The Homeless Man Asked the Heiress to Dance

CHAPTER 2 - The Son Richard Erased

The guests were asked to leave.

Sarah remained beside Emily while Richard stood near the ballroom doors.

Nathan told them his mother's name was Rose Cole.

Richard had met Rose when they were both eighteen. She worked in the kitchen of the hotel owned by Richard's family.

When Rose became pregnant, Richard promised to marry her.

Then his parents threatened to remove him from the family business.

Richard chose his inheritance.

He later told Sarah that Rose and her baby had died shortly after childbirth. Sarah had believed him for twenty-six years.

"You told me they were dead," Sarah whispered.

Richard looked away.

Nathan was six when Rose finally told him his father's name. He wrote to Richard several times as a teenager but received no answer.

At twenty-four, Nathan found Richard outside his office.

Richard gave him one warning.

"Do not come near my family."

Emily looked at her father.

"You knew he was alive?"

Richard attempted to defend himself.

"He wanted money."

"I asked you to meet my mother," Nathan said. "She was dying."

Rose had suffered a severe stroke. Nathan left his job as a physical therapy assistant to care for her. Medical expenses consumed his savings. After her death, he lost his apartment.

For the past six months, he had slept in shelters and behind the hotel kitchen.

That evening, a cook allowed him inside to collect leftover food. Nathan heard a speech about the wealthy young woman who would never stand again.

Then he saw Emily move her foot.

Sarah turned to him.

"Are you saying the doctors were wrong?"

"I am saying standing once does not mean she is healed. But her legs responded. She deserves to know what is possible."

The next morning, Emily returned to her rehabilitation clinic.

Her neurologist explained that her spinal injury was incomplete. She might never walk independently, but supported standing had always been possible.

After Emily fell during therapy two years earlier, Richard had canceled the program.

He claimed he was protecting her.

Sarah had been so frightened that she agreed.

Richard refused to allow Nathan near Emily again.

Emily wheeled herself between them.

"I am nineteen. You do not get to decide everything for me."

She turned toward Nathan.

"You told me I could rise. Now help me learn how."