I make my way down the long painting lined corridor. Reaching the master staircase I tread softly downstairs, avoiding the stairs that creak with age in the majestic old house. Reaching the ground floor I walk through yet again another corridor, also lined with paintings.

I hate the silence of the house and its long, empty hallways. When I was younger I used to run screaming through them, breaking the silence. I can no longer do that now. I’m eighteen. I’m expected to be long grown out of such childish things.

I still hate the silence though.

I hate the loneliness too.

He doesn’t care though. He’s too involved in trying to be the perfect boyfriend.

I hate the way he says my name. Like he’s savouring it on his lips. Like he’s just taken a bit of some good food.

Mmmaria.

I hate it.

His name starts with an ‘M’ too. And I know that he wants me to say his name in the same way.

But I can’t. I don’t even want to be with him. I hate my parents for making me.

He has a half brother only a year older than me. Tall, strong and silent. Mysterious.

Gorgeous.

I wish Lizzie was here. But her parents have sent her away to university. They believe in a higher education, in letting their daughter be whatever she wants to be.

My parents believe in marrying me well.

My brother Alex doesn’t care. He’s set to inherit the family business. Besides, they want him to marry Isabel.

My brother is in love with Isabel.

So I stand here, my feet dangling slightly off the small ledge as I gaze up at the huge house in front of me. The house I’ve spent my whole life in.

I want out. I want to get away from all this.

I jump.

The cool, soothing water of the swimming pool washes over me. The water is my solace. Swimming is my solace. Alone, away from the life they want for me and it’s trappings.

It’s when I’m swimming one day that I notice him, the half brother, watching me. My eyes narrow into a glare when I realise that he’s been watching me for a while, hidden in the shadows caused by the evening sun.

“What are you doing?”

He’s startled to hear my voice and moves closer to the pool. I pull myself out so that he’s not looking down on me as I level him with a glare. Of course, considering his height, he is still looking down on me.

His eyes graze over my body. Goosebumps prickle on my arms. I tell myself it’s just the cold air on my wet body.

“I was looking at the garden.”

I laughed at the obvious lie. There is barely any garden surrounding the pool. The garden is located on the other side of the house, not here. I wait for him to say something more.

Silence. Glaring at him one more time I back away so that my heels are just hanging over the tiles surrounding the pool. Keeping my eyes on him the whole time I flip backwards into the pool.

Surfacing my eyes meet his. His mouth is curled into a smirk.

“Show off.”

I shake my head at him, climbing out of the pool and grabbing a towel, wrapping it tightly around me.

“Why were you watching me?”

He shrugs. “Why not.”

I think it was the fact that we were both lonely that brought us together. Or at least made us consider talking to one another.

I flick my hair over my shoulder, not knowing what to say. “Is your brother here too?”

His eyes narrow at me, and the bitterness is evident in his voice. “ Half brother.”

Oops. I knew there was bitterness there. My ‘perfect’ boyfriend is five years older than me and, being the first child, is considered the more important son. He is the heir to the family business. His mother died after he was born.

His mother left him. Left him with an older half brother who would receive everything because of her abandonment.

“Sorry.” The words come out softer than I intended them to. I look down at the ground.

He tilts his face up so my eyes meet his, his hand lingering on my chin. “It’s okay.”

He stares at me, an intense look in his eyes. I realise then how desperately I want to kiss him. How desperately I want him to kiss me. To take me into his strong arms, his lips pressed firmly against mine...

It’s Max whose lips are pressed against mine as he says good night to me after dinner later that night. Max whose not-so-strong arms are wrapped around my waist.

I almost cry out with regret. Wishing that I’d been bold enough to kiss him. Wishing that I hadn’t let him push me away and leave me there. Alone. Shivering from the cold.

I wish I was his.

Instead I am his half brother’s.

Out of reach. Forbidden.

Max leaves. Kissing me lightly on the cheek before saying good night to my parents. Always the perfect gentleman.

My parents smile at me. Telling me how wonderful he is. How I’m so lucky to have him. To have Max Evans, heir to the Evans fortune.

I see the looks in their eyes. They want me to be the person I once was. Full of life. Hyperactive. Laughing. Innocent.

Happy.

They tell me that with him I’m have everything I ever want. That my life will be perfect.

