Wednesday 1st July.
I wake up and just watch Alannah sleep. She came into my room after having a nightmare.
I spent hours staring at Alannah until a maid knocked on the door and asked what we wanted for breakfast.
When it was time I took Alannah downstairs for breakfast.
"Manhä." Me and Alannah say in sync walking into the dinning room.
"Manhä." Everyone says back. I sit Alannah in the middle of me and Carter, like normal.
I wasn't really talking to my dad, I was still annoyed at both him and Marco. They told me to never contact him or anything again, which I then happily agreed to do. But they then decide to invite him to an event that I have to go to as I'm officially going to be part of the mafia 'lifestyle'.
Yep. Officially.
Carter got some rumours going about a Fernandez returning after nineteen years.
"You girls will be having a long day today. We have some designers coming here to get you dressed and fitted. Then this evening after dinner were going out to the venue that's hosting the ball to run through a few things." Dad says and I nod.
Claudia coughs and signals for my dad to carry on.
"Its not to late to cancel Lara, if you want." He says and I shake my head no.
"Its fine." I say and Carter smiles at me softly.
After breakfast the boys head off somewhere. Me and Alannah head up to her room. I brush her teeth and wash her face. I get her dressed into a yellow and white striped jumpsuit. I tie the belt around her in a bow shape and then kiss her cheek making me giggle. I then brush her hair and put it into two french plaits.
I take her downstairs and find Claudia and Arabella.
"Can you watch her whilst I get ready." I say and they smile.
"Of course we can." They say smiling.
I head up to my room and take a shower. Once I had finished with my shower I blow dry and straighten my hair. I then choose out a cute outfit and do my makeup.
I walk down the stairs slowly as I watch endless amount of people come in and out with racks of dresses. I follow them into a room that I never noticed before. It was sort of like a dressing room.
"Don't tell me this is her." A man says making them all spin around and look at me.
"Mama." Alannah shouts running over to me.
She's still not good around unfamiliar people. I pick her up and keep her rested on my hip.
"Lara, come here. Meet Adelaide and her brother William." She says and I look over to them smiling.
"Its nice to finally meet the last member of the Fernandez family." Adelaide says and I smile.
"Americans." I say smiling and they nod.
"William you take Claudia and Arabella and I'll take Lara and Alannah." Adelaide says pinching Alannahs cheeks but Alannah hides her face in my neck.
"Shall we do Alannah first?" She asks and I look at Alannah and she nods.
She has Alannah try on multiple dresses. They were all lovely dresses but they weren't for Alannah. Alannah requested something purple or yellow.
Once we went through all the yellow and purple dresses Adelaide looked at me worried. "Try whatever." I say and she nods.
After about half an hour more we come across a dress that looked lovely accept it was quite big. Alannah was quite small for her age, but according to the doctors shes fine.
"I can take it and shorten it and tighten it." Adelaide says and I nod.
"I love it." Alannah says doing a little spin making me laugh.
"I think you look beautiful." I say leaning down and kissing her cheek.
We get Alannah out of the dress and Adelaide puts the dress on a separate rack.
Once I got Alannah dressed back into her playsuit she was quite tired.
I sat with Alannah on a sofa until she fell asleep. Once she fell to sleep I put a blanket over her and went to try on some dresses.
"So what colour are we thinking?" She asks and I shrug looking at the racks and racks if dresses. I do not mind whatever dress.
"With your complexion I think we should go for a red, blue, emerald green or black." She says and I nod.
"I don't want anything too revealing or in your face." I say and she nods.
"I can do that." She says and I nod.
We went through the black dresses first. Nothing stood out too much but I did try on a few. We put the possible dresses on a rack. We then continued to look through all the dresses like that and then try them on.
I tried the dresses on and they were all beautiful I just didn't know which one to wear.
I was definitely stuck between a green emerald silky dress with a slit up one leg to the thigh. Or a open back black dress with a v neck and had a slit up the side. This was also quite poofy from the waist down but not too poofy.
"Adelaide this dress was on one of my racks." William says handing Adelaide a beautiful navy dress.
"Wow that's beautiful." I say and she agrees.
"Oh my god you should try it on." She says when the door creaks open.
"Ladys." Carter says smiling at us and then addressing William once he sees him.
"Oh." He says when he sees Alannah.
"Do you want me to take her to bed, I'll stay with her till she wakes up or you're finished in here." He says and I nod.
