Chapter 2

On day three, a challenger arrived, her high heels clicking against the floor.

Vanessa Cross, Silas's cousin, arrived in a coat the color of a fresh wound.

"So you're the miracle nanny?" she sneered, deliberately knocking a picture frame crooked -- one I had just straightened.

"A penniless maid puts on a little show, and now she wants the family fortune? Savanna, you need to understand something. This child holds the family trust. Low-class people will put on any show for money."

Facing this public humiliation, I didn't even blink.

"Is that what you do, Miss Cross?"

The smile didn't move. Her eyes did.

"Careful," she said pleasantly. "You're staff."

That night Silas found me in the kitchen. First time he'd sought me out.

"She said 'more,'" he said. "Daisy. To you. At lunch. Housekeeper -- Mrs. Allen heard it."

"She did."

The man who controlled a business empire actually looked uneasy. "As long as you stay, nothing is an obstacle. Not even your sister's surgery."

The refrigerator hummed.

I put my cup down very carefully, because my hand had started to shake and I did not want him to see it.

"Mr. Haynes," I said. "I've never told anyone in this house about my sister's surgery."He didn't move. Didn't explain. Didn't apologize.

Panic flashed across his eyes, and he fled the kitchen.

Late that night, Daisy waited until all the servants were asleep before shuffling over to me, one tiny step at a time.

She came in with her fist closed and her arm straight down, the way children carry things that matter. Stopped in front of me. Checked my face -- always checking, like she was afraid I'd swapped myself out.

Then she opened her hand.

A folded paper star. Five points, thumbnail-sized, gray and soft with handling, the way paper goes when it's been carried for years.

Something in my chest went sideways.

I know that fold. The five-point pinch, the tail tucked left because I'm left-handed, the crimp on the last point that everyone else does differently.

I have been folding these since I was nineteen.

But this was the first time in my life I had ever seen Daisy.