Perfect like my perfect boyfriend. Perfect husband-to-be.

They don’t understand. I only want one thing.

But I’m not allowed it.

Not allowed him.

A week goes past before I see him again. Involuntarily my lips whisper his name.

“Michael.”

Max looks at me, slightly confused. Then his gaze follows mine. To Michael, sitting alone in the garden of the Evans mansion. He’s staring off into space, thinking.

I wonder what he’s thinking about.

“Michael.”

Max’s loud voice disrupts the silence. Michael turns towards us, his gaze focusing on Max for a moment, then turns to me.

I bite my lip. I want him so much. Why did I only realise this now?

Not that it would do much good anyway. I’m Max Evans’s. I always have been. Always will be.

How depressing.

“Hey.”

My voice, once again, comes out soft. Max looks at me again, his brow furrowed in confusion. I shrug at him. It’s not like I intended for it to come out so softly. It’s not as if I intended to fall for his half brother.

“Hey.” Michael’s voice is dull. His face contains no emotion. As much as it bugged me at the time, I miss his smirk.

Max smiles at him, completely oblivious of the tension.

Why is there tension? It’s not as if anything happened. Not really.

I only realised I was in love with him.

“Hello Michael. So what are you doing out here?” Max asks.

Michael just shrugs, turning back to where he was looking earlier.

I stare at him, biting my lip slightly. Why does the fact that he’s ignoring us bother me so?

Max rolls his eyes at me, wrapping his arm around my waist and steering us away from his half brother.

“I’m sorry about Michael,” he says once out of Michael’s earshot. “I don’t know why he acts like this. I think he gets it from his mother. She ran away, you know.”

I nod. I know. I know that she ran away. Ran away leaving her son with a man who decided he deserved no inheritance because his mother left. I know the story.

I also know that Max is kind to Michael. That Max gives Michael the money he needs.

I know that Max is a caring, loving, kind man.

Maybe I don’t want that. Maybe I want someone different. Maybe I want someone who can make me feel. Maybe I want someone who isn’t as predictable. Someone who I can yell and scream at, someone who can make me feel alive.

The way that I used to.

I feel lifeless as I walk with Max towards the house.

A week ago I felt alive. That evening beside the pool. For a few moments I felt alive again.

We reach the house. “I have to change for dinner,” Max tells me. “You already look gorgeous of course,” he adds, kissing me lightly on the lips. “Feel free to do whatever.”

“Sure,” I tell him quietly, nodding. It’s not as if I’ve never wandered around this house alone before.

I creep out the back door again, my feet taking me, against my will, back in the direction we had just come from.

Back in his direction.

I meet him walking to the house when I’m half way there.

“Hi,” I say, staring at my feet for a moment. Now that I’m alone with him I don’t know what to say. Don’t know what to do.

“Hi Maria.”

His voice is soft, tender.

I love the way he says my name. Softly. With no lengthening of the ‘M’.

“Did you want something?” he questions, a challenging glint in his eyes. I know he’s remembering the way I questioned him a week ago.

Yes. I want you.

“Uh, no,” I tell him.

“Uh, no?” he asks, a smirk on his face.

“No.” I say it more firmly this time. I want to wipe that smirk off his face. It makes him look so…

Sexy.

Damn. Why do I feel this way about him. Why is he, the brother I can’t have, the one I feel these things for.

“Then what are you doing?” he challenges.

“Looking at the garden,” I tell him with a smirk of my own. “And I’m actually in the garden too,” I add.

“Great,” he says sarcastically.

“What is wrong with you?”

His eyes narrow at that comment, and I wonder why I said it. There is nothing wrong with him. In fact, there’s something wrong with me. I shouldn’t be feeling so alone. I shouldn’t be wanting something else when what I’m getting is supposed to be all I could ever want.

But I do.

“Nothing is wrong with me,” he replies angrily. “This is my house. My garden. You’re the one wandering through it. Shouldn’t you be with Max?”

I bite my lip. His voice sounds so bitter.

“No.”

“No?” I can hear the surprised tone in his voice.

I bite my lip, looking at my feet. “No. I don’t want to be with him.” I look up at him, my eyes pleading.

A range of emotions quickly flash across his face. “Oh.”

“Oh?” I ask. Is that all he wants to say. Oh.

