Chapter 2 - When the Mansion Changed Faces
Chadworth stared at the screen.
For a moment, the billionaire who could negotiate acquisitions worth hundreds of millions of dollars could not make himself move.
“Play that back,” he said.
Malcolm looked at him.
“It’s live.”
“I know.”
Chadworth’s voice cracked.
He steadied it.
“I heard her.”
On the screen, Rosamund had become very still.
“What does she do?” she asked Lorelai.
Gemma tightened both arms around her rabbit.
Lorelai looked toward the hallway again.
“She gets different.”
Rosamund’s face showed something Chadworth could not immediately identify.
Fear?
Concern?
Or confirmation?
“Different how?”
Lorelai opened her mouth.
Gemma whispered, “Don’t.”
Her older sister stopped.
Rosamund looked between them.
“Gemma, sweetheart, nobody is going to make you say anything you don’t want to say.”
Gemma shook her head harder.
“She said Daddy won’t believe us.”
Chadworth felt as if someone had struck the center of his chest.
Malcolm turned toward him.
Chadworth did not look away from the screen.
“Who said that?” Rosamund asked.
Gemma buried her face against the rabbit.
Lorelai answered.
“Sabina.”
The monitoring room seemed to shrink.
Chadworth remembered conversations over the previous six months.
Sabina mentioning Lorelai becoming “dramatic.”
Sabina explaining that Gemma had entered a “clingy stage.”
Sabina suggesting that Rosamund encouraged the girls to resist authority.
Each explanation had been plausible.
Individually.
Together, they suddenly looked like something else.
A system.
“Why didn’t they tell me?” Chadworth whispered.
Malcolm answered carefully.
“Maybe they tried.”
Chadworth turned.
“What?”
Malcolm’s expression remained neutral, but there was discomfort behind it.
“Sir, Lorelai asked twice last month whether she could speak to you privately.”
Chadworth remembered.
The first time had been before a conference call with Singapore.
The second had been while he was leaving for Boston.
He had kissed Lorelai on the head both times.
Tonight, sweetheart.
Then tonight became tomorrow.
Tomorrow became next week.
And eventually she stopped asking.
Chadworth looked back at the monitor.
His daughter had tried.
He had been too busy.
Rosamund sat beside the girls.
“You should be able to tell your father anything.”
Lorelai gave a tiny, bitter laugh that sounded far too old for a nine-year-old.
“He’s never here.”
Chadworth closed his eyes.
Three words.
They hurt more than anything Sabina could have done to him.
Because they were true.
His companies knew him.
His executives knew him.
Investors could reach him across three continents.
But his daughters had learned that reaching their own father required an appointment with a man who did not realize they needed him.
When Chadworth opened his eyes, Rosamund was speaking.
“Your father loves you.”
“I know.”
Lorelai’s answer came immediately.
That somehow made it worse.
“I know he loves us. But loving somebody and being here aren’t the same thing.”
Chadworth lowered his head.
Malcolm respectfully looked away.
On the screen, Rosamund took Lorelai’s hand.
“You’re right.”
Chadworth looked up.
Rosamund could have defended him.
She could have offered the easy answer adults gave children.
Your father works hard because he loves you.
Instead, she respected Lorelai enough to tell the truth.
“He should be here more,” Rosamund continued. “But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t believe you.”
Gemma finally looked up.
“Sabina said he’ll marry her anyway.”
Rosamund’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“She said that?”
Gemma nodded.
“She said grown-ups believe grown-ups.”
Lorelai added, “And she said if we caused trouble, Dad would think Rosamund taught us to lie.”
Chadworth slowly turned toward Malcolm.
There it was.
The accusation against Rosamund.
The missing jewelry.
The warnings.
The supposed manipulation.
Sabina had not merely been attacking Rosamund’s reputation.
She had been constructing an explanation in advance.
If the girls ever spoke, Sabina could blame Rosamund.
Chadworth stood.
“I’m going upstairs.”
Malcolm stepped in front of the door.
“No.”
Chadworth stared at him.
Malcolm had never spoken to him that way.
