The Millionaire Came Home Unexpectedly… and Discovered How His Fiancée Treated the Employees

At seven o'clock on Sunday evening, the grand dining room was once again illuminated.

Richard Vance sat at the table, wearing a dark navy suit, flanked by his personal attorney, Harold Sterling. Victoria sat beside her mother, looking radiant in a cream-colored silk dress. She had spent the afternoon at the bridal salon and was in an exceptionally triumphant mood.

"The dress is exquisite, mother," Victoria giggled, taking a sip of white wine. "The lace is imported from Milan. It’s thirty-two thousand dollars, but Nathan’s assistant cleared the deposit this afternoon without a single question."

"Of course he did, darling," Eleanor smiled, adjusting her diamond bracelet. "Nathan knows what is expected for a wedding of this caliber."

At the head of the table sat Nathan. Next to him sat Marcus Croft, holding a thick, leather-bound portfolio that remained closed on the table.

Richard Vance tapped his gold pen against his pad, grinning broadly across the table at Nathan.

"Well, Nathan!" Richard said loudly. "This is a great evening! Harold and I reviewed the equity guarantee documents Marcus sent over yesterday. The wording is clean. Once you sign the secondary debt assumption for Vance Construction, our creditors back off, and we start clearing ground on the Mecklenburg project next week."

Richard pushed a three-page document across the mahogany table toward Nathan, along with a heavy Montblanc pen.

"Just your signature on page three, my boy," Richard smiled. "And then we can toast to the merger of our families!"

Nathan didn't pick up the pen. He didn't even look down at the paper.

He looked across the table at Victoria. She smiled back at him, her eyes bright, resting her hand on her father's sleeve.

"Victoria," Nathan said softly. "How was your afternoon?"

"Oh, it was wonderful, darling!" she beamed. "The dress fitting went perfectly. And I stopped by the catering office on the way home—I told them we need to replace the kitchen staff for the reception. Margaret is just getting too slow, you know? She nearly dropped a tray again this morning."

A heavy, absolute silence descended upon the table.

Marcus Croft did not move. Richard Vance’s smile faltered slightly, his eyes flicking between Nathan and his daughter.

"She nearly dropped a tray?" Nathan repeated, his voice dangerously quiet.

"Well, yes," Victoria said, laughing lightly as she adjusted her wine glass. "She’s just old, Nathan. Honestly, once we’re married, I think we should replace all the domestic staff here with a professional management agency from Atlanta. People like Margaret and Elena... they just don't have the standard required for an estate like this."

Nathan leaned forward slowly, resting his elbows on the polished wood of the table.

"Victoria," Nathan said. "Do you know what my mother did when she was fifty-eight years old?"

Victoria blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in topic. "Your... your mother? Well, no, darling, I—"

"She cleaned six floors of an office building downtown," Nathan said, his voice echoing clearly in the silent room. "She washed forty toilets a night. She wiped down desks used by men who made five hundred dollars an hour and didn't know her name."

Eleanor Vance shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Richard frowned, setting his gold pen down on the table. "Nathan, what does your mother’s past have to do with the debt contracts?"

"Everything, Richard," Nathan said calmly. He reached over, picked up Marcus’s leather portfolio, and opened it.

He didn't pull out the debt guarantee papers. He pulled out a sleek, black USB drive and set it on the center of the table.

"On Tuesday afternoon at four o'clock," Nathan said, looking directly into Victoria’s eyes, "I flew home early from Denver. I wanted to surprise you with a bracelet."

Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. The color began to drain slowly from her cheeks.

"I stood in the dark hallway outside the kitchen," Nathan continued, his voice as steady as a surgeon's scalpel. "And I watched you tell a fifty-eight-year-old woman with a sick husband that the broken glass was coming out of her check. I heard you ask her, 'With what?' when she offered to replace it."

Victoria’s mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out.

"Nathan..." she whispered, her voice suddenly trembling. "Darling... she spilled wine on the marble... she was being careless—"

"She was on her knees, Victoria," Nathan interrupted, his eyes cold and dark. "And you spoke to her as if she were dirt under your shoe."

"Now see here, Whitmore!" Richard Vance boomed, standing up from his chair, his face turning red. "You're making a scene over a maid?! We're here to sign a sixty-million-dollar commercial agreement!"