Chapter 7 - The Maid’s Story
Nora looked down at her warm tea, watching the steam rise in thin, lazy spirals toward the high ceiling.
"There isn't much to tell, Mr. Vale," she began quietly. "My father was a mechanic in South Philadelphia. He worked fourteen-hour days at a garage near the docks. My mother died when I was twelve."
Adrian listened silently, his scar dark under the firelight.
"After she passed, my father worked even harder to pay for my Catholic school tuition," Nora continued, her voice steady, without a trace of self-pity. "He wanted me to go to college. He wanted me to be an accountant or a teacher. But when I was twenty-two, he got sick. Lung disease from thirty years of breathing engine exhaust."
She took a slow breath.
"The medical bills swallowed everything," she said. "The house, his tools, his savings. I dropped out of my second year at Temple University to nurse him. I worked three jobs—cleaning offices at night, working a diner counter in the morning, taking care of him in the afternoon."
"Did your family help you?" Adrian asked quietly.
"We had no family left," Nora said. "Just him and me. He died four years ago. I spent two years paying off his remaining medical debts. By the time the last bill was cleared, I had ninety dollars left in my bank account and no degree."
She looked up, meeting Adrian's dark, intense gaze.
"Grant Mercer hired me three years ago," she said. "He told me the job paid three times the city average for domestic staff, but that I had to sign a forty-page non-disclosure agreement and never ask questions about the men who visited the house."
"And you never did," Adrian noted.
"I didn't care about the men in suits," Nora said plainly. "I cared about keeping this house clean. It was honest work. It paid well. It allowed me to rent a small, quiet apartment in Queen Village with a window that looks out over a pear tree."
Adrian looked at her—really looked at her.
He saw the soft curve of her jaw, the gentle warmth in her hazel eyes, the unshakeable strength in her posture. She was five-foot-four, full-figured, wearing a five-dollar cotton dress, yet sitting in his private study, she possessed more quiet dignity than all seven heiresses combined.
"They laughed at you tonight," Adrian said, his voice dropping into a dark, angry rumble. "Caroline and the others. They called you plain. They called you trash."
Nora offered a small, careless shrug. "Cruel people always use words like that when they feel threatened, Mr. Vale. They spent their whole lives believing that money makes them superior. Seeing a maid stand in the same room with the same choice terrified them."
"They were right to be terrified," Adrian said softly.
He stood up from his chair, stepped over to his mahogany desk, and picked up the cheap pine frame. He walked back to the hearth and held it out to her.
Nora looked at the frame, then up at his face in confusion. "Mr. Vale?"
"Take it," Adrian said.
"I can't take this," Nora whispered, backing away slightly. "This belongs to your mother. It's the most valuable thing you own."
"You chose it," Adrian reminded her, his deep voice filled with a sudden, overwhelming warmth. "Under the rules of tonight’s test, whatever you chose belongs to you before you leave this house."
"Adrian..." Nora used his first name for the very first time, her voice shaking slightly as the realization hit her. "I didn't pick it to take it away from you. I picked it so you would know that someone in this house saw you."
May you like
Adrian set the frame down on the table between their teacups. Then he reached out, took both of Nora’s soft, work-roughened hands into his large palms, and gently pulled her up from the couch until she stood inches away from his chest.
"I know," Adrian whispered, his dark eyes locked onto hers. "And that is why you are never leaving this house again."
