Chapter 5 - Red Velvet Pancakes
Brooklyn Heights felt like another planet compared to the sterile, cutthroat canyons of billionaire Manhattan. The tree-lined street was quiet, carpeted in crisp orange and gold maple leaves.
When I let myself through the high wrought-iron gate of the brownstone that evening, I loosened my silk tie and took the first real breath I’d taken in forty-eight hours. Inside, the house smelled like warm vanilla, roasted chicken, and cinnamon.
Before I could even hang my overcoat on the brass rack in the foyer, a small blur of red tulle and brown curls came hurtling down the oak hallway.
"Uncle Logan!" Mia squealed, launching herself at my knees with the fearless velocity only a three-year-old possesses.
I scooped her up with one arm, tossing her lightly into the air until she dissolved into a fit of bright, musical giggles that seemed to scrub the darkness of the boardroom right out of my soul.
"Look at you," I said, balancing her on my hip and tapping the tip of her nose. "Wait a minute. Is that chocolate on your chin, or did you grow a beard since last night?"
"It's chocolate chips!" she declared proudly, patting my cheek with sticky little hands. I didn't care one bit that she was smearing melted chocolate onto a four-thousand-dollar bespoke suit. "Mommy made pancakes for dinner! Because we're in a castle!"
"Mia, oh my goodness, your hands!"
Emily appeared in the archway of the kitchen, holding a damp dishcloth. She looked completely different from the haunted woman who had cowered in my dining room the night before. She was wearing a soft, oversized cream sweater and jeans, her dark hair falling in natural, loose waves around her shoulders. Without the oppressive gray uniform and the constant terror weighing her down, there was a warm, effortless beauty to her—a gentle radiance that made my breath catch in my throat.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Bennett," Emily said, hurrying over to wipe Mia’s fingers, her cheeks flushing a soft pink when her knuckles accidentally brushed against my chest. "I tried to wash her hands, I swear, she’s faster than a mouse."
"First of all, the suit needed dry cleaning anyway," I said, smiling down at her until she looked up and met my eyes. "And second, as long as we’re under this roof, if you call me 'Mr. Bennett' one more time, I’m confiscating my share of the pancakes. It’s Logan."
Emily’s lips parted slightly, a shy, genuine smile breaking across her face—the first real smile I had ever seen from her. It transformed her entire demeanor, lighting up her hazel eyes with flecks of gold. "Okay... Logan. Are you hungry? I made way too much food. Having a kitchen this big without someone screaming at me made me go a little crazy."
For the next two hours, I forgot I was the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate. I rolled up my shirtsleeves and sat at a rustic wooden kitchen island, eating chocolate-chip pancakes and roasted chicken off mismatched ceramic plates while Mia explained the intricate politics of her stuffed animal kingdom.
After dinner, when I stood up to carry my plate to the sink, Emily gasped and tried to intercept me. "No, sit down! That's my job—"
"Not tonight it isn't," I said gently, taking the sponge from her hand and bumping her hip lightly with mine to nudge her toward the drying towel instead. "Tonight, you wash, I dry. Or I wash, you dry. Pick your poison."
She laughed—a soft, breathless sound that felt warmer than any fireplace—and took the dish towel. As we stood side by side at the sink, the quiet domesticity of the moment settled around us. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her dry a glass.
"How did you end up working for us, Emily?" I asked softly over the running water. "Before my mother hired you."
Her movements slowed. "My late husband, David, was an elementary school music teacher," she said quietly, looking out the window above the sink at the twilight garden. "When I was six months pregnant with Mia, he was diagnosed with aggressive pancreatic cancer. We didn't have family to fall back on—we both aged out of the foster system in Ohio. By the time he passed away when Mia was a year old, the medical bills had wiped out everything. We lost our apartment. I was working night shifts cleaning offices while Mia slept in a stroller beside the supply closet."
I turned off the faucet, my chest tightening. "And my mother found you?"
Emily nodded, a tear glistening on her lower lash, though she smiled through it. "My stroller wheel broke in the rain outside your mother’s charity foundation building on Fifth Avenue. Important people in expensive coats walked right past us for twenty minutes while I tried to keep Mia dry with my own jacket. Then Mrs. Bennett walked out. She didn't ask her driver to handle it. She took off her own cashmere coat, wrapped it around Mia, and put us both in the back of her Maybach. Two days later, she offered me the live-in housekeeper position so Mia would always have a safe roof over her head."
She looked up at me, her hazel eyes clear and fiercely loyal. "Your mother didn't see me as staff, Logan. She saw me as a mother trying to save her baby. That’s why Vanessa couldn't break me. Because you can't buy that kind of debt, and you can't scare it out of someone."
I reached out, my wet fingers gently brushing a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. She didn't flinch. Instead, she leaned almost imperceptibly into my palm, her breath hitching softly in the quiet kitchen.
May you like
Wait until my mother wakes up fully, I thought, looking down into Emily's eyes. She knew exactly who belonged in our family long before I did.
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