“Move.”
“Not yet.”
“That woman frightened my daughters in my home.”
“And if you walk in there now, you’ll know what happened this morning. You won’t know what has been happening for months.”
Chadworth’s hand tightened.
“I’ve seen enough.”
“Have you?”
The question stopped him.
Malcolm pointed toward the screens.
“Sabina accused Rosamund of theft. If that was deliberate, there may be more. Your daughters are safe right now. Rosamund is with them. We keep watching.”
Chadworth hated him for being right.
He sat down again.
For the next hour, Sabina behaved differently whenever other staff members entered.
Her transformation was astonishing.
A cook came through the room.
Sabina smiled.
A gardener spoke to her through the terrace doors.
Sabina laughed.
Another employee passed.
Sabina bent down and kissed Gemma’s hair.
Chadworth watched Gemma become rigid beneath the touch.
That single reaction nearly made him leave the room again.
Then lunch came.
Rosamund prepared sandwiches exactly the way the girls liked them.
Lorelai’s without mustard.
Gemma’s cut into four small triangles.
Chadworth remembered Sabina mentioning this.
Rosamund knows far too much.
Now he understood.
Knowing how a child liked her sandwich was not evidence of manipulation.
It was evidence of paying attention.
Something Chadworth had outsourced without realizing it.
At 1:17 p.m., Sabina entered the kitchen.
Rosamund was putting dishes away.
The girls were in the playroom.
Sabina closed the door.
“You’re getting bold.”
Rosamund continued stacking plates.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
Sabina stepped closer.
“You keep forgetting that you work here.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Then stop pretending you’re their mother.”
Rosamund’s hands stopped.
Chadworth leaned forward.
Rosamund spoke without turning around.
“I have never pretended that.”
“They adore you.”
“They’re children.”
“They should adore me.”
Rosamund finally faced her.
“You can’t order children to love you.”
Sabina’s face hardened.
Chadworth watched every movement.
Then Sabina said something that changed the investigation entirely.
“You were supposed to be gone already.”
Rosamund frowned.
“What?”
“I recommended that Chadworth dismiss you weeks ago.”
Rosamund stared.
Sabina smiled.
“He almost did.”
Chadworth’s blood went cold.
It was true.
Three weeks earlier, after Sabina’s bracelet supposedly disappeared, he had drafted Rosamund’s termination papers.
He had stopped only because Lorelai became hysterical when she overheard part of the conversation.
At the time, Chadworth had interpreted the reaction exactly as Sabina wanted him to.
Proof the girls were too attached.
Now he saw it differently.
They had been terrified of losing the one adult who protected them when he was gone.
Sabina stepped toward Rosamund.
“Sooner or later, you’ll make a mistake.”
Rosamund met her eyes.
“Maybe.”
Sabina smiled.
“And when you do, he’ll believe me.”
Then she left.
Chadworth remained motionless.
Malcolm said nothing for almost a minute.
Finally Chadworth asked, “Do we still have archived footage?”
“How far back?”
“Everything.”
Malcolm hesitated.
“Routine footage overwrites unless flagged.”
“Then find whatever wasn’t overwritten.”
Malcolm turned toward another terminal.
Chadworth looked at the screen where Rosamund stood alone in the kitchen.
She leaned against the counter.
Her hands were trembling.
For the first time, Chadworth understood something else.
Rosamund had not been silent because she did not care.
She had been silent because Sabina had convinced her Chadworth would never believe her.
And perhaps she had good reason.
Twenty minutes later, Malcolm found something.
“Sir.”
Chadworth turned.
“What?”
“There are archived clips.”
“How many?”
“Forty-three.”
“Why?”
Malcolm stared at the file list.
“Someone manually flagged them.”
“Who?”
Malcolm clicked the access record.
Then he slowly looked at Chadworth.
“Rosamund.”
The billionaire stared at the screen.
Forty-three recordings.
Forty-three moments the housekeeper had secretly preserved.
And the oldest one had been saved almost five months earlier.
May you like
Long before Sabina ever accused her of stealing.
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