“But you’re going to marry him eventually,” he presses. “You should want to be with him. Everyone knows you’re going to marry him. Everyone wants you to marry him.”

Everyone? My face falls. “Oh.”

I misread something here. I’m projecting the feelings I have for him onto him so I think he has them too.

“Maria-“

I laugh bitterly. “Sorry. I should go. I’m having dinner with the guy everyone wants me to marry.” I turn away from him, taking a few steps before shutting my eyes for a moment, trying to starve off the tears.

His hand grabs my arm, spinning me around to face him. I curse the fact that he can probably see the unshed tears in my eyes.

“Well, not everyone.” His voice is soft. I’m about to reply when his lips crush against mine.

I close my eyes, revealing in the sensation. His tongue swipes at my lips and I open them eagerly. The muscular arms that hold me are stronger than any others I’ve ever had around me. I press myself tightly against him, firm against his body.

I’ve never been kissed like this before. I moan into his mouth. “Michael.”

His arms, which were wrapped tightly around my waist, and which were the only things that had stopped me from collapsing when he first kissed me, left my waist, coming to tangle in my hair. Long fingers tenderly running through it.

“Michael.”

This is the most amazing sensation in the world. To be kissed like this, so passionately. And to be able to return the passion full force.

Max and I have no passion. We’ve never even kissed as long as this.

Tender pecks and longer fuller kisses, but nothing like this. He’s never even tried to go further. That’s strange isn’t it? He is a guy. And I know that he loves me.

But he’s just trying to be too perfect. Trying not to go any further than I want.

I can’t stand perfection.

“Maria?”

Uh oh. I pull away from Michael quickly, running through the trees to another row of flowers at the sound of Max’s voice. Quickly making sure I look okay I make my way over towards the sound of Max’s voice.

“There you are!” he exclaims, enveloping me in a hug. “It’s dinner time. Have you seen Michael anywhere?”

I shake my head, biting my lip.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll come in anyway,” Max comments as we go to join his father for dinner.

Michael never shows up for dinner. And I have a feeling that I’m the reason why.

It’s two weeks before I see him again. Two long weeks of Max-filled days. God, if I’m going to be stuck with him for the rest of my life – which is definite even though he hasn’t proposed yet – why do I have to spend my days with him now? Doesn’t he have a life that doesn’t revolve around me.

I wish I had a life that didn’t revolve around him.

But that ended when I graduated high school. When my friends all left to go to college, leaving me here. Poor Maria, stuck in an arranged marriage and not allowed to leave.

There is one part of my life that doesn’t revolve around him though.

It revolves around his half brother. The guy who has now twice made me feel more alive than I’ve been ever since I found out I wasn’t allowed to leave and that I was to marry Max.

I was lying in my large four poster bed, trying to sleep, when I heard something tap my window. Sitting up, slightly scared, I stared at my window.

Not long after came another tap. And then another. Someone was throwing stones at my window.

I get out of bed to look and see him standing down below. His dark figure silhouetted in the moonlight.

Michael.

I open my window. He climbs his way up to my second storey room. I’ thankful that my bedroom wasn’t on the fourth floor like my father’s and my brother’s.

He enters through the window and I close it behind him. “What are you doing here?” I ask, feeling slightly self conscious of my short, white nightgown.

His eyes roam my body. “I wanted to see you.”

“Oh.” Goosebumps prickle my skin and I now knew it was him, not the cold, that caused them.

He moves closer, capturing my lips with his. One hand tangles in my long hair, the other running up and down my back. I moan at the feel of his lips against mine. I had been dying to kiss him again for two weeks now. I was glad there was no one around to hear me.

He walked me back to my bed, pushing me down onto it, sitting beside me. One hand caresses my breast through the light material of my nightgown and I moan. His lips leave mine, travelling down and sucking on my neck.

Despite my inexperience I soon get up the confidence to pull his shirt off, running my hands across the bare skin of his chest.

I’d never gone this far before. After all, I’d only ever had one boyfriend. Max. Although I don’t recall Michael having many girlfriends either.

My fingers tingle with the feel of his skin against mine. “I want you,” I murmur between kisses.

