“What happened here?”
You look up.
A man stands in the doorway of the study. Not Daniel. Not a worker. Not any member of staff. He wears a dark tailored suit, silver watch, immaculate white shirt, and the expression of someone accustomed to walking into rooms and having all noise reorganize itself around his opinion. He is handsome, but not in the easy way. More like architecture. Expensive, controlled, and built to make people feel smaller by comparison.
Your stomach drops.
You know that face.
Not because you’ve seen him in person before. Because his photographs are framed in the downstairs corridor, in business magazines left in the sitting room, in the silver-plated article clipping Teresa once pointed out with a mix of pride and fear. Adrián Santillán. Owner of the house. Widower. Magnate. The man everyone warned you about.
And Daniel.
Daniel had his eyes.
The realization strikes like cold water.
You rise too fast, nearly cutting your fingers on a porcelain edge. “I’m sorry, sir. The tray—”
Adrián’s gaze falls to your hand. “You’re bleeding.”
Only then do you feel it. A thin red line along the side of your thumb where a shard kissed skin.
“It’s nothing,” you say automatically.
He crosses the room in three quick steps, crouches, and takes your wrist before you can react. His grip is firm, not painful, but the sheer shock of being touched by the master of the house in such a direct, practical way roots you in place.
“It’s not nothing if it gets infected,” he says.
You stare at him.
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