Chapter 4 - THE NANNY SHE TRIED TO BUYMaya had kept one envelope.
She brought it to Adrian the following morning.
Cream paper.
No return address.
Inside:
A cashier’s check for $150,000.
Never deposited.
And a note in Celeste’s handwriting:
This is more than you will make in several years. Take it and start somewhere else. Noah will adjust.
Adrian read slowly.
“When?”
“Four weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Maya looked toward Noah’s playroom.
“Because I thought if I accused your fiancée without enough proof, she’d fire me before I could protect him.”
Adrian could not argue.
Celeste had done exactly that to others.
“What did you say?”
“I gave it back.”
“She sent it again.”
“Then she threatened me.”
“What threat?”
Maya hesitated.
“She said she knew my mother’s immigration history.”
Maya’s mother had been a U.S. citizen for decades, but Celeste implied she could create trouble anyway.
She also threatened Maya’s younger brother’s job at a Vale-funded company.
Not direct power.
Perceived power.
That was enough.
Adrian’s face hardened.
“She used my name?”
“Yes.”
That angered him differently.
Celeste had made the Vale name into a weapon.
Maya continued:
“She told me people like me disappear from houses like this all the time.”
“What does ‘people like me’ mean?”
Maya looked away.
“You know.”
Adrian did.
Class.
Status.
Employment.
The assumption that household staff could be erased and replaced.
Then Maya said:
“That’s why I put recorder under table.”
Not to expose Celeste publicly.
To protect herself if she was accused next.
Adrian looked at small device.
The recorder existed because Maya expected to be framed.
That alone said enough.
He asked:
“Why stay?”
Maya answered instantly.
“Noah.”
Nothing else.
No Adrian.
No money.
No fantasy.
No romance.
His son.
Adrian looked down.
Noah was playing with small toy car near rug, unaware adults were rebuilding his world around him.
Adrian felt shame.
A nanny had stayed in danger because she did not trust Noah’s father to see truth fast enough.
And she had been right.
Then his chief financial officer called.
They had started verifying Celeste’s background again.
The original report before engagement estimated her net worth at roughly $16 million.
But several assets were family-held, not personally controlled.
A trust had been restricted years earlier.
Two properties had mortgages Adrian did not know existed.
Another had been sold.
Cash positions nearly gone.
Her actual accessible assets might be under $600,000.
Against liabilities well above that.
“How far above?”
The CFO hesitated.
“We don’t know yet.”
Then:
“But there are repeated large transfers to gaming entities.”
Adrian looked toward recorder.
“How large?”
“Millions.”
The woman Adrian believed did not need his money—
May you like
might have been nearly broke when she met him.
And Monday was getting closer.
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