Chapter Four – The Servant’s Daughter
715 Words
The next few days passed like a dream Elena couldn’t wake from—sweet at times, but mostly shadowed.
Everyone in the Vale building had heard what happened in the East Conference Room.
Some looked at her with new interest. Others with barely disguised hostility. A few whispered “gold-digger” when she passed. The cruelty didn’t hurt as much as the attention. She had never wanted to be seen this way—not as a rumor, a scandal, a problem.
She was just Elena. The servant’s daughter. The girl who studied late into the night while her mother folded silk sheets and scrubbed polished floors. The girl who dreamed of doing more, not being more.
But now she was something else in their eyes—something dangerous.
All because he had defended her.
---
Elena stood outside the family estate that evening, her fingers lingering on the iron gate. It loomed like a fortress in the moonlight. Towering walls. Ivy crawling over ancient bricks. A legacy built on control.
Her mother had been working here for over twenty years.
And tonight, for the first time in her life, Elena was going to walk in through the front.
The door creaked open before she could knock.
“Elena,” her mother whispered, blinking in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you. Alone.”
They sat in the small kitchen behind the staff wing. The one filled with the scent of old tea and lemon polish. Her mother’s hands trembled slightly as she poured two cups.
“You’ve seen him, haven’t you?” Celeste asked gently.
Elena looked up.
“Damian Vale. He’s noticing you.”
Elena swallowed. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“No one ever does,” her mother said quietly. “But once they do, it changes everything.”
Elena’s heart sank. “You sound like you know.”
Her mother was silent for a long moment.
Then finally: “Because I do.”
Elena’s world stilled.
Celeste set the teacup down and folded her hands. “Years ago... before you were born, before this estate was so heavily guarded, there was another Vale. Damian’s uncle, Gabriel.”
Elena leaned forward, barely breathing.
“He saw me too.”
---
The story that followed was delicate but brutal.
A young servant. A wealthy heir. A summer of secrets, sweet words, and stolen moments.
And then came the punishment.
Gabriel had been sent abroad. Her mother had nearly lost her job. She had been reminded—again and again—that love had rules in this world. That people like her weren’t allowed to break them.
“I was foolish,” Celeste said. “But I don’t regret it. Not because of what happened. Because it taught me the price.”
Elena reached across the table and held her mother’s hand. “I’m not you. I’m not trying to... to have some hidden romance.”
Celeste’s voice was barely a whisper. “Maybe not. But you already feel it, don’t you?”
Elena couldn’t answer.
Because the truth was already blooming inside her like a secret rose.
---
The next morning, she tried to avoid Damian.
Tried to blend in. Smile politely. Work harder than anyone else.
But when she returned from lunch, there was a note on her desk.
> Rooftop. Midnight. – D
Her heart skipped.
She knew she should ignore it.
She knew what happened to girls who said yes to the wrong prince.
But when the elevator dinged at 11:59 PM, Elena was already inside it, heading upward.
And when the rooftop door creaked open, Damian was there—suit jacket off, tie loosened, eyes waiting.
The skyline behind him shimmered like a fallen constellation.
“Why am I here?” she asked softly.
He turned.
“Because I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said. “And I need to know if it’s just me.”
Elena’s breath caught.
“You don’t get to play games with me,” she whispered.
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m breaking every rule I was born with just by standing here.”
He stepped closer.
“Tell me to stop, Elena.”
She didn’t.
Because she couldn’t.
- Writer
