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""Victoria’s heel struck Elena’s hip hard enough to send her sliding sideways, and Elena’s first thought was not of pain but of the small warm head tucked beneath her chin.
She twisted before her shoulder hit the wall, folding both arms around the beige carrier strapped across her navy uniform.
Leo gave one startled gasp, the terrible silent kind that came before an infant decided whether the world was safe, and then his face crumpled.
His cry filled the marble hallway.
Elena pressed her palm behind his head and felt his body trembling against hers.
“Please, ma’am, calm down,” she said, fighting to keep her voice low.
“You’re scaring him.”
Victoria planted her pointed heel on the polished oak and came closer.
Her face had gone pale beneath the careful makeup she had applied that morning, but nothing else about her looked uncontrolled.
Even furious, Victoria Vale seemed arranged.
Her charcoal suit remained immaculate, her dark hair lying almost perfectly over one shoulder, and her voice came out thin and precise.
“Don’t you dare hold him.”
Elena stared at her.
For three years she had answered Victoria with yes, ma’am, of course, ma’am, right away, ma’am.
She had learned which towels belonged in which bathrooms, how Marcus liked the breakfast room blinds opened halfway, and how Victoria hated fingerprints on the glass doors even when the fingerprints belonged to her own child.
She had also learned that silence could sometimes make an angry person angrier.
Today silence seemed safer anyway.
Elena moved one careful step along the wall.
Leo’s crying sharpened.
“Give him to me,” Victoria said.
Elena shook her head once.
It was a small movement, but something changed in Victoria’s face.
The household staff did not tell Victoria no.
People who worked for the Vales learned that quickly, usually without anyone needing to explain it.
“Give me my son.”
“He’s afraid of you.”
Elena regretted the words before she finished them.
Victoria leaned toward her.
“Look at him,” Elena added, because fear had already carried her too far to retreat gracefully.
“He is my son.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Victoria’s finger rose between them.
“You are just the maid.”
The sentence landed more cleanly than the kick had.
Elena felt heat climb into her face.
Leo pushed his damp cheek against the collar of her dress, and she patted his back with the rhythm she used when he woke from naps confused and frightened.
“I’m keeping him safe.”
Victoria laughed once, without humor.
“From me?”
Elena did not answer.
That was when she heard the footsteps.
They came from the far end of the corridor, unhurried and heavy against the dark floor.
Victoria heard them too.
Her raised hand dropped.
The transformation was so quick that Elena almost doubted what she had just seen.
Victoria stepped away, smoothed the front of her jacket, and turned.
Marcus was walking toward them.
He still wore the forest-green suit he had left the house in that morning, though his black shirt was open at the throat and his hair looked as if he had run a hand through it several times.
He did not look at Elena first.
He looked at Victoria.
“Marcus—”
He passed Victoria without answering and stopped in front of Elena.
His eyes dropped to Leo.
The baby was crying hard now, his little fists opening and closing against the carrier.
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“Elena.”
“I have him.”
Her voice cracked, which embarrassed her more than it should have.
“I have him.”
Marcus looked at the red mark beginning to show above her wrist where she had struck the wall.
Then he turned.
Victoria immediately began talking.
“She refused to give him to me, and she has absolutely no right to decide when I can hold my own—”
Marcus stepped between them.
“Marcus, are you listening?”
He took another step toward her.
Victoria followed.
“I came home and found her carrying him around like she’s his mother.”
Marcus stopped.
Victoria nearly walked into him.
He turned so abruptly that she drew back.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said.
His right hand came up.
The slap was fast, flat, and shockingly ordinary.
His palm struck Victoria’s cheek with a sound that seemed too small for what it changed.
Her head snapped sideways.
Dark hair swept across her face, and one heel skidded before she caught herself against the edge of a white column.
Nobody moved.
Even Leo’s crying seemed, for one strange second, farther away.
Marcus lowered his hand.
Victoria slowly turned her face toward him.
A red patch had appeared along her cheekbone.
She touched it with two fingers.
“Did you just hit me?”
Marcus stood where he was.
“Enough.”
Victoria stared at him.
There was no rage in his face now.
That frightened Elena more than rage might have.
Victoria’s eyes moved past his shoulder toward Elena.
Marcus followed the glance.
“I saw what you did.”
The color drained from Victoria’s mouth.
Elena rocked Leo gently.
She wanted to disappear into the wall.
She wanted someone to take charge.
She wanted, absurdly, to be downstairs arguing with the housekeeper about whether the silver serving tray needed polishing again.
Instead she stood with a crying baby against her chest while two wealthy people destroyed something between them that no amount of money could make private again.
Victoria’s hand remained against her cheek.
“You hit me.”
Marcus looked down at his own hand as if it belonged to somebody else.
The anger disappeared first.
What replaced it was worse.
Elena recognized shame because she had carried enough of her own.
“Marcus,” Victoria whispered.
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
A door clicked somewhere downstairs.
Then came Rosa’s voice from the service corridor, calling Elena’s name.
Elena flinched.
Victoria noticed.
“Get out,” Victoria said.
Marcus looked at her.
She was still staring at Elena.
“Take him and get out.”
“No,” Marcus said.
Victoria gave him a bewildered look.
“No?”
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“Elena stays.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
