Chapter 2: The Face of the Dead
From the top of the grand staircase, Veronica Sterling stood elegantly, a glass of vintage champagne resting between her manicured fingers. She wore a stunning, diamond-encrusted silk dress, her lips curled into a smirk of pure, toxic ego. She felt completely victorious over her rival. She loved the twisted poetry of forcing Ethan’s true wife to clean the floors for their upcoming wedding, proving that old money and absolute ruthlessness always won.
"Ethan, darling! Don't waste your breath on her," Veronica purred, glidind down the marble steps like a silver viper. "The agency sent a completely incompetent girl today. If she can't even scrub a floor properly, I’ll have security throw her into the streets."
Ethan didn't respond to Veronica. He was a man of extreme discipline, but something about the maid’s voice had just sent an electric shock directly through his chest. It was a voice he had heard in his dreams every single night for the past three years.
"Look at me," Ethan commanded, his voice dropping into a dangerously quiet, tense tone.
The maid froze. She wept silently on the floor, her body trembling with a mix of terror for her father's safety and an overwhelming, agonizing love for her husband. Slowly, inevitably, she lifted her head.
She finally looked directly into her husband's eyes.
Ethan's briefcase slipped from his hand, crashing loudly against the marble floor. The annoyed, exhausted expression on his face shattered instantly into absolute, unadulterated shock. The world seemed to stop spinning. The wealthy businessman stared down at the dirty, grease-stained face of the maid, his chest heaving as he recognized the woman he had buried three years ago.
The structure of her jawline, the piercing emerald-green color of her eyes, the tiny crescent-shaped scar on her right cheek from their college days—it was impossible. It was insane. But it was her.
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"Clara...?" Ethan breathed, his voice stripped of all its usual power, falling into a broken whisper.
"Ethan..." Clara sobbed, the sheer weight of her silent torture finally breaking her resolve.