"That would be amazing thank you Carter." I say and he smiles and nods. He gently picks Alannah up and heads out of there.
"So Carter." Adelaide says nudging me slightly making me smile.
"Its not like that, he's lovely but I don't think of him like that." She says and I smile. She hands me the dress to then try on.
I step behind the curtain and the dress fitted perfectly, in my opinion. But I am not a stylist. It was quite revealing but it wasn't that bad.
I stepped out from the curtain and the four of them stood there.
"That's the one." Adelaide says smiling.
"You think so?" I question doing a little twirl.
"Honey you look beautiful." Claudia says and I smile.
"I'll shorten it a little, we don't want you tripping over it. But other then that it's perfect." She says and I smile and thank her.
I get dressed back into my clothes and thank William and Adelaide before heading up to Alannah's room.
I get in there and she was fast a sleep on the bed with Carter beside her on his phone.
"Thank you." I say and he glances over to me and sits up.
"You're welcome." He says and I smile.
"If we're having a long night I thought I'd let her have a longer nap." I say and he nods.
"That's fair enough." He says and I smile.
We stand in Alannah's room talking till he had to run off for business.
Once Alannah woke up we headed down to her toy room where we played all the way up till dinner.
After dinner we all get into SUVs but the way they do things here are quite different. Me, Carter and Alannah in one SUV. Dad and Claudia in another one. Then Marco and Arabella in another one, I've never questioned it but it is quite strange.
The venue from the outside was beautiful. We headed inside and it was massive and even more beautiful.
We walked to the grand stairs which Marco lead us down.
"We'll have our photos taken on these steps before we can enjoy ourselves." He says and I look around.
"This is a beautiful venue." I say and they all agree.
"Our grand balls have always been here for centuries. We've owned this place since the very first ball that happened here." He says and I smile.
Carter took Alannah's hand and they ran off down the stairs and started running around playing. I watched them in admiration.
Carter is such a child sometimes and it makes me so happy him and Alannah get among so well.
"Lara." Dad says gaining my attention. I hum in response as I turn to him.
"On Friday there will be a lot of eyes on you." He says and I nod.
"I would like you and Carter to look quite cosy. Just so people know not to well you know." He says and I furrow my eyebrows but nod anyway.
"So Carter will be my date?" I ask and they all nod. I look over to the big kid and laugh softly at him.
"I'll get him a tie to match you." Arabella says and I smile and nod.
The venue was massive and beautiful. It kind of reminded me of beauty and the beast. I can't even begin to imagine what it'll look like friday night. A million times more beautiful then it already is.
Once we got home after a tour of the whole venue it was quite late.
Carter carried Alannah in because he knows I don't like it when the guards do. It's not that I don't trust them but mine and Alannah's guards especially, scare Alannah.
Carter took Alannah to bed where I carefully got her ready for bed.
Once Alannah was in bed asleep I got ready as well. I took my makeup off and then put my hair into a messy bun and wash my face and brush my teeth. I then get into my pyjamas and sit in my room researching on my laptop for a couple of hours alongside texting with James.
"You are like a child sometimes. I have to come in here and tell you when to go to bed." Carter says and I laugh softly. I close my laptop and turn to him.
"I do apologise." I say and he smiles.
"Go to bed, it's late." He says and I check my phone to see it was nearly 3am.
"You haven't stayed awake this late in a long time." I say and he scoffs.
"I'm a busy man. I take over soon." He says and I smile. He takes over in September.
"You'll do good." I say and he smiles. "I'm glad you think so." He says sitting at the end of my bed.
"Do you think you'll become my right hand? You don't have to, but I'd love it I'd you did." He says and I sigh. I'm destined to but I still don't know if it's 100% what I want to do.
"I don't know Carter I'm still scared of this lifestyle, but I just need a little longer to think about it." I say and he nods and stands up and drags me to bed.
"Go to sleep." He says kissing my forehead.
"Good night Carter." I say and he smiles.
"Good night Lara." He says switching the light off and leaving.
It took me about half an hour till I started to fall to sleep when the door to Alannah's room opened. I sit up and see Alannah crying. I walk over to her and shut the door. I pick her up and bring her to my bed.
"Its okay I promise." I say kissing her cheek. It didnt take long till she fell asleep and once I knew she was okay, I fell to sleep as well.