Chapter 2 - THE MAID WHO ARRIVED AFTER THE BIRTH.
Ethan did not understand.
“Remembers you from where?”
Sofia looked down at Noah.
Her answer took too long.
“I worked at the hospital.”
Ethan frowned.
“No, you didn’t.”
He had personally reviewed her employment application when she joined the household four months earlier.
Hotels.
Private residences.
A catering company.
No hospital.
Sofia’s hand tightened around Noah.
“I left something out.”
“What?”
Before she could answer, Noah began rooting against her chest.
Sofia reacted instinctively, rocking him and whispering, “I know, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
Not sir.
Not little man.
Not baby.
Ethan heard the intimacy in it.
Sofia heard it too.
She went pale.
He took one step closer.
“How did you know the way he likes to be held?”
“I’ve watched the nanny.”
“She holds him on the other side.”
Silence.
Ethan’s exhaustion disappeared.
Noah had been born through a private surrogacy arrangement after Ethan’s wife, Caroline, died unexpectedly during fertility treatment.
The agency had handled almost everything.
He had never met the surrogate.
That had been Caroline’s preference before her death.
Then Ethan remembered a detail from the hospital.
A nurse had told him the birth mother refused to see the baby afterward.
He looked at Sofia.
“Were you there when Noah was born?”
Sofia started shaking.
Finally, she nodded.
Ethan’s voice dropped.
“In what room?”
She whispered the number.
Ethan knew it immediately.
May you like
Room 612.
Noah’s delivery room.
