CHAP 2 — Nathan Chooses Her
Nathan recovered slowly, but after the hospital, he stopped pretending I was only staff.
At first, he found reasons to speak to me.
Questions about flowers in the sitting room.
Questions about whether the kitchen staff had enough help.
Questions about books I had placed on his bedside table.
Then one evening, he found me in the rear garden after my shift, sitting on a stone bench with my phone pressed to my ear.
“Johnny, listen to Mrs. Alvarez,” I said softly. “Paul, don’t climb the porch rail. Lily, sweetheart, I know. I miss you too.”
When I hung up, Nathan stood beneath the archway.
I quickly stood.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll leave.”
“Don’t apologize for loving people.”
The words pierced me.
I looked away.
He stepped closer, careful not to crowd me.
“Emily, are they your children?”
That was the moment I should have told him everything.
Instead, I said, “They depend on me.”
It was true.
It was also incomplete.
Nathan accepted it because love sometimes respects a closed door before understanding why it is locked.
He courted me with patience.
Not expensive gifts at first. Those would have frightened me.
He brought books.
He remembered I liked black coffee with one spoon of sugar.
He asked about my day and waited for the real answer.
When I refused dinner with him three times, he asked a fourth with no wounded pride.
Finally, I said, “Mr. Carter, you come from heaven and I come from earth.”
He looked almost offended.
“No, Emily. I come from money. That is not the same as heaven.”
I smiled despite myself.
“I have responsibilities.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.”
“I’m trying to.”
“Nathan, people will talk.”
“They already talk. Let them work harder.”
The first time he held my hand, I nearly pulled away.
Not because I did not want it.
Because my body had learned caution around tenderness. Some scars live in skin. Others live in reflex.
When Nathan asked me to marry him, I cried before answering.
Not pretty tears.
Afraid tears.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “You might regret this.”
“I will never regret loving you.”
“You don’t know everything.”
His face softened.
“Then tell me when you’re ready.”
That was why I said yes.
Because he did not demand my pain as proof.
The engagement turned the mansion poisonous.
Staff whispered louder.
Nathan’s friends joked over whiskey.
“Instant dad of three, Carter? Bold move.”
“Does the maid come with a school bus?”
Nathan cut them off.
“One more word about Emily and you leave my house.”
But the worst came from Margaret Carter.
His mother summoned him to the grand foyer the morning after the engagement announcement. I was arranging white lilies nearby when her voice cracked through the marble.
“She’s a servant with three illegitimate children! You are turning our family estate into an orphanage!”
Nathan’s face went cold.
“Do not speak about Emily that way.”
“She trapped you.”
“No. She cared for me when you were too busy protecting your image.”
Margaret saw me then.
Her eyes moved over my plain dress, my folded hands, my lowered gaze.
“Mark my words, Nathan. Women like her always come with hidden damage.”
I kept my head down.
May you like
Because she was right.
Just not in the way she thought.
