Chapter 1 - Fresh Off the StoveThe scalding broth sloshed over the rim of the bowl, searing the tips of my calloused fingers. I didn't flinch. Decades of working over roaring kitchen fires had made my hands nearly impervious to heat, but the arrogance vibrating from the young woman standing in front of me was far harder to burn away.
“She is cold,” Vanessa declared, her voice laced with venomous disgust as she pushed the soup bowl away. “Fresh off the stove, ma'am? Are you calling me a liar?”
I kept my hands clasped in front of my worn gray apron, keeping my shoulders slightly stooped. “I cooked it myself just five minutes ago, Miss Vanessa. The broth is still steaming.”
Vanessa clicked her manicured fingernails against the granite island of the sprawling estate kitchen. She pulled out her phone, switched on the front camera, and pointed it directly into my face.
“Say hello to the internet, grandma,” she sneered, her eyes gleaming with malice. “Let everyone see the incompetent old bat Elijah’s family hired to run this kitchen.”
“Please, Miss Vanessa,” I murmured softly, ducking my head slightly to conceal my features from the lens. “There is no need for cameras.”
“No? Then wipe up that spill,” she ordered, pointing her expensive high heel at a puddle of broth on the marble floor.
I reached into my pocket for a clean dish towel. “I’ll get a napkin right away—”
“No, not a napkin,” Vanessa barked, her voice echoing off the high ceilings of the mansion. “Your apron. On your knees.”
I paused, looking up into the cold, calculated eyes of the woman my grandson, Elijah, believed was the love of his life.
“People like you are paid to kneel,” Vanessa hissed, stepping closer until the sharp tip of her Stiletto pressed lightly against my shoe. “So get up... or rather, get down. 3 days. In 3 days I will become the mistress of this house. And the first thing I'll throw away is you.”
I slowly lowered myself to the floor, my seventy-two-year-old knees cracking against the hard stone. I unfastened the strings of my apron and began wiping the soup from the floor, feeling the icy glare of her hatred burning into the back of my neck.
Vanessa chuckled, stepping over my hands as she turned toward the hallway. “Remember your place, old woman.”
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As her heels clicked away down the grand corridor, I looked down at my reflection in the polished marble beneath me. I didn't feel broken. I felt a cold, sharp clarity taking root in my chest.
You made the wrong woman kneel, I thought to myself, slowly pushing my body back up.
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