He noticed them.
Really noticed them.
The first time he spoke to me, I was sitting outside the laundry room late at night, reading under a dim yellow bulb.
“You read Steinbeck?” he asked.
I almost dropped the book.
“I’m sorry, sir—”
He gave a faint smile.
“If you’re reading Steinbeck… don’t call me sir.”
That was how it began.
Small conversations.
Then longer ones.
Late nights. Quiet spaces.
Books exchanged between us.
Conversations that slowly turned into something deeper.
He told me the mansion felt like a cage.
I told him I once dreamed of going to college.
He listened.
And little by little—
dangerously—
we stopped pretending there was a boundary between us.
It shouldn’t have happened.
But it did.
And for a short time, I believed something impossible.
That he meant it.
That he would choose me.
That I wasn’t just a secret.
Then everything collapsed.
I found out I was pregnant alone.
In a staff bathroom.
Hands trembling.
Heart pounding.
Terrified… but strangely hopeful.
I was going to tell him.
I truly was.
But I never had the chance.
Before I could reach Adrian—
he left on a sudden business trip.
And before he returned—
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