Chapter 2: The West Wing
1875 Words
Chapter 2: The West Wing
. A car was already waiting downstairs, a driver holding the door before she'd even reached the curb, and it wasn't until she watched the trunk pop open that she remembered she'd sent her suitcases ahead that morning , packed the night before, picked up by a Voss Group courier while she was still in the shower, because apparently even her own move-in didn't require her to lift anything heavier than a handbag. It should have felt like a kindness. It felt like being handled.
The estate itself surprised her. She'd braced for something out of a period drama ; gargoyles, ivy, a hundred years of old money pressed into stone , and instead the car came to a stop in front of a house that looked like it belonged on the cover of an architecture magazine: clean glass-and-steel lines rising three stories against the gray sky, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows glowing warm from the inside, a shallow reflecting pool running the length of the front courtyard instead of a fountain. New money dressed up as taste. It was, Elena had to admit, beautiful in a way that made her feel even smaller walking toward it.
A woman was waiting at the top of the steps before the car had fully stopped ; silver hair pulled into a tight knot, a black uniform pressed so sharp it looked like it could cut, a stack of folded white towels balanced against one hip. "Miss Voss," she said, not quite a question. "I'm Greta. This way, please."
Elena followed her through glass double doors into an entrance hall two stories tall, her heels clicking against polished concrete floors, past a floating staircase that seemed to hang in the air with no visible support, past walls hung with abstract art instead of family portraits; nothing that looked older than five years, nothing that looked like it had a story attached to it yet.
"Your room is in the west wing," Greta said, starting up the stairs. "It's a full suite ;bedroom, sitting room, and bath. Mr. Voss keeps to the east wing. You'll have space."
"Space," Elena repeated.
"Yes, ma'am."
"You called me 'miss' downstairs."
"Force of habit," Greta said, not slowing. "You'll be Mrs. Voss by tonight's paperwork. I'll adjust."
"You can call me Elena," Elena said, before she could decide whether it was her place to offer it. Greta glanced back at her -just briefly, something unreadable passing behind her eyes - but said nothing to that, only continued up the stairs, leaving the offer sitting quietly in the air between them, neither accepted nor refused.
At the top of the stairs, Greta pushed open a set of double doors, and Elena stepped into a room bigger than her entire bedroom back home - bigger, she thought, than her childhood bedroom and the hallway outside it combined. A bed dominated the far wall, wide enough to comfortably sleep two or three people, dressed in white linen so crisp it looked untouched, and beside it, exactly as advertised, a floor-to-ceiling window overlooked dark gardens stretching toward a tree line she couldn't see the end of. A low fire burned behind glass in the wall opposite the bed ; not real flame, she realized after a second look, but convincing enough that she'd almost asked whether it needed tending.
"The bath is through there," Greta said, nodding toward a door near the window, already crossing the room. "I'll just leave these."
Elena watched her disappear into the bathroom with the towels - heard the soft sounds of cabinets opening, towels being folded onto shelves, the quiet, practiced efficiency of someone who had done this in this exact house a thousand times before. When Greta reappeared, her arms were empty and her expression hadn't changed at all.
"Dinner is at eight, if you'd like to join Mr. Voss," she said. "Or I can have a tray sent up."
Elena pictured it - the long table downstairs, candlelight, sitting across from a man who couldn't look at her without reciting the terms of a contract.
"Send the tray," she said.
Greta's mouth twitched - not quite a smile. "I'll do that, ma'am," and let herself out, closing the door behind her with a soft, final click.
---
Alone, Elena set her handbag down on a bench at the foot of the bed and allowed herself exactly three minutes to cry, counting them on her phone because if she didn't put a number on it, she was afraid she wouldn't stop. In the mirror above the dresser she caught sight of herself mid-cry — dark hair coming loose from its pins, navy dress rumpled from the drive, a woman who looked far younger and far more lost than the one who'd walked into that lawyer's office that morning.
The tray arrived twenty minutes later, carried by a younger staff member who set it on the small table by the window without a word: a shallow bowl of butternut squash soup, still faintly steaming, a drizzle of cream swirled through its surface; a small portion of herb-crusted chicken beside roasted vegetables arranged with more precision than the meal warranted for an audience of one; a single glass of white wine she hadn't asked for and didn't touch; a slice of dark chocolate torte, dusted with gold leaf so fine it looked accidental. Elena ate slowly, alone, the silverware too heavy in her hand, the food better than anything she'd eaten in months and somehow tasting like very little at all.
---
She changed into a simple white nightgown, brushed out her hair until her arms ached, and finally slid beneath the cool linen sheets, the unfamiliar dark of the room pressing in around her. She was nearly asleep ,the rain outside had softened to a whisper against the glass — when the door opened.
Not the hallway door. A smaller one, set into the wall beside the fireplace, one she'd assumed led to a closet and hadn't thought twice about.
"Julian?" she said, sitting up fast, pulling the sheet instinctively higher over her chest.
No answer. Just footsteps crossing the dark toward her ; unhurried, certain, the particular stillness of someone with no intention of explaining himself.
"Julian, is that…"
A hand found hers in the dark. Warm. Broad. Certain in a way that made her breath catch . Nothing at all like the man who'd corrected her in a lawyer's office six hours ago, who couldn't be bothered to look at her twice.
She should have asked again. She should have reached for the lamp on the nightstand, not even a foot from her hand.
She didn't do either of those things, and by the time she thought to wonder why, it no longer felt like a question she had the right t
o ask out loud.
She would spend the next three years believing it was Julian.
She had no idea, yet, how wrong she was.
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