He looked at me blankly.
"National exam, then certification," I translated. "I'm almost there. Just not quite."
He went quiet for a long moment. Just looked at me with this intensity that made me want to fidget. Like he was checking out every detail, weighing and measuring something I couldn’t see.
“I’d like to hire you,” he said at last.
I blinked. “As a waitress? I already work here.”
“As a therapist. For my daughter.” He met my gaze, determined. “I’ve hired specialists. None of them could reach her. You sang a birthday song and she spoke. She hasn’t done that in a while.”
I twisted my ring, thinking hard. The offer was too good. Way too good. People didn’t just throw money at uncertified strangers because their kid said one word. This had to be a scam or a trap or something I wasn’t seeing.
But then I thought about my brother Colin’s scholarship that only covered tuition, not housing or books or food. Thought about the loan sharks who kept showing up no matter how much I paid, their threats getting progressively less subtle.
“What’s your daughter’s name?” I asked instead.
“Lily.”
“And yours?”
“Hector. Hector Valdez.”
The name meant absolutely nothing to me then. I didn’t know about his restaurant empire or his Michelin stars or the fact that he was one of Manhattan’s most successful self-made businessmen. I just knew he looked desperate and exhausted and like he’d pay anything to hear his daughter speak again.
“I’ll pay you well,” he continued. “More than fairly. Whatever it takes.”
My brain tried to process that. Tried to find the inevitable catch, because there was always a catch. “Why me? I’m not even certified yet. You could hire someone with actual credentials.”
“Because she spoke to you.” His expression turned fierce. Protective. The look of a father who’d do absolutely anything for his child. “So yes, Ms…?”
“Tinsley. Sarah Tinsley.”
“Ms. Tinsley, I want to hire you. Results matter more than paperwork.”
The offer stood between us—glittering and dangerous, too good to be true and too good to refuse.
“Okay,” I heard myself say. “I’ll try.”
I should have asked more questions. Should have gotten details in writing and been smarter about the entire situation.
Instead, I took his business card and showed up three days later to discover I’d accidentally agreed to work for a billionaire.
The memory faded as I stood in Hector’s office six months later, a broken subway as my excuse and my job probably hanging by a thread.
He looked at me with that same sharp expression. Deciding my fate.
“You’re late,” he said.
CHAPTER 2
Sarah
“Traffic,”I said, which was technically true if you counted underground trains as traffic. “The subway was packed, then there was a delay, and by the time I got to street level?—”
“I don’t care about your commute.” Hector set his coffee cup down with the kind of precision that made it clear he cared about many things—just not my excuses. “I care about consistency. Lily needs consistency.”
The way he said her name made something in my chest tighten. Like she was the only thing in the world that mattered, and everything else, including me, was just background noise that better not get too loud.