Taking that s encouragement he pushes me back on the bed. His lips are planting kisses on my on my face, neck, shoulders and even my chest as he pushes my nightgown down off my shoulders. It feels like his lips are everywhere at once. I’m too wrapped up in the pleasure of it to do anything but moan, my hand roaming over his now bare back.

I feel him pressing into me. Hard. I’ve never felt that before. My grip tightens on his back as his lips furiously attack my neck.

I moan, and he lifts his head to look at me. There is desire and lust in his eyes and all of a sudden I feel guilty. Guilty for not giving back to him the pleasure he’s giving me.

I smile at him, pushing him onto his back so that now I’m on top, planning to completely rid myself of my guilt. Licking my lips I lower my mouth over his chest, lightly kissing my way all over it. Now it is him who moans in pleasure.

Soon he’s playing with my panties, my nightgown already gone. With tender hands he pulls them down my legs. Now there’s only his boxers to go.

I feel slightly embarrassed as his gaze roams my naked body. I tilt his face so that his eyes meet mine, needing him to know.

“I’ve never…” I begin.

“Me neither,” he replies.

I smile, incredibly happy with that answer.

We make love for the first time together. I’m relieved and so very happy that my first time is with my first love and now with Max, who I could never love like that. I love that my first time was slow and tender yet amazingly passionate. I love that I fall to sleep afterwards in his arms.

I love him.

We both wake early the next morning. Before five – the sun is not yet up. We both know, although hating it, that he has to leave now. I couldn’t even imagine the scandal if he was found in my bed. Naked with me in my bed.

I pull my nightgown on as he dresses. We walk to the window he entered through a only few hours earlier.

Once there he grabs me, kissing me fiercely. His passion washes over me, mixed with mine, and I want us to go back to bed. Only we can’t. He has to leave. We both know it.

He pulls back slightly, his kiss still lingering on my lips. I run a hand through his hair as his trails down my cheek.

“See you soon?” he asks, backing away from me towards the window.

I nod. He turns to go.

“Michael.”

He turns back to me. I have to say it before I lose my nerve.

“I-“ I pause, swallowing hard. “I love you.”

His mouth opens in shock and, before I can even question whether he does or does not feel the same way his lips are on mine.

“I love you Maria,” he tells me when me pull apart, and I can see in his eyes that he means it – that he’s not just saying it because he knows I want him too.

He disappears out the window and into the dark night. Closing the window I lean my forehead against the cool glass, watching the shadows.

I love him.

I want him.

I don’t want Max.

I want out of this life and the trappings it holds. I want to break out of the shadows.

This life stifles me. The expectations it holds, my parents, Alex, Max…

Tonight I felt alive again. I felt reborn. I felt…

I felt Michael.

And I felt passion.

And I know what I want. I want to live. To really live. I don’t want to remain the shell of a person that I am now.

I write him a letter today, hand delivered to him by his maid. I feel like I’m about to burst. I’m not a very patient person. Especially not when it comes to this.

Max once again comes to dinner with my parents, Alex and I. Michael does not.

He once again kisses me lightly. It contains barely any passion. Unlike Michael’s kisses.

It’s not his fault he’s not Michael. It’s their fault for making me be with him.

But I’m getting out of this life once and for all.

I make my way down the empty painting-lined hallway. I still curse the silence, but not so much tonight. Silence means everyone’s asleep.

Everyone but me.

Glancing around to make sure no one is watching – no maids, nothing, I open the large wooden front door, closing it firmly behind me.

I run down the long driveway, my hair flying out behind me. I left them a note, but I don’t know if they’ll understand. It doesn’t matter. They never understood me. Never understood that what I wanted most was a simple, happy life, not a sad, boring life in which I would have everything.

Everything is overrated. I only need one thing.

Him.

He’s waiting for me at the end of the driveway. I wonder if he wants this even more than I do. Wants to be far away from his half brother and I father who despises him.

I wonder what Max will think when he finds out. Finds out that he’s wife-to-be ran off with his half brother.

He won’t understand. He never understood me. Or Michael for that matter.

I do.

“Are you sure?” Michael asks as I settle into the passenger seat.

“Never been surer.” We exchange a smile.

I lean over, kissing him fiercely. I never want to let go of him. Not now. Not ever.

I’m free. Free to do whatever I want.

I’d rather feel alive than be trapped in that life forever.

I’d rather be with Michael.

The End