The maid’s secret

CHAPTER FIVE

AMELIA’S POV

I didn’t breathe until I had pulled Lily down the long corridor and slammed our bedroom door shut behind us. My pulse hammered in my ears. My palms were still damp, my hands trembling as if I’d seen a ghost.

Lily stood before me, clutching her doll, her big brown eyes wide and questioning. “Mama… why are you mad?”

I pressed a hand over my chest, trying to steady my heart. “Because, Lily,” I said, kneeling down to meet her gaze, “you cannot—ever—wander into places you don’t belong. Do you hear me? Ever.”

Her lips jutted into a pout. “But I wasn’t lost. I found the big room with the fire. And there was a man there. He wasn’t mean like they said. He talked to me.”

My throat tightened. The man. Damian Knight.

The image of him sitting in that armchair flashed through my mind. Broad shoulders draped in shadows, tattoos peeking from beneath his shirt sleeve, eyes so sharp they seemed to see right through me. The air had thickened when he looked at me, as though he’d stolen all the oxygen from the room.

I gripped Lily’s small shoulders. “Sweetheart, listen to me carefully. That man is the master of this house. He’s powerful, and people like us… we don’t just walk into his rooms.”

She tilted her head. “Why not? He wasn’t scary. He smiled at me, Mama. Smiled.”

Her innocence cut me to the core. No one else had dared say that man smiled. Not once.

“Lily,” I whispered, my voice breaking, “he isn’t someone we can bother. If he wanted, he could send us away tomorrow. And we need this job. We need it to survive. Do you understand?”

Her small hand reached up, brushing against my cheek. “But Mama, you work so hard. I just wanted to make a friend.”

I closed my eyes, pulling her into my arms. Her words stabbed me with both love and fear. I wanted to keep her safe, but safety didn’t exist in Damian Knight’s world.

“You have me,” I whispered fiercely, rocking her gently. “You don’t need anyone else.”

She nestled against me, her little body warm and trusting. Within minutes, her breathing evened out, her lashes fluttering closed.

I laid her carefully on the small bed, tucking the worn blanket around her.

But sleep wouldn’t come to me. My mind circled back to the study. To him.

The way his eyes had narrowed at me, searching, almost as if… as if he knew me. But that couldn’t be possible. I’d never been in his world. Men like him and women like me didn’t cross paths.

Still, when his gaze locked with mine, I felt something stir. A strange pull, like a memory I couldn’t reach.

I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering though the night was warm.

This job was supposed to be safe. A chance to start over, to keep my daughter fed and sheltered. But already, I could feel the ground shifting beneath my feet.

And the more I tried to push the thought away, the more one truth clawed at me.

Damian Knight wasn’t just another employer.

He was something else. Something I couldn’t name. Something I wasn’t sure I wanted to.