She did not know how to answer that.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “You used to swim.”
She blinked. “In high school.”
“I could tell.”
Silence stretched between them, not empty but charged.
Finally he asked, “Why did you jump?”
The bluntness of it startled her. “Because he was drowning.”
“You could have died too.”
“He’s a child,” Samantha said, more firmly now. “What else was I supposed to do?”
Anthony looked at her in a way that made the hallway suddenly feel smaller. “Most people,” he said quietly, “hesitate.”
Something in his tone made her understand he was not talking only about pools and panic. He was talking about life. Loyalty. Risk. The kind of decisions that reveal character faster than years of polite conversation ever can.
Samantha lifted her chin. “I didn’t.”
“No,” he said. “You didn’t.”
Then he made a decision.
She saw it happen. Not in his words at first, but in the stilling of his face, the way a man looks when some internal vote has ended.
“Your duties change starting now,” he said. “You’ll be responsible for Luca’s care when I’m working. You’ll move into the west wing. Your salary will be increased.”
Samantha stared. “Mr. Bellaforte, that isn’t necessary. I’m just the maid.”
His expression sharpened. “Don’t say that again.”
She went still.
“You are the woman who saw what no one else saw, moved when no one else moved, and brought my son back to me.” His voice lowered, but it grew more intense, not less. “That makes you indispensable.”
Her heart thudded unevenly. “What if I say no?”
He studied her, and to her shock a faint shadow of a smile touched his mouth, not warm, but certain.
“You won’t.”
“You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I am.” He stepped closer. “Because people reveal themselves under pressure, Miss Wells. Today you revealed exactly who you are.”
She should have been angry at the assumption. Instead she found herself breathing more carefully, as if the air between them had thickened.
“I have one condition,” she said.
His eyebrows lifted, almost approvingly. “Tell me.”
“My Sundays belong to my sister. I see her every week. That doesn’t change.”
“Done.”
“So easily?”
“You saved my son. If Sundays are the price, I’d be an idiot to bargain.”
That unexpected answer nearly made her laugh, though the day had left her too shaken for it.
He watched her another moment and then, with a gravity that stilled her completely, said, “There’s something else you need to understand.”
“What?”
Anthony’s gaze held hers, unblinking, almost fierce in its clarity.
“You are never leaving.”
The words landed between them like a lock turning in a door.
Samantha frowned slightly, unsure whether to be startled or offended. “That sounds less like gratitude and more like kidnapping.”
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