Chapter 1 - The Flowers on His Counter
Roman Costa should not have been awake.
At two in the morning, the Costa estate was usually silent enough for Sadie Bennett to hear the old pipes ticking behind the walls. The guards stayed outside. The household staff disappeared into their quarters. And Roman—the man everyone in the house feared—was supposed to be three floors above her, asleep behind a locked bedroom door.
But when Sadie entered the dark kitchen for a glass of water, she heard ice strike crystal.
She froze.
A cigar glowed in the corner.
Then Roman stepped out of the darkness.
His jacket was gone, his sleeves rolled above his tattooed forearms. Exhaustion shadowed his face, but his dark eyes were frighteningly alert.
They weren't looking at her.
They were looking at the small bouquet of pink carnations beside the sink.
“Who gave you those flowers?”
Sadie's fingers tightened around the water bottle.
It was such a strange question that for a second she wondered whether she'd heard him correctly.
“The flowers, sir?”
Roman slowly set down his Scotch.
Then he stood.
Sadie had worked in his mansion for three years, carefully obeying every unwritten rule that kept the household running—and kept employees from attracting Roman Costa's attention.
Don't stare.
Don't ask questions.
Don't enter his study.
And, most importantly, don't give him a reason to remember your name.
Yet now he crossed the kitchen and stopped in front of her.
“I asked you a question, Sadie.”
Her breath caught.
He knew her name.
That frightened her more than his tone.
Sadie swallowed. “Toby gave them to me.”
Roman's expression changed.
“Toby?”
“The bakery delivery boy.”
“I know who he is.”
Of course he did.
Roman seemed to know everything that happened inside his estate.
Sadie quickly explained that Toby had simply brought the carnations with the afternoon bread delivery. They were inexpensive flowers, probably bought at the corner shop. Nothing important.
She even offered to throw them away.
Roman didn't answer.
Instead, he picked up the vase.
He studied the flowers as though they contained some hidden message.
Pink carnations.
Baby's breath.
A cheap glass vase.
A tiny piece of ordinary happiness inside a mansion where ordinary happiness rarely survived.
Roman's jaw tightened.
“He gave these to you at my house?”
Sadie blinked.
“Yes.”
Something about the words my house made her nervous.
Roman placed the vase down.
“He likes you.”
It wasn't a question.
Sadie forced a nervous smile. “He's just being friendly.”
“Men don't bring women flowers because they're friendly.”
She stared at him.
Roman stared back.
For the first time in three years, Sadie broke one of the household's most important rules.
She looked Roman Costa directly in the eyes.
And what she saw confused her.
It wasn't anger.
It was jealousy.
That made no sense.
Roman barely acknowledged her existence.
Sadie was twenty-four, a maid in a gray uniform who spent her days cleaning marble floors and polishing furniture. Roman was the powerful heir to an empire people whispered about but never discussed openly.
They belonged to completely different worlds.
Yet the man standing before her looked genuinely offended that another man had given her flowers.
“You should go back downstairs,” Roman finally said.
Sadie nodded immediately.
She hurried toward the door.
“Sadie.”
She stopped.
“Tell Toby not to bring you flowers again.”
Her heart jumped.
Slowly, she turned around.
“With respect, sir… why?”
Roman went completely still.
Nobody questioned him.
Especially not employees.
But instead of becoming angry, he glanced toward the carnations.
For one strange second, something vulnerable appeared behind the hardness in his face.
Then it vanished.
“Because I don't trust men who arrive at my gate pretending they only came to deliver bread.”
Sadie almost laughed.
Almost.
But Roman Costa wasn't joking.
She returned to the basement with one question burning inside her mind.
Why did Roman care?
She didn't know that upstairs, Roman remained alone in the kitchen for another hour.
And she certainly didn't know that he eventually picked one carnation from the bouquet and carried it into his private study.
The next morning, Toby didn't arrive.
Another bakery employee delivered the bread.
Sadie tried not to think about it.
But Toby didn't return the following day either.
Or the day after that.
On Friday afternoon, Sadie finally asked the replacement driver where he was.
The man's expression became uncomfortable.
“Toby quit.”
“Quit?”
“Yeah. Suddenly.”
“Why?”
The driver shrugged.
“Said he got offered a job somewhere upstate.”
Sadie's stomach tightened.
That evening she marched toward Roman's study.
For the first time in three years, she knocked on the forbidden door.
“Come in.”
Roman sat behind his enormous mahogany desk.
Sadie entered.
“Did you make Toby leave?”
Roman leaned back.
“No.”
She studied him suspiciously.
“Then why did he suddenly move?”
Roman's eyes narrowed slightly.
“I offered him a better job.”
Sadie's mouth dropped open.
“You what?”
“He accepted.”
“You sent him away because he gave me flowers?”
Roman rose.
“No.”
He walked around the desk.
“I sent him away because he was distracting you.”
Sadie's disbelief turned into anger.
“You don't get to decide who distracts me.”
Roman stopped.
Nobody spoke to him like that.
But something almost resembling amusement flickered across his face.
“You're right.”
Sadie hadn't expected that.
Then Roman opened a drawer.
He removed an envelope.
“I was going to give you this tomorrow.”
Sadie hesitated before taking it.
Inside was a letter.
Her eyes moved across the page.
Then she stopped breathing.
It was an acceptance letter from a prestigious culinary institute in Manhattan.
Sadie's hands began trembling.
“How did you—”
Roman knew.
He knew about the application she'd filled out months ago and hidden beneath her mattress.
He knew about the dream she'd never told anyone in the Costa household.
“I didn't get accepted,” she whispered. “They rejected me.”
“They reconsidered.”
Sadie stared at him.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing illegal.”
“That isn't reassuring coming from you.”
Roman almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Sadie noticed something on his desk.
A single wilted pink carnation.
The flower Toby had given her.
Beside it was an old photograph.
Sadie could only see part of the picture.
A young woman stood beside Roman's father.
And that woman looked disturbingly familiar.
Sadie stepped closer.
Roman immediately covered the photograph with his hand.
Too late.
She had seen the woman's face.
Her knees nearly gave way.
Because Sadie had seen that woman before.
Every day of her childhood.
In photographs hidden inside her mother's bedroom.
Sadie looked at Roman.
“Why do you have a picture of my mother?”
Roman's expression went cold.
The silence between them changed completely.
Finally, Roman locked the photograph inside his desk.
“Close the door, Sadie.”
Her heart pounded.
“Why?”
Roman looked directly into her eyes.
“Because those flowers aren't the reason I've been watching you.”
And suddenly Sadie understood something terrifying.
Roman Costa hadn't learned her name that night.
May you like
He had known exactly who she was from the day she entered his house three years earlier.
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