Chapter 1 - The Night He Asked Her to StayThe blonde woman remained upstairs for exactly forty-three minutes.
Iris knew because she checked the clock three times while pretending not to.
She reorganized the spice cabinet. She polished the chrome faucet. She folded two dish towels that had already been folded. When there was nothing left to do, she stood at the kitchen island with both palms pressed flat against the cool marble and told herself that none of this mattered.
Nicholas Valmont was her employer.
He was allowed to bring anyone he wanted into his house.
If a beautiful woman in an expensive dress walked confidently toward his bedroom, Iris had no right to feel as though someone had quietly closed a fist around her lungs.
At 4:47, heels clicked down the staircase.
Iris straightened automatically.
The blonde appeared at the entrance to the kitchen. Up close, she looked older than Iris had first assumed, perhaps thirty-five, with sharp gray eyes and a leather portfolio tucked beneath one arm.
“Where is the rear exit?” she asked.
Iris blinked.
“The rear exit?”
“I would rather not use the front gate.”
Something about the woman’s tone was different now. No arrogance. No seduction. Only urgency.
Iris pointed toward the hall.
“Through there, past the pantry.”
The woman took two steps, then stopped.
“If he loses consciousness, call emergency services immediately.”
Iris froze.
The woman seemed to realize she had said too much.
“What?”
But she was already walking away.
“Wait.”
Iris followed her.
“Why would Nicholas lose consciousness?”
The blonde turned.
For one second, compassion cracked through her polished expression.
“You should ask him.”
Then she left.
The rear door closed softly.
Iris stood motionless.
Her heartbeat began to accelerate.
She climbed the stairs.
Professional boundaries lasted until she reached the second floor.
After that, fear won.
“Nicholas?”
No response.
The master bedroom door was open.
Empty.
The office was empty too.
She checked the library, guest lounge and terrace.
“Nicholas?”
Still nothing.
Then she heard something downstairs.
Glass breaking.
Iris ran.
She found him in the living room.
Nicholas was sitting on the floor beside the low leather sofa, one shoulder against it. His white shirt hung open at the collar, three buttons undone as though he had been fighting for air. A broken water glass glittered beside his hand.
For the first time in five years, Iris forgot every rule.
She dropped to her knees.
“Nicholas.”
His face was dangerously pale.
“Look at me.”
“Iris.”
His voice was barely more than breath.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No.”
She reached for her phone.
Nicholas caught her wrist.
Even weakened, his grip startled her.
“No hospital.”
“You can barely breathe.”
“It passes.”
“That is not an acceptable medical diagnosis.”
Despite everything, something almost amused moved through his eyes.
“You’re arguing with me while I’m dying?”
The word stopped her.
Dying.
Not sick.
Not tired.
Not having a bad week.
Dying.
Iris stared at him.
Nicholas slowly released her wrist.
The silence between them changed.
“What did you say?”
He looked away.
That terrified her more than anything.
Nicholas Valmont never looked away.
“Nicholas.”
His jaw tightened.
“Get me the small bottle from my office. Top drawer. Left side.”
“I’m calling someone.”
“Iris.”
“No.”
It was the first time she had directly refused him.
“You don’t get to say something like that and then order me to fetch medicine as if you asked for your newspaper.”
He closed his eyes.
His breathing remained uneven.
“I have cardiac damage.”
Her anger vanished.
“What?”
“Advanced.”
She could hear the city beyond the windows. Horns. Distant sirens. Life continuing with obscene normality.
“How advanced?”
He did not answer.
Her voice broke.
“How advanced, Nicholas?”
“The doctors gave me somewhere between six and twelve weeks.”
Everything inside Iris became still.
Nicholas opened his eyes again.
He watched the truth reach her.
Three letters from University of Chicago Hospital.
Canceled meetings.
The shaking hand.
The missed breakfasts.
The cold house.
The woman telling her to call emergency services.
It had all been there.
She simply had not wanted to understand it.
“No.”
The word escaped her softly.
Nicholas’s expression hardened.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m already dead.”
Iris pushed herself upright.
She walked toward his office.
Nicholas thought she was leaving.
For the first time, genuine fear crossed his face.
“Iris.”
She returned less than a minute later with the bottle.
“I was getting this.”
“Oh.”
She crouched again.
“What do I do?”
“One tablet.”
She handed it to him with water from another glass.
He swallowed.
Then there was nothing to do except wait.
Five minutes passed.
Ten.
His breathing gradually improved.
Iris remained beside him.
Eventually Nicholas leaned his head against the sofa.
“You can go home.”
She stared at him.
“You nearly collapsed.”
“I did collapse.”
“That somehow makes the argument worse.”
“I’m fine now.”
“You just told me you have six weeks to live.”
“Six to twelve.”
“Thank you for the comforting correction.”
His mouth twitched.
Iris suddenly wanted to cry.
That tiny almost-smile did it.
She rose quickly and gathered the broken glass because cleaning was something she understood. Something she could control.
Behind her Nicholas said, “Her name is Evelyn Shaw.”
Iris stopped.
“The woman.”
She kept her back to him.
“I didn’t ask.”
“No. You never do.”
