Finnian stood suddenly, his heart pounding hard against his ribs.
Then he heard his fiancée, Isabel Moore, speaking from the hallway.
“So that girl is already involved in your mother’s pathetic little secrets?” Isabel asked, stepping into the room.
Isabel stood at the doorway in a flawless white dress, clutching a designer handbag and wearing a thin, cold smile. She had arrived unannounced, behaving as though the mansion was already hers to control.
Finnian closed the file quickly.
“What are you doing here, Isabel?” he asked.
“I came to see you, but it seems I arrived just in time to witness a soap opera,” she laughed.
“That is none of your business,” Finnian said.
Isabel released a dry, mocking laugh.
“Is it not my business that a lowly domestic worker sleeps in your house, buys things for your mother, and now dictates what you should or should not know about your own affairs?” she asked.
Finnian looked at her, weariness beginning to rise inside him.
“Elodie has taken care of my mother when no one else would bother,” he said.
“Your mother has a full staff of nurses,” Isabel countered. “What that girl is doing is called emotional manipulation.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about,” he said.
“I know exactly how it looks,” Isabel said. “A poor young girl enters the room of a dying woman, wins her desperate affection, makes herself indispensable, and then positions herself as a saint in front of the wealthy son.”
The words struck him like a slap.
Finnian remembered Elodie crying while she shaved Helena’s head. He remembered the nineteen nights. He remembered the flowers.
“Don’t you ever speak about her like that again,” he commanded.
Isabel’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you defending her now?” she asked.
“I am defending the truth,” he said.
“No, Finnian, you are just confusing your own guilt with affection,” she retorted.
Before he could answer, Helena appeared in the hallway, pushed by Elodie. She had heard everything.
“Isabel,” Helena said, her voice weak but razor-sharp. “You never stay in my room for more than ten minutes because you say the smell of medicine depresses you. You have no right to speak about someone who actually stayed.”
Isabel stiffened, anger coloring her face.
“Helena, I am only trying to protect Finnian,” she said.
“Protect him from whom?” Helena asked. “From a woman who held my head while I vomited? From a girl who stayed with me for nineteen nights while you were out at gala dinners using my cancer as a conversation topic?”
Elodie lowered her eyes, embarrassed.
“Helena, you really don’t have to do this,” Elodie whispered.
“Yes, I do,” the older woman interrupted. “I am tired of people confusing social class with having a heart.”
Isabel turned pale with fury.
“Finnian, this is absolutely absurd,” Isabel said. “If you do not set boundaries today, tomorrow that woman will be running your house, your decisions, and your bank accounts.”
“Perhaps someone with a genuine heart could manage this house better than all of us,” Finnian replied.
