Chapter 1 - Why Is She Down?
“Why is my mother on the floor?”
Ethan Harrington’s suitcase stopped in the center of the marble foyer.
His elderly mother, Eleanor, sat crying beneath the chandelier. Leah, the young maid his wife regularly called “the help,” knelt beside her with both arms wrapped protectively around her.
Victoria stood over them holding a long silver cleaning pole.
“Ethan…I can explain.”
“Then explain.”
Victoria lowered the pole.
“Your mother became unreasonable.”
Leah looked up.
“She refused to sign.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
“Sign what?”
“A routine household document,” Victoria answered.
Leah shook her head.
“It sells the mansion.”
Victoria glared at her.
“You were not hired to read private papers.”
“Mrs. Harrington asked me to.”
Eleanor reached for Leah’s hand instead of her son’s.
“She said if I didn’t sign, Leah would be fired and I would be sent somewhere I couldn’t interfere.”
Ethan looked at his wife.
Victoria lifted her chin.
“I never touched either of them.”
Leah’s voice trembled.
“You didn’t need to.”
Then Eleanor whispered:
“She said you had already approved everything.”
Ethan froze.
May you like
Three weeks earlier, Victoria had asked him to sign a temporary household authorization before his London trip.
He had signed without reading the final page.
