Chapter 3 What an annoying jerk

Raphaël hadn't heard Isabelle. He was too drawn into his own mind, staring at the child before him.

And it was a good thing too because, Isabelle reckoned, if he'd heard her call him Little Raphaël', it would probably have cost her the whole housekeeper job. And it wasn't even her job to begin with.

Turning back to face the child, she made up her mind. If Little Raphaël was too busy being weird, she'd have to do something.

Using her foot, Isabelle pushed aside the shards of marble lying between her and the child and began making her way carefully to him.

"What are you doing?" Raphaël uttered behind her. "Don't be a fool, girl. You'll hurt yourself as well as Rayan."

Isabelle smiled. Oh, Rayan. What a sweet name.

"Hello, Rayan," she called. "Come on over here." She stretched out her hand to the child, ignoring Raphaël's warning.

Rayan looked at her uncertainly, his cheeks still wet with his earlier tears of distress. He'd broken that huge vase when he was running away to hide from the strange lady and he was sure he was going to get a terrible beating from someone at any second now. If he stayed in this corner, maybe they wouldn't be able to get to him and he'd be safe.

Isabelle watched the child squeeze himself closer to the wall, shying away from her outstretched hand. She stopped moving towards him.

He blinked his big blue eyes up at her.

She tilted her head at him, giving him a soft smile before moving to him and carefully dropping to a crouch before the boy.

He flinched.

Isabelle's heart froze and her smile faltered. This was starting to give her a very bad feeling.

Restoring her smile, she placed her hand on the wall for support, the last thing she wanted was to lose her balance, fall and have a long shard of marble slice right up her ass.

In front of Raphaël! The embarrassment. Not to mention it would prove him right when he said she would hurt herself.

Blinking to clear the thought, she brought herself back to the moment.

When she raised her hand and he flinched again, Isabelle first inwardly frowned then felt hot fury burn up within her. Swallowing, she tried hard to not look angry to the child. He would misunderstand and think she was angry at him.

But the way he kept flinching was raising huge red flags and waving them in her face.

Her jaw clenched. If anybody had laid a hand on this precious baby, Isabelle was ready to simply skin them alive. Then pluck out their toenails and shove them down their throat.

She sighed, calming herself down. She leaned towards the boy and he widened his eyes, looking at her strangely. But he didn't flinch again.

"Hello," Isabelle said quietly. Rayan looked down at her mouth as she said the word, then brought his eyes back to hers.

"I'm Isabelle," she continued.

He stared silently at her face.

Pursing her lips, Isabelle tried anything she could, hoping it would work. "I need your help, Rayan," she started, not sure where she was going with it. "All these pieces on the floor are sharp and dangerous and we need to get away from them else they will hurt us, but I'm scared. I need you to help me be strong so the sharp pieces don't hurt us."

Rayan's eyes were immediately filled with doubt and confusion, but a little less fear.

He tilted his head slightly, thinking it over.

"Will you help me?" Isabelle whispered, her heart constricting in her chest.

A few seconds went by and she waited, then like a miracle Rayan nodded.

With a smile, Isabelle nodded back at him before pulling herself up.

Slowly, she stretched both her hands out to him and watched in plain amazement as he lifted his arms and allowed her to pick him up.

No wailing or screaming, how miraculous to Isabelle. This was a child who was being the opposite of bratty and noisy, which she more accustomed to, no lie.

Isabelle settled him gently against her, holding him up with an arm beneath his legs and the other wrapped around his back, securing him so he didn't fall.

He sat stiffly in her arms, fidgeting a little bit. Isabelle turned and began to make her way out of the mess on the floor and back towards Raphaël.

She looked at him with a triumphant smile, but he only stood there, gaping at her. His mouth was slightly open, a frown creasing his forehead, making a perfect single line between his eyebrows.

Isabelle sent a questioning look at him, but he only pursed his lips and looked down, barely looking at the child in her arms. The closer she got to him, the further away Raphaël turned, until he just walked away from both her and Rayan.

Isabelle stopped and frowned in the direction he'd gone.

His attitude left her puzzled. Why in the heck was the child behaving in such a timid, frightened manner? And what did Raphaël know about it to react in such a bizarre way?

And come to think of it... just who was little Rayan to Raphaël? Was he truly his son as Isabelle had allowed herself to believe?

Damn, what had Aunt Rosa said about the child? Isabelle hadn't heard a thing. Damn her mosquito-like attention span!

Anyway, all her questions were logical and Isabelle intended to find some logical answers to them.

And she'd be damned if the Mighty Sauvage would dismiss her queries with his assessing grey eyes and his cold, calm way of speaking which could easily make one feel stupid.

With a silent, solemn vow, Isabelle decided to get to the bottom of the matter.

She held the child closer.

"Why don't we go to the kitchen?" she asked, smiling at Rayan.

He looked curiously back at her and continued to stare at her all the way to the brightly lit kitchen.

Isabelle had always loved this kitchen. Though the house was beautiful and modern, the kitchen wasn't the cold tiles and stainless steel type she saw in the magazines. It rather had warm, dark wood and white granite.

Placing Rayan on the smooth kitchen counter, Isabelle stood back and put her hands on her hips.

"Let's get breakfast into you, hey? Pancakes?" she asked with an eyebrow raised.

Rayan's eyes widened a little bit.

Isabelle's smile faltered a little and she began to wonder at the boy's lack of speech.

"Rayan?" she called.

