Teresa raised her head, tears running down her pale cheeks. She had worked for my family for thirteen years. She had cared for my mother throughout her cancer treatments and managed my father’s affairs after he died. I had never seen her trembling like this.
“What did you do?” I asked as I moved closer.
Vanessa slipped the lighter into her pocket and smoothed her designer blouse as though I had simply interrupted a minor disagreement.
“I caught her stealing from me. I found my diamond bracelet hidden in her bedroom.”
“I didn’t put it there, Mr. David,” Teresa whispered, her lip swollen and bleeding. “I swear on my life.”
“Shut up!” Vanessa shrieked.
She lifted her hand to hit her, but I caught Vanessa’s wrist before her fingers could connect.
“Don’t you ever touch her again,” I said, my voice dangerously low.
Vanessa stared at me with fury and disbelief. “Are you seriously going to take the maid’s word over your future wife’s?”
“I’m going to believe what I can verify.”
That stopped her cold.
My name is David Vance. I’m forty-one years old and run an aerospace components firm headquartered in Chicago. My father founded the business with twelve employees in a rented hangar; I turned it into a multi-million-dollar company with clients throughout the U.S. and Canada. Vanessa had lived with me in my Gold Coast home for seventeen months, and we had been engaged for six.
She had mistaken my calm nature for weakness.
It had begun with little remarks. That Teresa “took too many liberties.” That my driver shouldn't be eating at the breakfast counter. That I was much too soft on “the help.” I had objected and established boundaries, but eventually let it go, blaming it on differences in how we had been raised.
I RETURNED HOME EARLY TO SURPRISE MY FIANCÉE—BUT FOUND OUR HOUSEKEEPER TIED TO A MARBLE COLUMN, SOBBING WHILE MY FIANCÉE HELD A LIGHTER JUST INCHES FROM HER FACE.
