Chapter 3 - The Weight of a Life
Every muscle in Elena’s body felt as if it were being torn apart as she dragged Nathaniel through the collapsing corridor.
The billionaire was tall and broad,
a heavy burden for a woman who had spent the last few years carrying nothing more substantial than silver trays and laundry baskets.
But she found a strength that came from a place deeper than bone,
a strength born from the four years she spent lifting her dying mother,
and the three years she spent loving a man who didn't know how to be loved.
The air was a toxic soup of plastic,
wood,
and history,
but she kept her eyes fixed on the distant,
flickering light of the foyer.
A beam fell behind them,
a flaming pillar that blocked their path back to the gallery,
forcing her to take a detour through the service entrance she knew so well.
She dragged him down the narrow stairs,
the back of his head resting against her knees,
her hands raw and bleeding from the friction of the carpet and the heat.
Finally,
the cool,
damp air of the night hit her face,
and she collapsed onto the grass of the north lawn,
just as the roof of the west wing caved in with a sound like a dying mountain.
She didn't look at the fire;
she looked at him,
pressing her ear to his chest,
waiting for the rhythmic thud that would tell her she hadn't run back for a ghost.
It was there—weak,
staggering,
but persistent.
The paramedics rushed over,
pushing her aside as they began to administer oxygen and check his vitals.
The crowd of staff and family gathered around,
their faces illuminated by the orange glow of the burning mansion.
Victoria approached,
her dress ruined and her makeup running,
looking at Elena with a mixture of shock and something that looked suspiciously like disappointment.
"You went back in for him?"
Victoria asked,
her voice high and thin.
"He’s my employer,"
Elena said,
though the lie felt heavy on her tongue.
Nathaniel’s mother,
Eleanor,
stood nearby,
her hands clasped over her mouth,
realizing that the woman she had ignored for three years was the only reason her son was still breathing.
Nathaniel began to cough,
a harsh,
racking sound that brought color back to his cheeks,
his eyes flickering open as he searched the crowd.
He didn't look for his mother,
and he didn't look for his fiancée.
His gaze swept past the expensive coats and the jewelry until it landed on the woman sitting on the grass,
her face covered in soot,
her hands wrapped in a torn,
burnt apron.
He didn't speak,
he couldn't,
but the way he looked at her was a conversation in itself,
a silent acknowledgment that the world he had lived in was gone,
and the only thing left was the person who had refused to let him die alone.
As the ambulances pulled away,
leaving the mansion to the mercy of the fire department,
Elena realized that she had lost everything she owned—her small room,
her clothes,
May you like
her savings—but for the first time in her life,
she felt as though she had finally found something that money couldn't buy.
