Chapter 3 - The Woman He Chose
The room went so quiet that Claire Donovan could hear the ice settling inside someone’s champagne glass.
Twenty-two guests stood beneath the crystal chandeliers of Hawthorne Hall, watching three-year-old Leo Ashford cling to the skirt of a woman who was never supposed to matter.
Claire.
The housekeeper.
Not Vivienne Cross, the senator’s polished daughter in ivory silk.
Not Lydia Pembroke, whose family owned half the waterfront.
Not Vanessa Cole, the glamorous television philanthropist who had spent two months making sure every society page in New York knew she was “close” to widowed billionaire Grant Ashford.
Leo had ignored all three women.
He had crossed the ballroom in his tiny black shoes, walked straight past them, and wrapped both arms around Claire’s knees.
Then he had said the word he had not spoken since his mother died.
“Mommy.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Grant Ashford’s face changed.
Across the room, his mother, Margaret Ashford, dropped her champagne glass.
It shattered against the marble floor.
“Leo,” Claire whispered.
The little boy buried his face against her.
“Mommy,” he repeated.
Claire crouched immediately.
“No, sweetheart. I’m Claire.”
His small hands caught her cheeks.
His eyes were wet.
“Don’t leave.”
Those two words hurt more than the first.
Grant moved forward.
He was thirty-six, tall, controlled, and frighteningly calm even when boardrooms were collapsing around him. In the nine months Claire had worked at Hawthorne Hall, she had never once seen him lose control.
Until now.
“Leo,” he said softly.
The child turned his head.
Grant held out his arms.
Leo shook his head violently and tightened his grip around Claire.
A murmur passed through the guests.
Margaret recovered first.
“This is ridiculous.”
Her voice cracked across the room.
“She is an employee.”
Claire rose slowly.
“I know exactly what I am, Mrs. Ashford.”
“Then behave like it.”
Grant turned.
“Mother.”
One word.
A warning.
Margaret ignored it.
“This evening was supposed to help Leo become comfortable around the women who may eventually become part of this family. Instead, your employee has clearly encouraged an unhealthy attachment.”
Claire felt heat rise through her chest.
“I have never encouraged him to call me anything.”
Vivienne Cross smiled thinly.
“Children imitate what they’re taught.”
Claire looked at her.
“Are you accusing me of teaching a grieving three-year-old to call me his mother?”
“I’m saying children are impressionable.”
“And adults aren’t?”
Grant’s eyes flicked toward Claire.
For one dangerous second, she thought he might smile.
Margaret did not.
“You’re finished here.”
Claire stared at her.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Grant stepped between them.
“You don’t employ her.”
“This house belongs to the Ashford family.”
“It belongs to me.”
The room fell silent again.
Margaret’s expression hardened.
“Grant, do not embarrass yourself over hired help.”
Grant looked down at Leo.
The boy was still clutching Claire’s hand.
Then Grant raised his eyes.
“The only person embarrassing herself tonight is you.”
Margaret went pale.
Claire wished the floor would open beneath her.
She had never wanted this.
She had needed work.
That was all.
Nine months earlier, Claire had arrived at Hawthorne Hall through an employment agency with two suitcases, sixty-three dollars in her checking account, and a promise to herself that she would never become attached to another family.
Especially a rich one.
Rich families had taught her enough when she was young.
But Leo had been different.
He had not spoken after the accident that killed his mother, Caroline.
Doctors called it traumatic mutism.
Margaret called it stubbornness.
Grant called it grief.
Claire had called it silence.
And instead of forcing him to break it, she had sat beside him.
She folded laundry near him.
Built wooden trains without asking him to play.
Left half a peanut butter sandwich beside him when he refused dinner.
When nightmares woke him, she sat outside his bedroom door because Margaret had forbidden staff from entering unless summoned.
Eventually Leo began sliding toy cars under the door to her.
That was how their friendship started.
A red truck beneath a closed door.
Now that friendship was threatening to explode an entire dynasty.
“Party’s over,” Grant said.
Margaret stared at him.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am.”
Within fifteen minutes, limousines were rolling away from Hawthorne Hall.
Vivienne left without looking at Claire.
Vanessa whispered something to Margaret before departing.
Claire noticed.
She also noticed Margaret whisper back.
When the last guest disappeared, Claire carried Leo upstairs.
Grant followed.
At the nursery door, Leo finally allowed his father to take him.
Claire stepped backward.
“I should pack.”
Grant looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because your mother is right about one thing.”
His expression sharpened.
“Which thing?”
“This situation is becoming complicated.”
“My son spoke.”
“I know.”
“For the first time in fourteen months.”
Claire swallowed.
“I know.”
“And you think I’m firing the person he chose to speak to?”
“No. I think I should leave before your family decides I’m trying to become something I’m not.”
Grant stared at her for a long time.
Then Leo reached from his father’s arms toward Claire.
“Stay.”
Grant looked at his son.
Then at Claire.
“Apparently you’ve been outvoted.”
Claire almost laughed.
Almost.
But something moved behind Grant in the darkened hallway.
Margaret.
She stood thirty feet away.
Watching.
Her face carried no anger now.
Only fear.
Claire recognized fear.
She had lived with it long enough.
Margaret turned away quickly.
That bothered Claire more than the insults.
Because Margaret Ashford was many things.
Proud.
Cruel.
Controlling.
But Claire had never seen her afraid of a housekeeper.
Not until Leo had called Claire “Mommy.”
Later that night, Claire finished cleaning the ballroom alone.
Near midnight, she found something beneath the table where Margaret had been sitting.
A small gold locket.
Claire picked it up.
The clasp had broken.
She nearly placed it on the table.
Then the locket fell open.
There was a photograph inside.
Claire froze.
A young woman smiled from one side.
Caroline Ashford.
Leo’s dead mother.
But the photograph on the other side was older.
Faded.
A teenage girl stood outside a brick building.
Claire knew that building.
She knew the cracked stone steps.
She knew the iron railing.
She knew the maple tree behind it.
She had spent nine years of her childhood there.
St. Agnes Children’s Home.
Claire’s fingers began to tremble.
Because beside the teenage girl stood another child.
A little girl with dark curls.
Seven years old.
Wearing a yellow coat.
Claire whispered into the empty ballroom.
“No.”
She turned the locket closer to the light.
The little girl was her.
And suddenly Margaret Ashford’s fear made sense.
She had known Claire long before Claire ever entered Hawthorne Hall.
The question was why.
And somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
May you like
Claire snapped the locket shut.
Someone was watching her.