She resumed gathering glass.
“She’s my estate attorney.”
Iris looked over her shoulder.
Nicholas raised one eyebrow despite looking half dead.
“Disappointed?”
“Why would I be disappointed?”
“You’ve been assaulting that countertop since she arrived.”
Heat climbed Iris’s face.
“I was cleaning.”
“You polished the same twelve inches for twenty minutes.”
“You were watching me?”
“There wasn’t much else happening upstairs.”
She stared.
He sighed.
“Evelyn was finalizing my will.”
There it was again.
The cold reality.
Will.
Iris placed the glass carefully into the waste bin.
“When were you planning to tell the people who work for you?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Your board?”
“No.”
“Your friends?”
Nicholas laughed without humor.
“That would require having some.”
“Your family?”
His expression changed instantly.
“No.”
One word.
Absolute.
Dangerous.
Iris noticed.
“Why?”
Nicholas struggled to stand.
She moved forward.
“I don’t need—”
His knees buckled.
Iris caught him around the waist.
For one startling second they were pressed together, his arm over her shoulder, her hand against his bare chest beneath his open shirt.
His heart hammered irregularly beneath her palm.
Nicholas looked down.
Iris immediately moved her hand.
“Sorry.”
“For confirming I have a heartbeat?”
“For—”
She stopped.
Neither of them moved.
Nicholas smelled faintly of cedar, coffee and the medication she had just given him. Up close, he looked younger than his twenty-nine years and more exhausted than any human being should.
“Help me to the sofa,” he said quietly.
She did.
The sun disappeared slowly behind the skyline.
Neither of them mentioned dinner.
Nicholas refused food.
Iris made soup anyway.
He ate four spoonfuls under protest.
At 8:30, she called Marcus and told him not to return.
At 9:15, Nicholas received three calls and rejected all of them.
At 10:02, Iris realized he had been watching the same dark television screen for nearly twenty minutes.
“You should sleep.”
“No.”
“You look terrible.”
“You always know what to say.”
“You pay me for honesty.”
“I pay you to run the house.”
“Then consider honesty complimentary.”
Nicholas turned toward the windows.
“I don’t sleep much anymore.”
“Pain?”
He hesitated.
“Sometimes.”
“And the rest?”
Another pause.
“When you believe there is a possibility you will not wake up, sleep starts to feel remarkably similar to volunteering.”
Iris stopped breathing for a second.
She sat in the armchair opposite him.
Nicholas looked surprised.
“What?”
“You said you don’t have friends.”
“I don’t.”
“You do tonight.”
Something shifted in his face.
Not gratitude exactly.
Something more vulnerable.
“You should go home, Iris.”
“My apartment will still exist tomorrow.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He looked at his hands.
“I need to ask you something.”
She waited.
Nicholas stood slowly.
He crossed to the liquor cabinet but did not pour anything. Instead, he gripped its edge.
When he finally spoke, his voice was lower.
“Stay with me tonight.”
Iris’s pulse jumped.
Nicholas turned.
“Not as my maid.”
Every instinct inside her became alert.
He must have seen the uncertainty in her expression because his own immediately changed.
“No.”
He stepped backward.
“That sounded wrong.”
“Nicholas—”
“I’m not asking you for sex.”
His words were blunt enough to make heat flash across her cheeks.
“That isn’t why.”
“Then why?”
Nicholas looked toward the staircase.
Something like shame entered his expression.
“My mother died in this house.”
Iris had never heard him mention his mother.
He swallowed.
“I was nine.”
“Oh.”
“My father was in Geneva. The staff thought she was asleep. By the time someone checked, she had been dead for almost seven hours.”
Iris’s anger dissolved.
Nicholas looked at her with eyes stripped of every defense she had seen him wear for five years.
“I found her.”
The room disappeared around Iris.
“She was alone,” he continued. “And lately I keep thinking about that room. About the clock beside her bed. About how the whole house kept moving while she stopped.”
He laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it? I own hospitals. Hotels. Buildings full of people. I could pay a dozen nurses to watch me sleep.”
“That isn’t ridiculous.”
“I don’t want a nurse.”
His gaze found hers.
“I don’t want someone there because a contract requires it.”
His throat moved.
“I want one night where, if I close my eyes, I know somebody stayed because they decided to.”
That was when Iris understood.
The request had nothing to do with desire.
And somehow that made it far more intimate.
Nicholas Valmont, who could purchase almost anything, was asking for the one thing wealth could not guarantee.
Choice.
Iris crossed the room.
She stopped in front of him.
“I’ll stay.”
He stared at her.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“Tomorrow you can forget this happened.”
“I won’t.”
His expression almost broke.
Iris reached for his hand.
For five years she had served his coffee, washed his sheets, opened his doors and kept herself safely outside every invisible boundary between them.
That night, Nicholas closed his fingers around hers.
Not employer and employee.
Not billionaire and maid.
Just two people standing inside an enormous house that suddenly felt terrifyingly fragile.
At 11:36, Iris followed him upstairs.
She thought the secret was that Nicholas Valmont was dying.
May you like
She had no idea that before morning, she would discover something far worse.
Someone might be making sure he did.
Related Stories
