Chapter 36 What is she doing here?
“Ana, I just ate out, so I'm going to skip dinner,” Katherine said, her voice soft but firm. “I have a lot of homework piled up, I need to start right now.”
Anastasia clasped her hands together, a motherly expression furrowing her brow.
“Oh, dear... you're always so busy. It must be hard for you to have to deal with so much.” Go ahead, but don't push yourself too hard, okay? If you can't finish, don't worry. Just ask João for help when he gets back. He's great with numbers, especially since he graduated with a degree in chemical engineering!“
”Thanks, Ana." Katherine gave a slight, indecipherable smile.
She turned and walked toward the building next door, and silence reigned over the property, the rain outside muffling any sound. João Pedro wouldn't be back anytime soon, and it was the perfect moment.
The golden opportunity to break into his room and find out what was hidden behind that hollow wall.
Katherine set foot on the first step of the staircase.
“João Pedro!” A shrill scream pierced the silence.
Dandara Arbex rushed through the front door, wet and breathless, clutching a notebook to her chest as if it were an injured baby.
When she saw Katherine on the stairs, Dandara's anxious expression vanished instantly, replaced by a mask of pure disdain.
“Where's João?” she asked, without even deigning to look Katherine in the eye.
“He's not here.” Katherine stopped, resting her hand on the railing.
“Where did he go?” Dandara stamped her foot, irritated. “He always comes back at this time to walk Eros.”
“I don't know,” Katherine replied in a monotone voice, turning to continue up the stairs. She had no time for teenage drama. “Do I look like his babysitter?”
“Stop right there!” Dandara dropped the computer on a side table and ran, placing herself in front of Katherine, arms open, blocking her passage. “Who said you could go up? As far as I know, your movements are limited to the first floor. The second floor is my cousin's private area. It's off-limits to strangers.”
Katherine looked her up and down, her posture relaxed, exuding an elegant laziness.
“He never mentioned that to me.”
"That's because... he didn't have a chance to say it! João is reserved, he hates people invading his space. No one goes up there without express permission, not even Mr. Marcus to clean. Don't you understand your place?“ Dandara's eyes sparkled with malice.
There was a tone of desperation and guilt in her voice, but she tried to cover it up with arrogance.
”Hey, hey, hey! What's going on here?" Octavio's voice echoed in the hall, and he emerged from the kitchen, chewing on an apple.
Dandara's eyes lit up, and she ran to him and linked her arm through his, switching to “little sister victim” mode.
“Ota! Please help clear things up for Katherine. She wants to go upstairs while João is away. You know how much he hates people touching his things.”
“Dandara, cut it out.”
Octavio rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue. “Normally that's how it is, but Katherine lives here now and has his permission, so she's not a visitor. This place isn't a prison, why do you want to restrict her freedom?”
“But...” Dandara bit her lip, annoyed.
“But nothing!” Octavio mimicked her. “And you? What are you doing here at this hour in the rain? Isn't your mother looking for you?”
Dandara snorted and walked over to the table to get her laptop.
“My computer suddenly crashed. I remembered that João studied Computer Science as well as engineering, so I thought he could help me. It's urgent.”
She opened the screen to show the disaster, and the computer was frozen, the screen infested with pop-up windows of dubious ads and error codes flashing frantically. The cursor was frozen.
Octavio frowned, picking up the device to examine it.
“Who said that every computer science student knows how to fix PCs? That's a stereotype. Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
“Of course I tried! It didn't work!” Dandara took the computer back, protectively. “Anyway, I'm going upstairs to wait for João in his room. I'll take the opportunity to borrow a book. It's been a while since I've been here.”
With that, she turned toward the stairs with a triumphant smile, ready to invade the territory she had just declared “off limits.” But she hadn't taken two steps when suddenly a long, slender leg crossed her path, blocking her way with the firmness of a police barrier.
“What are you doing?” Dandara stopped, startled.
Katherine was leaning against the railing, her leg extended across the path, her face calm and indifferent. Her eyes rested on the computer in Dandara's arms.
“I'll help you fix it,” Katherine said, extending her hand casually. “That way you won't have to bother him when he gets home tired.”
Dandara was stunned for a second, then let out a scornful laugh.
“You? Fix this? Only you... Do you even know the difference between hardware and software?”
Octavio, however, found the situation interesting. With a quick movement, he took the computer from Dandara's hands and handed it to Katherine.
“Let her try, Dandara. What's the problem?”
“Oh, no!” Dandara tried to protest, but it was too late.
Katherine already had the laptop in her hands. She sat down on the staircase, rested the device on her knees, and began typing.
Octavio watched her with a mixture of curiosity and doubt.
Dandara, seeing that there was no way to recover the object without causing a scene, crossed her arms and relaxed. A smug smile returned to her face.
Go ahead and try, you country bumpkin, thought Dandara.
She wasn't worried. After all, that “virus” wasn't an accident. She had paid dearly for a professional hacker to create that specific bug. The goal was to ensure that the computer was broken enough to require her cousin's attention, giving her a perfect excuse to stay by his side for hours.
If even she couldn't fix it, what could a girl from the countryside do besides make the situation worse?
Dandara almost felt sorry for her. Katherine was about to embarrass herself.
In the long run, Dandara feared that her cousin would end up becoming more attached to that intruder than to her. She couldn't just sit idly by and wait to be replaced.
Then she had that brilliant idea.
With that comforting thought, Dandara's anxiety disappeared. She leaned back on the sofa with the arrogance of a queen, picked up a juicy grape, and popped it into her mouth, ready to watch the spectacle of someone else's failure.