Chapter 2 - The Storm in the Ballroom
"This is absurd!"
The sharp, high-pitched voice of Victoria Vance shattered the silence. She was the front-runner among the three socialites—the daughter of a steel magnate whose family held twenty percent of the Sterling corporation's debt.
Victoria marched down the marble aisle in her $50,000 silk gown, her diamond heels clicking angrily.
"Alexander, you cannot possibly take the ramblings of a traumatized child seriously!" Victoria snapped, glaring down at Elena with pure disgust. "She is a servant! She probably manipulated the boy in the hallways to steal a fortune!"
Margaret Sterling, Alexander’s formidable mother, stepped down from the family balcony, her diamond-encrusted cane hitting the floor with authority.
"Victoria is right, Alexander," Margaret declared coldly, her sharp eyes locking onto Elena. "The girl is a maid. She cleans our guest quarters. To allow a child's fleeting memory to ruin an alliance that will save our European shipping routes is sheer madness."
Alexander didn't look at his mother. He didn't look at Victoria.
He knelt slowly on the marble floor, bringing himself eye-level with his son and the trembling girl.
"Elena," Alexander said quietly, ignoring the gasp from the high-society guests behind him. "Why are you working as a maid in my house?"
Elena swallowed hard, shielding Noah with her arm. "My... my mother fell ill two years ago, sir. I had to drop out of nursing school to pay her medical bills. The agency placed me here three months ago. I was instructed never to speak to Master Noah... so I only hummed to him when I cleaned his playroom while he slept."
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Noah looked up, tugging at Alexander’s lapel. "Daddy, when I have bad dreams, I hear her outside my door. She hums the song Mommy used to play on the piano."
Alexander’s eyes softened. The piano song was a lullaby his late wife had composed herself—a melody that was never published, never recorded, and known only to those who had been in the private wing of the hospital that tragic night.
