The Barefoot Girl Promised the Millionaire's Son He'd Walk

CHAPTER 1 — The Promise in the Ballroom

"Listen to me... come with me. I promise I'll get you back on your feet."

Amara Brooks held Theodore Whitmore's hand beneath the ballroom chandeliers.

Theo stared at her.

Doctors had told him that he would never walk again. His legs had not moved since the car crash that supposedly killed his mother two years earlier.

Before Theo could answer, Richard Whitmore crossed the ballroom.

"Get your hands off him. Right now."

Richard was a millionaire property developer and the legal guardian of the Whitmore family fortune. He pulled their hands apart and looked down at Amara's torn clothes and bare feet.

"Get back inside. I am not playing around."

Amara's mother worked in the hotel kitchen. Richard assumed she was a worker's disobedient child.

He leaned closer.

"I am not kidding. Got it?"

Amara refused to lower her eyes.

"His mom begged me to do this."

Theo's face changed.

"My mother is dead."

"No, she isn't."

The guests began whispering.

Richard ordered security to remove Amara.

As two guards approached, she pressed something into Theo's hand.

It was a folded note wrapped around one of his white tablets.

That evening, Theo waited until his father left his bedroom. Then he opened the note.

The handwriting belonged to his mother, Evelyn.

Theo recognized the way she curved the letter T in his name.

My sweet boy, the medicine is making you weak. Your spine was never broken. Trust Amara. Trust her mother. Do not let Richard take you back to Dr. Cole.

Theo stared at the tablet.

His father called it a vitamin and personally watched him swallow one every night.

Theo hid it beneath his mattress.

Hours later, a burning sensation traveled down his legs.

Then something moved beneath the blanket.

His right foot.

Only slightly.

But it moved.

Theo began crying.

The bedroom door opened.

Richard stood in the hallway.

His gaze dropped to the note in Theo's hands.

"Where did you get that?" he demanded, and Theo realized his father recognized the handwriting too.