Chapter 2 - The Cake That Never Arrived
At four that afternoon, a black delivery van stopped outside Elena’s cottage.
Mia ran to the window.
“Mama!”
A pastry chef stepped out carrying a white box almost as large as Mia.
Inside was a chocolate cake covered with strawberries, tiny sugar flowers, and two words written across the top.
FOR MAMA.
Elena stared.
Mia screamed with happiness.
“It worked!”
She pulled the dollar from her pocket.
“My money worked!”
Elena laughed despite herself.
“No, baby.”
“I think Mr. Cross helped.”
Mia shook her head seriously.
“We both helped.”
Elena hugged her.
For ten minutes, the world felt simple again.
Then someone knocked.
It wasn’t Damian.
It was Vanessa.
She stood outside in sunglasses and a cream coat.
Her smile was gone.
“Elena.”
Elena stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her.
“Ms. Hale.”
Vanessa looked through the window at the cake.
“Enjoying the performance?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
Vanessa moved closer.
“You’ve been in this house four years.”
“You know exactly how Damian is.”
“Private.”
“Lonely.”
“Easy to manipulate if someone knows where to press.”
Elena stared at her.
“You think I sent my daughter to ask for a cake?”
“I think poor people can be extremely creative.”
That landed hard.
Elena’s jaw tightened.
“You should leave.”
Vanessa laughed once.
“You don’t tell me to leave my future property.”
“It isn’t yours.”
“Not yet.”
Vanessa lowered her sunglasses.
“And you won’t be here when it is.”
Then she walked away.
Elena stood frozen.
That night, Damian called.
“Elena?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did the cake arrive?”
She looked at Mia asleep on the couch beside a plate with two missing slices.
“It did.”
“Good.”
A pause.
“Was Vanessa there?”
Elena’s silence answered him.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing important.”
“Elena.”
She closed her eyes.
For four years, Damian had treated her fairly.
But fairness and intimacy were different things.
He was still her employer.
Vanessa would soon be his wife.
“I don’t want to create trouble.”
“You didn’t.”
Another pause.
“I think trouble was already here.”
Before Elena could answer, someone pounded on her cottage door.
Three hard knocks.
Mia woke up crying.
Elena looked through the glass.
A man stood outside.
Her blood went cold.
“Elena?”
Damian heard the change in her breathing.
“Who is it?”
She whispered the name.
“Marco.”
Her ex-husband.
The man who had disappeared two years earlier.
The man who had stopped paying child support.
The man who had never even sent Mia a birthday card.
Marco banged again.
“Open the door, Elena!”
Damian’s voice sharpened.
“Don’t.”
But Marco shouted through the wood.
“I’m here for my daughter!”
Mia began crying harder.
Elena backed away.
Then Marco said something that made her stop breathing.
May you like
“Vanessa Hale told me where to find you.”
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