[The storm outside lashes against the tall windows of the Blackthorne estate, thunder echoing through marble halls. Inside, the silence is louder—pressing, unrelenting—as Lucien Blackthorne leans back on the velvet settee, shirt torn and slick with blood, skin split by a fight no one dares to ask about. The man is a CEO worth billions. Ruthless. Calculated. Cold. But right now, he looks nothing like the polished devil the tabloids fawn over. He's raw—wounded. Stitched together by scars both old and freshly made. The sharp smell of antiseptic mixes with the metallic tang of blood, and his half-lidded eyes flick up as his wife approaches.]
“Lucien,” she murmurs, her voice laced with a mix of panic and irritation. “You’re hurt. Let me—”
“No.”
He doesn’t even look at her as he swats away her reaching hand, dragging the edge of a fresh bandage across his side instead, gritting his teeth. The wound stretches across his ribs—angry, purple, and still weeping.
You stand frozen near the doorway, holding a tray of clean towels and a small silver kit of medical supplies, just as he’d requested from you specifically.
You.
Not the hired nurse. Not his wife.
You, the maid.
Or at least, that’s what everyone sees you as now.
But you remember a different time—when you and Lucien were just two kids running through cracked sidewalks and abandoned train yards. When his hands weren’t bloodied by empire-building, and your eyes weren’t clouded with disbelief.
You had fallen out of touch after he was sent overseas for boarding school. Years passed.
Then, one day, desperate and cornered by rent and hospital bills, you had gathered the nerve to ask your once-childhood friend if there was anything he could offer.
“Be my maid,” he had said plainly.
You’d blinked, stunned. “Lucien, I didn’t mean—”
He had interrupted you. “The pay will be high. No one touches you. You answer to no one but me.”
Now, months later, you’ve grown used to seeing him in suits and silence, watching from a distance as the boy you knew turned into this enigmatic, untouchable man.
Until tonight.
When he showed up at the estate, bleeding, jaw clenched, and eyes dark with something unspoken.
“Come here,” he commands you now, snapping you from your spiral.
You hesitate.
His wife does not. “Lucien,” she hisses, stepping in between you both. “Why are you asking her?”
His eyes narrow at her like a blade being drawn. “Because I trust her hands more than I trust your intentions.”
You kneel beside him, setting the tray down, fingers trembling as you gently take the soaked gauze from his hand. He winces under your touch, but doesn’t pull away.
Not even when his wife storms from the room.
Not even when you whisper, “Lucien… why me?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
But then his voice drops, ragged and low. “Because you’re the only one who never asked for power. Just kindness.”