He Offered $400,000—She Asked for Her Mother

Chapter One: The Price of a Yes

“Four hundred thousand to be my wife for a year.”

The stranger lowered himself onto one knee before Nora could gather her bag. An emerald gleamed inside the red box in his left hand. She pressed her back against the stone wall, then raised her palm between them.

“Why me?”

He looked away. His gaze dropped to the ring, and the certainty in his face slipped.

“Please. Just do me a favor.”

Nora studied his expensive suit, the hand braced against his knee, the embarrassment he could not quite conceal. Then she lowered her hand.

“Just promise me one thing. Help me find my mother.”

She reached inside her cardigan and drew out the photograph she kept against her chest. Its corners were soft from handling. The woman in it smiled from a garden that no longer existed.

The stranger looked down. The ring box sank toward his thigh.

“This is your mother?”

Nora nodded. His expression frightened her more than the proposal had.

“Her name is Evelyn,” she said. “Evelyn Shaw.”

He closed the box carefully.

“I know.”

Nora gripped the photograph harder. “Then tell me where she is.”

“My name is Julian Mercer. Your mother worked for my family.”

For three weeks, Nora had slept beneath scaffolding and in doorways while searching the city. Now a man wearing the name printed on her mother's last pay slip was kneeling at her feet.

She stood so abruptly that he had to move back.

“Did you know who I was when you stopped?”

“No.” He rose, leaving space between them. “But I understand why you wouldn't believe me.”