Chapter 1 - The Kiss That Stopped the Room
“Can I kiss you?”
My three-year-old daughter asked the question so casually that for one insane second, I wondered if I had imagined it.
Then I saw Cameron Hale’s face.
And I knew I hadn’t.
“Sadie!”
My voice cracked across the enormous penthouse.
I rushed toward her so quickly that one of my shoes nearly slipped on the polished marble floor.
“Mr. Hale, I’m so sorry. She wasn’t supposed to be here.”
That was an understatement.
Sadie absolutely was not supposed to be at work with me.
And children were absolutely forbidden inside Cameron Hale’s private penthouse.
Everyone on the household staff knew the rule.
No children.
No exceptions.
The rule had existed long before I was hired, and nobody questioned it because nobody questioned Cameron Hale.
At forty, Cameron controlled a real-estate and technology empire that seemed to own half the skyline visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him.
He was tall, intimidating, painfully handsome, and almost impossible to read.
He didn’t yell.
He didn’t need to.
One quiet sentence from Cameron could make senior executives straighten in their chairs.
One glance could make an entire room reconsider what it had just said.
And I had just allowed my three-year-old daughter to walk into the one room where she was forbidden to be.
I was going to lose my job.
There was no question about it.
I reached for Sadie.
Cameron raised one hand.
“Stop.”
I froze.
Sadie didn’t.
She stood in front of him in the ridiculous pastel princess dress she had insisted on wearing that morning.
My babysitter had called at 5:40 a.m. with a fever.
I had tried everyone.
My neighbor was working.
My sister was out of town.
The emergency childcare center didn’t open until nine.
And I couldn’t miss work.
Not that day.
Not after already losing hours the previous month when Sadie had been sick.
So I had made the worst professional decision of my life.
I brought her with me.
My plan had been simple: keep her downstairs with me in the staff area until my shift ended.
Then Cameron unexpectedly returned from a business trip two days early.
And somehow, during the chaos of preparing the penthouse, Sadie wandered upstairs.
Now she stood inches from the most powerful man I had ever met.
Her lavender-pink-blue dress was wrinkled.
One white sock had slipped almost to her ankle.
Her hair was messy.
And a crooked silver craft star—left over from a preschool art project—was stuck to her cheek.
Cameron looked at her.
Then, slowly, he crouched until they were eye to eye.
“Why,” he asked quietly, “do you want to kiss me?”
Sadie tilted her head.
“Because you look sad.”
I wanted the marble floor to swallow me.
Cameron’s expression barely moved.
But something changed in his eyes.
“Sad?”
Sadie nodded.
“Mommy kisses me when I’m sad.”
She considered him for another second.
“And you don’t have anybody.”
My stomach dropped.
“Sadie,” I whispered.
Cameron didn’t look at me.
“How do you know that?”
Sadie glanced around the penthouse.
The place was enormous.
Beautiful.
Perfect.
And silent.
“Because your house is too quiet.”
Nobody spoke.
Even the faint sounds of traffic forty stories below seemed to disappear.
Cameron stared at my daughter.
I had worked for him for eleven months, and in all that time I had never seen anyone speak to him that way.
Not because Sadie was disrespectful.
Quite the opposite.
She simply had no concept of his money.
His reputation.
His power.
To her, he was just a man sitting alone in a giant quiet house.
Sadie stepped closer.
“But I have to ask first.”
Cameron swallowed.
“Yes.”
Sadie frowned.
“Yes what?”
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
For the first time since I had met Cameron Hale, the man looked completely powerless.
“Yes,” he whispered. “You can kiss me.”
Sadie leaned forward.
She placed both tiny hands against his face and pressed the smallest kiss against his cheek.
Cameron closed his eyes.
Only for a second.
When he opened them, there was moisture shining there.
“Better?” Sadie asked.
A strange sound escaped him.
Half laugh.
Half something broken.
“Maybe.”
Apparently that was enough encouragement for my daughter.
She wrapped both arms around his neck.
Cameron went completely rigid.
I almost intervened.
Then I saw his hand.
It rose slowly.
Uncertainly.
And settled between Sadie’s shoulders.
His fingers trembled.
I looked away because suddenly the moment felt too private to witness.
When Sadie finally stepped back, she giggled.
“You have sparkle now.”
Cameron frowned.
She pointed.
The silver craft star that had been stuck to her cheek was now stuck to his.
He reached up and peeled it away.
For several seconds, Cameron Hale simply stared at the cheap little silver star resting in his palm.
Something about his expression frightened me.
Not anger.
Recognition.
Then Sadie turned.
Her attention landed on the black grand piano near the windows.
There was a framed photograph sitting on it.
I had dusted around that photograph hundreds of times.
Nobody touched it.
Not even Cameron.
The picture showed a little girl sitting on his shoulders beneath a bright summer sky.
Brown eyes.
Wild dark hair.
A missing front tooth.
She looked impossibly happy.
Sadie walked toward it.
