He had changed out of his ruined wedding attire. He wore a charcoal-grey tailored suit, the collar of his white shirt unbuttoned, his dark hair slightly rumpled as if he had spent the night running his hands through it. The exhaustion etched around his eyes only seemed to enhance the severe, striking angles of his face. He carried a leather-bound folder under one arm.
His eyes immediately found Rose in the bed. A subtle, almost imperceptible tension drained from his broad shoulders the moment he saw her sitting up.
“Mother,” Nathaniel said, nodding toward Eleanor. “Vance said you were supposed to be resting in your own quarters.”
“Dr. Vance is ninety years old and worries too much,” Eleanor countered sharply. “I wanted to be here when our savior woke up. She saved my life, Nathaniel. If she hadn’t held on, I would be a smear on the pavement of Fifth Avenue right now.”
Nathaniel walked over to the side of the bed. He looked down at Rose, his gaze lingering on the bandages covering her hands. “How is the pain?”
“It’s… it’s fine, Mr. Callaway,” Rose said softly, pulling the duvet a little higher out of sheer instinct. She felt overwhelmingly out of place, an intruder in a world of staggering wealth. “The bandages are very neat. Thank you for… for having someone look at me.”
“Dr. Vance is the chief of reconstructive surgery at Presbyterian,” Nathaniel said plainly. “He spent three hours cleaning the glass out of your dermis. There will be minimal scarring, but you won’t have full grip strength for at least three weeks.”
“Three weeks?” Rose’s heart plummeted. Panic flared hot in her chest. “No, no, I can’t be out of work for three weeks! I have rent, and my brother—Leo has physical therapy bills due on the first, I can’t just—”
“Miss Jenkins,” Nathaniel interrupted, his voice low and steady.
Rose stopped, stunned that he even knew her last name.
“Your rent for the next five years has been settled,” Nathaniel stated, opening the leather folder and pulling out a document. “Your brother Leo’s medical debt at St. Jude’s has been cleared in full. Furthermore, I have arranged for him to be transferred to the Kessler Institute for comprehensive neurological rehabilitation at my personal expense.”
Rose stared at him, her lips parting, completely paralyzed. “Why… why would you do that? You don’t even know me.”
“You threw your life on the line for a stranger,” Nathaniel said, stepping closer. The faint scent of cedarwood, expensive tobacco, and clean rain drifted from his coat. “You held my mother by the hem of her gown while eighty floors of empty air threatened to swallow you whole. What you did has no monetary equivalent, Miss Jenkins. But I do not remain in anyone’s debt.”
“It wasn’t a transaction!” Rose protested, a sudden flare of pride cutting through her shock. She looked Nathaniel straight in the eye, refusing to be treated like an invoice waiting to be stamped paid. “I didn’t save your mother because I wanted a reward, Mr. Callaway. I did it because she was a human being in danger. I’m grateful for your help with Leo—God knows I’ve prayed every night for a way to pay for his therapy—but I am not an opportunistic leech.”
Eleanor let out a delighted, ringing laugh from her armchair. “Oh, I like her, Nathaniel. She has teeth! Unlike that spineless, scheming socialite you almost bound our family to.”
At the mention of Victoria, the air in the room instantly chilled.
Nathaniel’s jaw hardened. He placed the folder on the nightstand. “Speaking of Victoria. Arthur Sterling posted her bail twenty minutes ago. A judge with deep ties to the Sterling family dismissed the initial attempted murder charge, citing ‘lack of conclusive physical evidence’ and reducing it to reckless endangerment.”
Eleanor’s smile vanished, replaced by an icy, aristocratic fury. “Arthur bought the magistrate. Predictable.”
“It gets worse,” Nathaniel said, pulling out a slim silver tablet from his inner pocket and tapping the screen. He turned it toward Eleanor and Rose.
On the screen was a viral video currently dominating every major social media platform. It was an edited clip from the rooftop, filmed from an angle that made it appear as though Rose had rushed forward and bumped violently into Eleanor, causing her to tumble over the glass railing. Victoria was shown extending her arms, seemingly in a desperate attempt to catch the matriarch, before collapsing in tears.
The headline blared across the screen in screaming yellow font:
**ROOFTOP WEDDING SABOTAGE: DISGRUNTLED CATERING MAID ATTACKS CALLAWAY MATRIARCH IN FAILED HEIST EXTORTION! BRIDE HEROICALLY INTERVENES!**
Rose felt the blood drain entirely from her face. Her stomach twisted into a violent knot. “What… what is this? That’s not what happened! I was thirty feet away when she fell! I dropped my tray to run to her!”
“The Sterling PR machine has been working all night,” Nathaniel said, his eyes burning with a dangerous, lethal dark light. “They leaked this footage to every tabloid and gossip blog in the country. Victoria is currently giving an exclusive press conference from the steps of the Sterling Plaza, painting herself as the grieving, traumatized bride whose wedding was destroyed by a deranged, jealous server.”
“They’re framing me,” Rose whispered, her voice trembling as the sheer magnitude of the Sterling family’s power hit her like a physical blow. “I’m just a maid. Nobody is going to believe me over Senator Sterling’s daughter.”
“I believe you,” Eleanor said fiercely, rising from her chair and walking over to the bed, placing her good hand over Rose’s bandaged fingers. “And more importantly, the Callaway family believes you.”
Nathaniel leaned over the edge of the bed, his face inches from Rose’s. The raw power emanating from him was terrifying, yet somehow completely protective.
“They want a war through the media, Miss Jenkins,” Nathaniel said coldly. “They think they can crush you because you have no name, no fortune, and no pedigree. But they forgot one thing.”
