed her hair roughly and tried to find an outfit that suited the cooler weather of New York. She began to hate the cold. Her mother always warned her about wanting to see snow: "The snow is a lie. It makes everything appear so beautiful and pristine, but beneath it hides all the ugly, dead and rotting foliage."

     Maybe if she'd listened to her mother her life would be different. If only she'd begged for a tablet instead of a skiing trip.

     Chloe shook her head. She couldn't think on that now, if she focused on it, she'd lose the energy to eat. She hadn't eaten since she arrived yesterday.

     She left her room and noticed all the doors were closed and probably locked again. She went down the stairs and made her way into the kitchen.

     If she thought her room was drab, the kitchen was worse.

     It looked like a model-home kitchen out of a magazine; too clean and perfect. Like a display unit in a furniture store.

     Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table with her small, Pomeranian dressed in a leopard-print dog-coat while sipping on her blended wheatgerm juice and skimming through articles on her tablet. Abigail was juggling documents and talking over her bluetooth headset.

     "Listen Jerry, I need those files by twelve promptly, no later than that. This merger has to go perfectly. Do you understand?" Abigail talked while she shoved a tall green glass of juice in Chloe's direction.

     Chloe lifted the glass to sample the contents. It tasted like the whole produce section of a grocery store blended into one drink and topped off with garlic and apples. It may have not been poison, but it definitely tasted like it.

     She pushed the glass back in Abigail's direction. "It's okay. I can just make breakfast for myself."

     Elizabeth stood from her seat, stroking the head of her surprisingly quiet and gaudily dressed Pomeranian. "With what? The fridge is stocked with wine, soy cheese and my ingredients for my morning shake. In this house we do not consume heavy sugars, starches, fats, breads or dairy. You can eat the carrots if you like, no more than two. If you want something heavier, I'm sure Abigail can arrange a ride to take you somewhere."

     Was this how the rich lived? Eating a rabbits diet and arranging drivers to transport them places? Chloe didn't just feel like a stranger in this lifestyle; Elizabeth made her feel like an unwanted guest.

     Chloe decided a ride was better than staying in the house with Elizabeth. "I'd like to go get something then."

     Elizabeth made a half-smile and it looked strange on her smooth and perfectly botoxed features. The hints of her former beauty still clung to her like an enchanting and haunting ghost. She stepped close to Chloe and reached out to lift her hair and examine her split ends disapprovingly.

     "You know, when I was your age, I wish I had someone like me around. I wish someone had been there to tell me how to take care of my skin, my hair and my body. Maybe if I had focused more on my health and my beauty, I wouldn't have spent so much to try and reclaim the youth I lost at the end of a plastic surgeons knife." Her voice was terrifyingly melodic in a way that made Chloe's skin crawl.

     Elizabeth let the hair drop from her fingertips. "Abigail will be giving you a phone. In it are three numbers, mine, Abigail's and Prince Price's. You will contact me instead of Henry, he is far too busy right now to handle whatever little problems you might be having."

     Chloe felt confused. "Why would you put in Prince's number?"

     Elizabeth placed a kiss atop her dogs head. "Because you are going to ask him to show you around town and make nice with him."

     Really? Chloe couldn't believe what she was being asked to do.

     "Why should I do that? Did you forget that I'm in mourning?" She crossed her arms.

     Elizabeth's eyes felt like a cold steel dagger when she looked at Chloe. "You can mourn all you want after your father solidifies this business agreement. The Price family is very important to us in that aspect. If you want to make up for that embarrassingly horrible incident you caused last night you will do this. Prince is only in town for a short time before he returns to boarding school and I fail to see how making friends with a rich boy your age hurts you in any way."

     Chloe shook with disbelief. "Why should I?"

     "Because at this point, you are a stranger in your father's life, he trusts me. If I were to tell him that you were causing me trouble and needed to be sent away to a place very, very unpleasant, who do you think he'd trust more? Hm? And if you tried to tell anyone else, well, I have power and influence. I have control in places you'd never imagine. Control over the law, control over finance and contacts that would make your pretty young head spin. You will do this, Chloe. Go out with this boy and let him show you the town. You don't have to do anything more than that. Listen to me and you can have a very sweet and enjoyable life with all the luxury and creature comforts you could want." Elizabeth made it a point to stand in front of Chloe again.

     She was a whole five inches taller than Chloe in her dangerous and expensive black heels.

     Like a serpent tempting with an apple Elizabeth spoke, "If you knew more about his family and their influence, you'd realize there are girls who would kill for the opportunity you're getting. Oh, how much I wish when I was your age, there had been someone like me to be my mother. Trust me, you will thank me for it. . ."

     Chloe's eyes widened. She finally was understanding the weight of what living with Henry meant; she would be under Elizabeth's control and there would be nothing she could do about it.

     Even in this beautiful house with expensive dresses and roasted espresso, it was the snow her mother had warned her about, and beneath it hid something dark and ugly. . .