CHAPTER 1 THE FATEFUL SLAP
The brutal slap echoed through Hartwell Mansion like a gunshot.
For one suspended second, everyone in the grand foyer stopped moving.
The crystal chandelier shimmered overhead.
The grandfather clock continued ticking against the wall.
And six-year-old Lucas Hart screamed as though someone had struck him instead.
“Don’t touch her!”
Lucas tore free from Vivienne Hart’s grip and ran back toward Elena Marlowe.
His small arms wrapped tightly around Elena’s waist.
His face disappeared into the plain gray fabric of her maid’s uniform.
“She’s my mommy!”
Vivienne’s beautiful face twisted with rage.
She wore a purple satin dress worth more than Elena earned in an entire year.
Diamonds trembled at her throat as she pointed a manicured finger toward the servant.
“You have poisoned him against me.”
“I never told him to say that,” Elena whispered.
A red handprint burned across her cheek.
Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to lower her head.
Nathaniel Hart stood between the two women.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and accustomed to commanding boardrooms filled with men twice his age.
Yet now his authority deserted him.
He looked at his son clinging to a servant.
Then he looked at the fear in Elena’s face.
Finally, he turned toward his wife.
“Why is Lucas calling her Mommy?”
Vivienne forced a laugh.
“Because she has manipulated a lonely child.”
“I’m not lonely when Elena is here,” Lucas cried.
His words struck Nathaniel harder than the slap had struck Elena.
Vivienne reached for the boy again.
Lucas recoiled.
He pressed himself against Elena and shook so violently that the buttons on his burgundy jacket rattled.
“Don’t let her take me upstairs,” he begged.
Nathaniel’s expression changed.
“What happens upstairs?”
Lucas’s lips parted.
Before he could answer, Vivienne grabbed his wrist.
“That is enough.”
Elena caught Vivienne’s arm.
“Let him go.”
Vivienne stared at the maid’s hand as though a rat had touched her.
“You forget your place.”
“No,” Elena said.
“For the first time in six years, I remember exactly where my place is.”
Nathaniel studied her.
Something about her voice unsettled him.
It was not the voice of a servant pleading for employment.
It was the voice of a woman standing over the ruins of her own life.
Elena touched the swelling on her cheek.
Then she looked directly into Nathaniel’s eyes.
“Ask your wife what happened at Saint Catherine’s Hospital six years ago.”
Vivienne went pale.
Nathaniel noticed.
“What happened there?”
“Nothing,” Vivienne snapped.
Elena’s tears finally spilled.
“She told you the woman who gave birth to Lucas died.”
Nathaniel’s breath caught.
Vivienne took one step backward.
Elena placed a trembling hand over Lucas’s hair.
“She lied.”
The clock ticked once.
Twice.
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Then Elena spoke the words that shattered the Hart family forever.
“I am the woman who gave birth to your son.”
