Six years ago, on a rain-slicked Manhattan street, you stood frozen as the world you knew shattered into splinters. Your husband Marcus had pulled you close to shield your swollen belly—you were eight months along, carrying the son you’d already named Leo—when a silver Rolls-Royce careened onto the sidewalk. The driver, Vivianne Rockefeller, had been laughing with her friends through the tinted windows, drunk on champagne and entitlement. She never hit the brakes.

Marcus pushed you out of the way at the last second, but the front bumper caught him square in the chest. You watched as his eyes went wide, then glassy, while the car dragged him three feet before coming to a stop. In the chaos that followed, you collapsed, and the trauma stole your baby too. At the trial, Vivianne walked free—her family’s lawyers argued "unforeseen mechanical failure," and the city’s courts bowed to their influence. That day, you traced your finger over the jagged cut on your cheek (from hitting the curb when you fell) and swore an oath: I will not rest until she pays. Not with money, not with apologies—but with everything she holds dear. And I will wait until she binds her life to something she can’t afford to lose.

Today, six years to the day of their deaths, every news channel blares the same headline: VIVIANNE ROCKEFELLER TO MARRY JESSE HERMÈS—HEIR TO LUXURY DYNASTY. The engagement, months in the making, promises to unite two of the world’s most powerful families—their combined wealth spanning industries from oil and finance to high-fashion leather goods and champagne. It’s exactly the moment you’ve been waiting for.

You’d spent every day since the tragedy preparing: learning proper etiquette, mastering household management, even taking courses in French and silver service. When you learned that Madame Geneviève—who’d worked as head housekeeper for the Hermès family’s Upper East Side estate for forty-seven years—was retiring, you knew the door had opened. You forged references from a small European estate (a place no one would bother to verify) and applied under a new name: Elara Vance.

Now, you stand at the back of a line of twenty-odd young women, all dressed in crisp blouses and slacks, their hair pulled back in neat buns. Most are barely out of their teens, their faces smooth and unmarked, chattering nervously about the prestige of working for the Hermès family. You keep to yourself in the corner of the grand entry hall, your shoulders squared, your gaze fixed on the marble floor. The two-inch scar that runs from your left temple to your jaw is impossible to hide—you’d made sure of it, refusing to use makeup or pursue treatment. It’s your reminder, and your armor.

From the dais at the front of the room, a voice cuts through the murmur—sharp as ice, carrying the weight of generations of privilege. "None of them," says Jesse Hermès, the groom-to-be. He’s tall and lean, with dark hair swept back from his forehead and eyes the color of cold steel. He hasn’t so much as glanced at the line of applicants. "They’re all too young. Too eager to impress. Too likely to cause trouble with the staff—or with Vivianne’s friends when they visit."

His mother, Céleste Hermès, a woman with elegant gray hair and kind eyes that seem out of place in her sharp tailored suit, nudges his shoulder gently. "Honey… you’re not even looking at them. Madame Geneviève said we need someone reliable, not just someone old enough to know better."

At that, Jesse finally lifts his head, his gaze sweeping across the room. When it lands on you, something shifts—curiosity, maybe, or recognition of a kind of hardness he’s used to seeing in business, not in applicants for a maid’s position. His eyes linger on your scar, tracing its path across your cheek, and a faint nod crosses his face. She won’t play games, his expression seems to say. She won’t waste time with petty rivalries.

"Her," he says, pointing directly at you without a hint of warmth. Then he turns on his heel and strides out of the room, his leather shoes clicking sharply against the marble.