I took a job bathing a paralyzed billionaire because my children were starving and I had no other choice. I told myself it was only work, only a…
The man in the wheelchair turned toward me slowly.
For one suspended second, neither of us spoke.
He was younger than I had expected.
Forty, maybe forty-one.
Dark hair fell slightly over his forehead, and although his face was pale from months indoors, there was something unmistakably powerful about him. Not physical strength anymore, perhaps, but presence. The kind of presence that made a room feel smaller.
His eyes settled on me.
Gray.
Cold.
Observant.
“You’re the new caregiver?” he asked.
His voice carried no warmth.
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?”
“Rachel Morgan.”
The moment I said it, something changed in his expression.
It lasted less than a second.
A tightening around the eyes.
A flicker of recognition.
Then it disappeared.
“Rachel Morgan,” he repeated quietly.
“Yes.”
He turned his chair toward the window.
“You won’t last.”
I stood straighter.
Maybe three months earlier, I would have walked out.
Maybe a year earlier, I would have told him I didn’t deserve to be spoken to that way.
But hunger changes the shape of pride.
When your child is burning with fever in a freezing apartment, dignity becomes something you promise yourself you’ll recover later.
“I only need to last long enough to get paid,” I said.
His chair stopped.
The corner of his mouth moved.
Not quite a smile.
“Honest.”
“I don’t have the energy to lie.”
That made him look at me again.
Before he could answer, the housekeeper returned
