Chapter 2 - THE SHADOW IN THE GARDEN
I did not scream.
Screaming would wake Valentina. Screaming would bring the security officers from the front gate.
Instead, I swiftly covered the photograph, the silver locket, the hospital bracelet, and the sealed envelope with the white cloth. I shoved the bundle back into the hidden lining of the red suitcase and pushed it deep beneath the narrow bed.
My heart hammered a violent rhythm against my ribs.
I moved to the window.
The staff garden was bathed in pale moonlight. The shadow standing near the stone fountain did not move. It was tall, draped in a thick wool shawl.
I recognized the silver hair pulled into a tight knot.
Inés.
The head housekeeper wasn't just taking a midnight stroll. She was facing my window directly.
I unlatched the glass and pushed it open. The cool night air spilled into the tiny room.
“Señora Inés,” I whispered, keeping my voice steady. “Is something wrong?”
Inés stepped out of the shadows. The moonlight caught the heavy ring of keys at her waist.
“You did not lock your door, Marisol,” she said quietly.
“I thought the grounds were secure.”
“The iron gates keep out strangers,” Inés replied. “They do nothing to protect you from the people already inside.”
I stared at her. The cryptic warning sent a chill down my spine.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Inés stepped closer to the window. Her sharp, calculating eyes dropped to the floor beneath the bed, exactly where I had just kicked the suitcase.
“Don Rafael was a meticulous man,” Inés said. Her voice carried the weight of decades spent serving the Alcázar family. “He noticed everything. A misplaced spoon. A wilted flower in the grand hall. A young maid from San Aurelio who suddenly disappeared nine years ago.”
My breath caught in my throat.
She knew.
“I was not working for the Alcázar family nine years ago,” I lied. The instinct to survive took over. “I was in San Aurelio, yes, but—”
“Do not insult my intelligence, Marisol,” Inés interrupted softly. “I have been the head housekeeper here for forty years. I managed the estate in San Aurelio the winter Diego brought you there. I was the one who cleaned his room. I was the one who found the second teacup on the balcony every morning.”
Panic gripped my chest.
If Inés knew about me and Diego, she would fire me tonight. She would pack my bags and throw Valentina and me out onto the street before the engagement party guests even arrived.
“Please,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “I need this job. I will stay in the laundry wing. I will never speak to him. He doesn't even know I am here.”
“He doesn't,” Inés agreed. “But I do.”
She reached into the deep pocket of her gray dress.
I braced myself for an envelope of cash. A payoff to leave quietly. It was how wealthy families handled mistakes.
But Inés did not pull out money.
She pulled out a small, heavy object and placed it on the stone sill of my open window.
It gleamed in the moonlight.
A single gold button. Stamped with the Alcázar crest—a lion beneath a crescent moon.
It was an exact match to the six buttons on Don Rafael’s coat in the massive portrait upstairs.
“I did not hire you by accident, Marisol,” Inés said, her tone entirely shifting from strict housekeeper to fierce conspirator. “The employment agency flagged your name. I intercepted the file before Paulina Serrano’s staff could see it.”
I stared at the gold button. “Why?”
“Because Don Rafael gave me the match to that button the week before he died,” Inés revealed. “He told me that if a woman named Marisol Vega ever returned to the Alcázar estate, I was to give it to her. He said it was the only key to fixing his greatest regret.”
I looked back up at her, my mind spinning.
Don Rafael hadn’t hated me? He hadn’t been the one to orchestrate my ruin?
“Take it,” Inés urged.
I reached out with trembling fingers and picked up the heavy gold button.
“What does it open?” I asked.
“I do not know,” Inés said. “But you are out of time to figure it out.”
“Why?”
“Because Señor Diego was not supposed to arrive from Madrid until tomorrow evening.” Inés looked toward the main driveway. “But his flight arrived early.”
The sound of tires crushing gravel echoed through the night.
Headlights swept across the cypress trees.
“He is walking through the front doors right now,” Inés said.
Before I could process the terror of Diego being under the same roof, a small, sleepy voice spoke from the shadows behind me.
“Mamá?”
Valentina was sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes. She had her stuffed rabbit, Tomás, tucked under one arm.
“I’m thirsty,” she mumbled.
I spun around. “I’ll get you water, corazón. Stay in bed.”
But Valentina was already sliding her bare feet onto the cold floor. She walked past me, pulling open the bedroom door before I could grab her hand.
She stepped out into the service corridor.
At that exact moment, the heavy oak doors at the end of the hall swung open.
A man in a dark tailored suit stepped into the corridor, loosening his silk tie.
Diego Alcázar.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
May you like
He looked down at the nine-year-old girl standing in her nightgown.
And then, his dark eyes slowly lifted from Valentina, looking directly into my room, locking onto my face.
