Chapter 6 - THE LEDGER OF THE HEARTTwo months later, the cherry blossoms along the entrance drive of the Rookery were starting to drop their pale pink petals onto the black cobblestones like fallen snow.
The transition hadn't been easy. Caleb had spent the first week trying to smuggle three stray cats into the east wing and testing the patience of the head of security by timing how long it took the perimeter drones to spot him crawling behind the greenhouse. But by week three, he had discovered that the estate’s private boathouse had an endless supply of crabs and that Mr. Calder—despite looking like someone who ate small children for breakfast—actually knew how to tie a proper bowline knot for a sailing dinghy.
As for me, I had officially retired from the kitchen staff.
Roman had promoted me to Director of Estate Operations, a title that mostly involved sitting behind a mahogany desk in a sunlit corner of the second-floor office, reviewing supply orders, and occasionally throwing away his cigars when he stayed up past two in the morning reading financial reports.
It was a Tuesday afternoon when the past finally tried to catch up.
I was in the conservatory, checking the water levels on the orchids, when the heavy oak doors at the end of the long gallery opened and Marcus Vance stepped through, looking more agitated than I had ever seen him.
“Mr. Calder is in the harbor office,” Marcus said without preamble. “Some complications with the Philadelphia customs clearance.”
“Is it serious?” I asked, setting down the watering can.
“Not economically,” Marcus said, adjusting his glasses. “Politically. Elevance Sterling’s lawyers have filed a retaliatory suit claiming the asset seizure was coercive. They’re trying to subpoena household records to prove Roman used undue influence.”
I felt a cold drop of water hit my wrist. “My employment records?”
“Among others,” Marcus nodded grimly. “They want to know why a private cook was drawing a salary that exceeded senior vice presidents in our logistics division—thanks to the retention bonuses Roman added without telling you.”
I stared at him for three seconds.
Retention bonuses.
I walked past Marcus without another word, out of the conservatory, down the grand staircase, and straight through the double doors of the harbor office at the back of the west wing.
Roman was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, a cell phone pressed to his ear, his shirtsleeves rolled up, looking out over the grey expanse of the Chesapeake where three of his container ships were idling near the dredged channel.
“…I don't care what the judge in Baltimore said,” Roman was saying into the phone, his voice dropping into that dark, lethal register that made strong men swallow hard. “Tell him if the subpoena isn't quashed by four o’clock, I’ll personally audit every tax return he filed since his divorce in two-thousand-and-ten.”
He clicked the phone off and tossed it onto the mahogany map table without looking.
“You’re interfering with judicial procedure,” I said from the doorway.
Roman turned slowly. His grey eyes softened just an infinitesimal fraction when they landed on me—a change so subtle no one else in Baltimore would have noticed it.
“The judiciary,” Roman said evenly, “needs occasional reminders about who actually pays for the paving on Calvert Street.”
“Is it true?” I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning against the doorframe. “The salary adjustments?”
Roman walked over to the desk, picked up a pen, and set it down again with a sharp clack.
“You worked seventy hours a week, managed forty staff members, balanced accounts that had been leaking funds since my grandfather’s administration, and occasionally kept me from having a stroke when the New York markets crashed,” he said, his voice entirely reasonable. “You were underpaid.”
“Roman, you were paying me like a C-suite executive while I was wearing an apron and smelling like onions.”
“You never smelled like onions,” he corrected immediately. “You smelled like lavender soap and black tea.”
“That is not the point!” I stepped into the room, my voice rising. “If the St. James lawyers get their hands on those payroll records, they’ll spin it into some kind of—of scandal. They’ll say you were keeping a mistress on the household payroll.”
Roman stopped.
He didn't look angry. He looked… suddenly, terrifyingly still.
He walked around the edge of the map table until he was standing less than two feet away from me. At thirty-four, with the weight of an empire on his shoulders and the cold, hard reputation of the most feared man in Maryland behind him, he looked remarkably, unbearably human.
“Let them say it,” he said softly.
“Roman—”
“Let them look at the records,” he continued, his hand coming up to touch my cheek—his knuckles brushing against my skin with a warmth that completely bypassed the old ache in my wrists. “Let them look at every single line item from the last five years. They’ll find that I paid your brother’s medical bills, that I bought your apartment building, and that I added three zeros to your quarterly bonus because I couldn't figure out any other legal way to keep you from walking out the front door.”
My breath hitched. The room seemed to shrink until there was nothing in it except the sound of the wind against the glass and the heavy, steady thud of my own heart.
“Is that all I am to you?” I whispered, my voice trembling slightly. “An investment you couldn't figure out how to balance?”
May you like
Roman’s hand slid from my cheek down to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair as he pulled me forward until my forehead rested against his shoulder.
“You are the only thing in this entire city,” he murmured against my hair, his voice rough and broken around the edges, “that doesn't have a price tag. And God help me, Clara… I’ve spent five years trying to figure out how to keep you from realizing you could have walked away at any second.”