He looked down at his fiddling fingers suddenly, like she hadn't even called him.

Isabelle leaned against the counter as he continued fiddling with his fingers.

She looked curiously at him. "Would you like chocolate pancakes, sweetie?" she tried again.

His hands stilled for a moment and then resumed fiddling.

"Okay, let's get you fed first," Isabelle said in response to his silence.

Maybe he was like her. She also couldn't function for crap when she was hungry, much less answer questions from strange housekeepers.

She hurried about the familiar kitchen, pulling out ingredients and getting to work.

Isabelle had the bowl lodged between her hip and hand like a football when it suddenly started raining outside.

She turned around and smiled at the sky through the large kitchen windows.

"Yaay! Rain!" she cheered, like it was raining money instead of water. "Sunshine and chirping birds one moment, porous skies and dark clouds the next. I love it."

She turned back to Rayan who was watching her attentively, his hands clasped together between his knees.

"I love the rain," she informed him. "The sound is so soothing and-"

The sound of rain stopped.

Isabelle looked at the windows in shock. "Aw, what happened?" She stared at the sky. "What was that? You call that rain? Son of a b-" Looking at Rayan, she stopped the words on her tongue and smiled instead. "Ha-ha. Guess it won't be raining today."

And how annoying too. The rain makes Isabelle's entire day better and when it started to rain, her mood already started improving. Now the damn rain disappeared. She glared at the sky for a second, feeling like she just got click baited into a good mood. How spiteful.

She huffed, aggressively mixing the pancake batter in her bowl. "Bloody sky, acting all tough just cause you're up there and I can't get my hands on you, you pale blue piece of crap."

Rayan tilted his head and Isabelle froze, looking at him and the look he was giving her.

She cleared her throat. "Okay, child, I know what you're thinking. The answer is no. No, I'm not completely mad. Just a tad bit."

He remained silent, his blue eyes thoughtful.

She sighed and set down the bowl when he remained silent. On top of her rain disappearing, this dress was squeezing her around the middle and annoying her. She had to go and change. "Come, Rayan," she said.

She lifted him up, off the counter and onto a comfortable kitchen chair.

Placing a cup of orange juice in front of him, she ruffled his curly brown hair. "Be right back, sweetie."

She dashed out of the kitchen, looking back from the doorway to ensure that the boy wasn't already somersaulting on the counter.

Something told Isabelle that Rayan wouldn't do a single jumping jack on those polished counters, much less a somersault.

Still, she increased her speed just in case the thought of countertop somersaults did cross his mind.

Unfortunately, increase in her speed, plus her distracted mind, plus her looking down into cleavage and noticing increase in boob size - hooray! - equaled collision of woman with great wall of muscle.

"Oomf!" Isabelle let out as Raphaël held her at arm's length to steady her, a fresh frown on his face.

"You seem determined to constantly ram into me, Isabella," he said coldly, putting his hands in his pockets.

Isabelle nearly swallowed her tongue at his words, her mind putting a whole new spin on them, but she managed to lift her chin which only served to give Raphaël a better view at the blush creeping up her neck.

"You're mistaken, Sir. I'd as soon ram into a bull, I assure you. "

"Ah, is it? And seeing as you've rammed into me twice now... you don't mean to say you make it a habit of ramming into bulls, do you?" Raphaël asked crisply.

Isabelle scowled. Gosh, he was annoying. With his crisp and cold voice. If the freezer could talk, she could bet it would sound just like Raphaël!

His eyes narrowed when she stayed quiet, as though assessing the thoughts of her mind through her eyes. It was so nerve wrecking to have him staring at her like that.

For lack of a response, she stuttered, "D-did you know that head butting, Sir, is a common way to battle for dominance in the animal kingdom? The animal..."

"Spare me," Raphaël said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Isabelle bit down on her bottom lip to keep from telling him off and more importantly to keep the nervous talking in.

"I couldn't care less..." he continued. "...about what is done in the animal kingdom. Just don't find yourself butting heads with me too often. Clear?"

"Crystal. Sir," Isabelle muttered with just a pinch of sarcasm.

"Where is..." he hesitated. "Where is my nephew?"

Isabelle's brows reach for her hairline.

"Oh!" she exclaimed with a clap of the hands, much to Raphaël's annoyance. "I've been wondering how you're related. I just couldn't figure out..."

She immediately trailed off when the ice in his glare began to give her shivers, clearing her throat delicately. "He's in the kitchen, Sir."

"And you've left him alone? Unguarded?" Raphaël seemed to have just realized that if she was here then she wasn't with Rayan.

Isabelle inwardly pursed her lips.

"I'll be returning to him in a minute, Sir. As a matter of fact, I would have been back with him if it hadn't been for..." she shrugged. "I need to hurry, I don't want to leave Rayan alone for too long."

She began to walk away.

"Make it fast, Isabella," Raphaël snapped.

She turned to face him with an annoyed sigh.

"My name, Mr. Sauvage, is Isabelle, E double L, E. I don't know where you're getting the 'ella' from..."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Isabelle, E double L, E. Just get a damn move on."

With those final, and in Isabelle's opinion, very rude words, he started stalking away from her.

She bit her lip in fury, glaring at the back of his perfect, thick brown hair. "What an annoying jerk!"

Raphaël stopped walking.

Isabelle's heart stopped beating.

He turned around and stared at her, his gaze piercing through her like daggers. "What did you just say?"