Chapter 2: Five Years Later

SIENNA Point Of View

"Mommy, Leo took my blue crayon again!"

"I didn't take it! It rolled under the couch! I was trying to save it!"

"Both of you stop yelling before your sister's heart monitor starts beeping again," I whispered, crouching down on the worn floor of our tiny two room apartment.

I pulled five year old Mia onto my lap, gently checking the little clip on her finger that tracked her pulse. Her heart rate was steady, but her skin was far too pale. The specialist's words from yesterday's appointment were still ringing in my ears like a sentence. «She needs the corrective surgery before her sixth birthday, Miss Mercer. That's seventy five thousand dollars upfront. State assistance won't cover it.»

Seventy five thousand dollars. To me, it might as well have been seventy five million.

"I'm sorry, Mommy," Leo murmured, hanging his head. He reached out to pat my knee, his big, innocent eyes full of worry.

Every time I looked at Leo's face, my heart stopped for a second. It had been five years since that terrible night at the Grand Regency Hotel, five years since I ran out into the rain, ashamed and broken. When I found out I was pregnant a month later, my fiancé humiliated me in public and broke off our engagement, calling me a cheat. My father disowned me. Amber got exactly what she wanted, marrying my ex within six months.

And I was left with nothing.

Until the ultrasound showed three heartbeats.

Leo, Toby, and Mia were my whole world. But looking at Leo right now, at his sharp, stubborn little jaw and, worst of all, those striking, rare golden hazel eyes, my stomach turned. Toby had them too. Mia had his dark, wavy hair. The stranger from Suite 802 had left his mark on my children, a permanent reminder of a night I had tried so hard to forget.

Ring... ring...

My secondhand phone buzzed hard against the counter. I picked it up with a shaking hand.

"Hello?"

"Sienna Mercer?" a sharp voice asked. "This is Elite Household Staffing. We got an urgent request for a short term, live in head housekeeper at the private estate of Damon Sterling. The pay is ten thousand dollars a month, room and board included in the staff quarters."

I nearly dropped the phone. Ten thousand a month? That was more than I made in a year working double shifts as an agency nurse.

"Did you say... Damon Sterling?" I asked, my blood running a little cold. Even in the poorer parts of the city, everyone knew that name. The twenty nine year old CEO of Sterling Enterprises was known for being ruthless, a cold billionaire who bought out companies for fun and fired executives without blinking.

"Yes. It's a high stress job, and he has zero patience for mistakes," the agent warned. "You start at 6:00 AM tomorrow. Do you want the job or not?"

I looked down at Mia, leaning against my chest, her breathing a little raspy. I looked at Toby and Leo sharing a piece of stale bread.

"I'll take it," I said, my voice hardening with a mother's resolve. "I'll be there."

The next morning, the tall iron gates of Sterling Manor opened like the jaws of some huge animal.

I held my beat up suitcase in one hand and held Leo and Toby's hands with the other, while Mia rode on my hip. The estate was massive, acres of trimmed lawn leading up to a huge, old style mansion built from cold grey stone.

"Remember the rules, babies," I whispered to the triplets as we were led in through the back staff entrance by the stern head housekeeper, Mrs. Gable. "You stay inside the annex rooms. You do not play in the main hallways. You do not make noise."

"Yes, Mommy," they said together.

"Your duties are simple, Sienna," Mrs. Gable said coldly, typing a code into a heavy security door that separated the staff quarters from the main house. "You clean the main study, the library, and the private gallery. And most important, you stay completely out of Mr. Sterling's sight. He does not like staff in his personal space."

"Understood," I promised, tying my hair back into a tight bun and pulling on the plain navy uniform.

By 2:00 PM, my back ached, but I kept moving fast. I needed to finish dusting the master study before the boss came back from his headquarters. The study smelled faintly of rain, cedar, and expensive leather, a smell that made an odd, uneasy knot form in my stomach, though I brushed it off quickly.

I was wiping down the huge wooden desk when a small, wooden clatter echoed from the hallway outside the cracked door.

My heart dropped into my shoes.

No!

I turned around. Peeking through the cracked door was five year old Leo. He was holding a little wooden race car, his small shoes squeaking against the polished floor as he chased it right into the off limits private hallway.

"Leo! No!" I gasped under my breath, dropping my duster and lunging for the door.

Before I could reach it, heavy footsteps echoed from the grand staircase at the end of the hall.

"Carter, cancel the merger meeting," a deep voice cut through the air, sharp enough to slice glass. "If the board can't meet my price by 5:00 PM, I'll buy out their debt and liquidate them by morning."

The voice seemed to shake the floorboards.

I froze, a wave of panic crashing over me so hard my knees nearly buckled. That voice...

Leo tripped on his untied sneaker. The wooden race car slipped from his fingers, rolled across the floor, and bumped straight into a pair of handmade black leather shoes.

The footsteps stopped.

"What is this?" the cold voice growled.

I threw the study door open, panic clouding my vision. "I'm so sorry! He wandered out, I'm taking him right now!"

I dropped to my knees, grabbing Leo and pulling him behind my back to shield him. "Please, sir, it was an accident..."

"Look at me," the man ordered.

The pure authority in his voice made me shudder. Slowly, shaking, I lifted my head to look up at the master of Sterling Manor.

Damon Sterling was imposing, standing over six feet tall in a tailored charcoal suit, his broad shoulders filling the hallway. His jaw looked cut from stone, his lips set in a hard, unmoving line.

He wasn't looking at me.

He was staring past my shoulder, his eyes locked entirely on Leo peeking out from behind my apron.

Damon's face went completely pale.

The folder in his hand loosened, slipping from his fingers and scattering papers across the floor.

He stepped closer, his shoes crushing the papers underneath. Slowly, almost like he was in a daze, Damon crouched down until he was at eye level with my five year old son.

Under the bright light of the ceiling fixture, Leo looked up at the billionaire with innocent curiosity.

And that's when I saw it.

The same sharp nose. The same stubborn set to the jaw.

And shining in the light, locked onto each other, were two identical pairs of striking, rare golden hazel eyes.

Damon stopped breathing. His jaw tightened so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek.

He slowly reached out and picked up the wooden toy car from the floor. His thumb brushed over the spot where Leo's small fingerprints were smudged.

When Damon stood back up, the cold executive was gone. In his place was a man who had just uncovered a dark, life changing truth.

"Carter," Damon called out softly, his golden eyes snapping away from Leo to lock onto my pale, frightened face with a grip that felt impossible to escape.

His assistant rushed up the stairs, bowing nervously. "Y-yes, Mr. Sterling?"

"Seal the estate gates," Damon ordered, his voice shaking with a dark, heavy possessiveness. "Nobody leaves this manor. And call my private medical lab, tell them I need an emergency DNA match done on this toy within the hour."