CHAPTER 2 – THE SECRET THE MAID HAD HIDDEN FOR ELEVEN YEARS
Edward waited.
Maria kept staring at the floor.
"I asked you a question."
His voice wasn't angry.
That frightened her even more.
Finally, barely above a whisper, she answered.
"Yesterday morning."
Silence.
Even the humming refrigerator suddenly seemed loud.
Edward looked at the untouched feast still sitting on the kitchen counter.
Thousands of dollars worth of food prepared every week.
Half of it thrown away.
Meanwhile...
The woman who had cleaned his home for over a decade was starving.
"Why?"
Maria squeezed her hands together until her knuckles turned white.
"My son."
That was all she said.
Edward frowned.
"You have children?"
She nodded.
"Noah."
"He's sixteen."
"He can't walk anymore."
"My husband died five years ago."
"The insurance never paid."
"The treatments never stopped."
"I sell everything I can."
"My food is... the easiest thing to give up."
Edward felt something tighten inside his chest.
He had seen Maria almost every day for eleven years.
Yet he had never asked a single question about her life.
Not once.
Just then, footsteps echoed through the hallway.
His daughter, Victoria Whitmore, entered the kitchen.
She stopped cold.
"What is this?"
Her eyes widened in disgust.
"The maid is eating garbage?"
Maria quickly stood, wiping tears from her face.
"I'm sorry, Miss Victoria."
"It won't happen again."
Victoria folded her arms.
"This is exactly why employees need boundaries."
"If she's desperate enough to eat leftovers, what's next?"
"Jewelry?"
"Cash?"
Edward slowly turned toward his daughter.
"What did you just say?"
Victoria shrugged.
"I'm just being realistic."
Edward's face hardened.
"Realistic?"
"The woman who raised you while I traveled the world?"
Victoria blinked.
"The woman who stayed overnight when you had pneumonia?"
"The woman who missed her husband's final hours because she refused to leave this house while you were sick?"
Maria's eyes filled instantly.
Victoria froze.
She had forgotten.
Years ago...
When she was only nine...
Maria had slept beside her hospital bed for three nights.
The same nights her own father had been overseas closing another billion-dollar deal.
Edward looked back at Maria.
His voice cracked.
"I never thanked you."
Before anyone could react...
He pulled out a chair.
Not for himself.
For Maria.
"Sit."
She shook her head.
"I can't."
"Employees don't..."
"You are not eating on the floor."
She hesitated.
"I said..."
"Sit."
For the first time in eleven years...
The maid sat at the family's dining table.
She cried through every bite.
But Edward wasn't looking at her anymore.
He was looking at the payroll records on his phone.
Because one horrifying number had just caught his attention.
Someone had been reducing Maria's wages...
May you like
For years.
Without his approval.
