Chapter 6 - The Confession in the Library
Two weeks passed in a blur of terrifying routine.
Maeve learned to navigate the sprawling estate, wearing Sienna’s clothes, eating breakfast with Elias in the sunroom, and listening to him talk about shipping contracts, waterfront acquisitions, and rival syndicates as if they were discussing the weather. To Elias’s shock, Maeve didn't flinch when he spoke about the darker side of his business. Having grown up on the tough streets of Chicago’s South Side before working for the Ashfords, Maeve understood the language of survival far better than spoiled Sienna ever could.
She didn't pity him. When Elias dropped a stack of documents because his hands trembled with frustration, Maeve didn't rush to coddle him like a fragile glass doll; she simply picked them up, handed them back, and told him to stop throwing tantrums like a teenager.
Elias had stared at her in stunned silence the first time she did that, before a slow, genuine smile broke across his face—a smile that made her heart skip a beat in a way that terrified her even more than his anger.
It was late Friday evening when Maeve wandered into the estate's massive library to find a book to help her sleep. The room was dark, illuminated only by the moonlight streaming through the tall stained-glass windows.
As she turned the corner near the history section, she froze.
Elias was there.
He wasn't in his wheelchair.
He was kneeling on the Persian rug beside the bottom shelf, his left leg stretched out awkwardly behind him, his hands gripping the mahogany bookshelf to support his weight. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, and his breathing was heavy and ragged. He was trying to reach a heavy leather-bound volume on the second shelf up, his fingers trembling with exertion as he stretched his arm upward.
"Don't," Maeve whispered, stepping forward instinctively.
Elias froze. He turned his head sharply, his gray eyes flashing with a mix of fury, humiliation, and raw, defensive pride.
"Get out," Elias growled, his voice thick with strain. "Get out of here, Sienna."
"You’re going to hurt yourself," Maeve said, ignoring his command. She walked over, knelt down beside him on the rug, and easily reached up to pull the book off the shelf.
Elias let out a harsh, defeated breath, his grip on the bookshelf loosening as he slumped back against the floor, resting his weight against the base of the cabinet. He closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
"Are you happy now?" Elias muttered bitterly, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall. "Did you come down here to watch the great Elias Marchetti crawl around like a broken animal?"
Maeve didn't hand him the book. Instead, she sat down on the rug right beside him, her silk skirt pooling around her knees.
"I didn't come down here to watch you fail, Elias," Maeve said softly, her voice carrying a quiet, unshakeable sincerity that made him open his eyes and look at her. "I came down here because I couldn't sleep. And I stayed because you're an idiot."
Elias blinked, turning his head to look at her in astonishment. "An idiot?"
"Yes. An idiot," Maeve repeated, looking him straight in the eyes without a trace of fear. "You think strength means never asking for help. You think being a man means suffering in silence while you push everyone who cares about you out the door. My brother Leo spent six months learning how to use his arms again after his accident. He cried, he fell, he looked pathetic a hundred times. But he never gave up. You? You're sitting here feeling sorry for yourself because your legs don't work right away, while refusing to let anyone see you trying."
Elias stared at her, utterly speechless. For the first time since she met him, the cynical, armored armor around his heart cracked wide open.
Slowly, his hand reached out, his warm fingers brushing against her cheek, tracing her jawline with an unimaginable tenderness.
"Who are you, Sienna?" Elias whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "Because the woman I was engaged to three weeks ago... she would have laughed at me and walked out of the room."
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Maeve’s breath hitched. For a second, she almost wanted to tell him the truth. She wanted to confess everything—to tell him she was Maeve Donnelly, a maid from the South Side, put there by her greedy employers. But looking into his stormy gray eyes, she realized the terrible, beautiful truth: Elias Marchetti didn't love Sienna Ashford.
He was falling in love with her.