My heart started pounding again.
“Sadie, sweetheart, come here.”
She ignored me.
“Who’s she?”
Cameron looked toward the photograph.
Whatever fragile warmth had entered his face vanished.
“My daughter.”
Sadie stared at the picture.
“What’s her name?”
Cameron hesitated.
“Lily.”
“Where is she?”
My eyes closed.
There are moments when children ask questions adults have spent years learning not to ask.
Cameron answered anyway.
“She died.”
Sadie turned.
“Oh.”
That single syllable contained no fear.
No awkwardness.
Just sadness.
She walked back to him.
Then she gently took the silver star from his fingers.
“For her.”
She placed it back in his palm and folded his fingers around it.
Cameron’s breathing changed.
I noticed because everything else had become so quiet.
Ten years earlier, Cameron Hale had lost his wife, Evelyn, and their four-year-old daughter, Lily, in a car accident.
Everyone who worked for him knew the basic story.
It had been in newspapers.
The accident happened on a rainy Tuesday morning.
Their vehicle went off a rural road outside the city.
Evelyn died at the scene.
Lily died shortly afterward.
Cameron had been at work.
He had never remarried.
He rarely spoke about them.
But there was one detail I had never heard.
One detail almost nobody knew.
Cameron looked at Sadie.
His face had gone pale.
“What did you say before?”
Sadie blinked.
“About what?”
“Before you kissed me.”
She thought.
“Can I kiss you?”
His fingers closed around the silver star.
I saw something collapse behind his eyes.
Cameron stood so suddenly that Sadie stepped backward.
“Mr. Hale?”
He walked toward the windows.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he turned.
His voice was rough.
“The last thing Lily said to me that morning was exactly that.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“She was leaving for preschool.”
His gaze moved past me, somewhere ten years away.
“She ran back into the kitchen because she had forgotten to say goodbye.”
His mouth tightened.
“She asked, ‘Daddy, can I kiss you?’”
My skin prickled.
Sadie was already walking toward him again.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “we should go.”
But she tugged Cameron’s sleeve.
He looked down.
“Mr. Cameron?”
Nobody called him that.
Apparently Sadie did now.
“Yes?”
She crooked one finger.
“Come closer.”
Cameron glanced at me.
I could only stare.
He crouched again.
Sadie leaned toward his ear.
She whispered six words.
I couldn’t hear them.
But I saw Cameron’s reaction.
Every trace of color disappeared from his face.
He pulled back sharply.
“What did you say?”
Sadie looked confused.
Cameron caught himself and softened his voice.
“Sadie. Please.”
She repeated it.
This time I heard her.
“The blue bird knows the way.”
I frowned.
It meant nothing to me.
But Cameron staggered backward.
Actually staggered.
His hand caught the edge of the piano.
The photograph rattled.
“Mr. Hale?”
He stared at Sadie.
“Who told you that?”
“Nobody.”
“Your mother?”
Sadie looked at me.
I shook my head immediately.
“I have never heard those words in my life.”
Cameron’s eyes locked onto mine.
There was no anger in them now.
Something worse.
Fear.
“Where did she hear it?”
“I don’t know.”
Sadie pointed toward the photograph.
“She said it.”
My heart seemed to stop.
Cameron slowly turned toward Lily’s picture.
“Who said it?”
“The girl.”
“Lily?”
Sadie nodded.
I crouched beside my daughter.
“Sadie, honey, you’ve never met that little girl.”
“I know.”
“Then what do you mean she said it?”
Sadie shrugged with the maddening simplicity only a three-year-old could manage.
“She told me when I was sleeping.”
Cameron’s eyes returned to mine.
I could almost see him trying to decide whether this was some elaborate cruelty.
I understood why.
I was his employee.
I had access to his home.
Perhaps he thought I had researched his family.
Perhaps he thought I had coached Sadie.
But I hadn’t.
I didn’t even understand the sentence.
“The blue bird knows the way,” Cameron repeated.
He walked to the piano.
His hand moved toward the photograph but stopped before touching it.
Then he whispered something almost too quietly for me to hear.
“Only three people ever knew that phrase.”
I stood.
“Who?”
Cameron looked at the smiling little girl in the photograph.
“Me.”
A pause.
“Evelyn.”
Another.
“And Lily.”
The air suddenly felt colder.
Sadie wandered toward the window as though she hadn’t just turned the world upside down.
I swallowed.
“What does it mean?”
Cameron didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked toward a locked hallway at the far end of the penthouse.
A hallway I had never been permitted to clean.
He reached inside his jacket.
Removed a key.
And for the first time in ten years, Cameron Hale walked toward the room nobody was allowed to enter.
He stopped at the door.
Then looked back at Sadie.
“The blue bird,” he said, “was Lily’s favorite toy.”
His hand shook as he inserted the key.
“And it disappeared the morning she died.”
The lock clicked.
Cameron opened the door.
May you like
And somewhere inside that dark room, something small and metallic fell to the floor.
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