I Married My Wealthy 72-Year-Old Boss So My Little Daughter and I Would Have a Place to Live – Five Years Later, He Passed Away, and His Lawyer Said, ‘He Knew You Would Fall for It’

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Nora. You seemed… familiar. Just for a second.” He coughed and looked at the papers on the table. “Well, how about we go over your duties on the job? Please, take a seat.”

After reviewing the paperwork, I accepted.

The job was easier than I had expected. A private company handled the monthly deep cleaning. My duties mainly involved light cleaning, errands, supervising the gardener, and keeping track of the contractors renovating the southern wing.

“You see, I enjoyed doing these things myself,” he signed. “However, my health isn’t what it used to be.”

For the first time during the interview, I smiled.

When we finished, we stood and shook hands.

“You can start the day after tomorrow. I’ll need to hire a nanny for the little miss,” he smiled at Emily and booped her nose.

“Oh, you shouldn’t—”

“No, no, Nora. What good is it for the baby to go to daycare, when she can stay with her mom?”

I expected there to be a catch.

People had rarely been kind to me without eventually asking for something in return.

But Richard never did.

Each morning, before I started work, he would find me.

“How are you today, Nora? Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine,” I always replied.

He never seemed convinced, but he respected the answer.

Richard hired a nanny named Ruth, although she often had little to do because he loved spending time with Emily himself.

I sometimes found him crawling across the carpet while she rode on his back, both of them pretending to be lions.

Other times, he sat beside her tiny table, drinking imaginary tea from a plastic cup while she decorated his gray hair with pink ribbons.

For such a serious man, he looked ridiculous.

But seeing them together slowly changed the way I saw him.

One afternoon, after finishing my errands, I sat in the kitchen for a few minutes to rest my aching feet.

Richard appeared with a cup of tea and placed it in front of me.

“I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” I said.

“Then consider this my rebellion.”

Over time, I stopped thinking of him as a wealthy man taking pity on me.

He became simply Richard—gentle, lonely, and unexpectedly kind.

Then one day, my phone rang.

I stepped into the pantry to answer.

It was my landlord.