“Sometimes that question sounds different when it comes from someone real.”
After that, we started talking—little conversations at first, then longer ones. And without realizing it, I began to care about him in a way I told myself was impossible. He was a Whitmore. I was a maid. That kind of gap doesn’t close in real life.
So when his parents called me into the sitting room and said they wanted me to become Nathan’s wife, I nearly lost my balance.
“Why me?” I whispered.
Mrs. Whitmore only smiled. “There are things you don’t need to understand yet, Lena. One day, you will.”
The wedding was elegant but quiet—simple in ceremony, expensive in every detail. Everything glittered. Yet behind my smile, fear lived. Nathan barely spoke through the vows. It was as if he carried a heaviness no one could see.
Afterward, they drove me to a mansion they said was now mine—a $2 million home gifted by the Whitmores. For someone like me, who had never owned anything beyond a suitcase and a few worn dresses, it felt unreal.
But the truth didn’t wait long.
That night—our wedding night—Nathan sat on the edge of the bed, shoulders tense, eyes dark.
“Lena,” he said calmly, “there’s something you need to know before you hate me.”
“Hate you?” I frowned. “Why would I hate you?”
He inhaled slowly. Then I lifted the blanket—and my whole body went cold.
Nathan’s right leg was gone.
He had been hiding a prosthetic.
“I had an accident two years ago,” he said quietly. “When I lost my leg, my fiancée left. After that… I felt like my life was over.” His voice barely held. “My parents were terrified I’d stop wanting to live. And then they saw how you treated me—without pity, without disgust, without looking away. They decided you were the only person who made me feel human again.”
Tears burned my eyes. Not from shock—จากความสงสาร and the weight of what he’d carried alone.
“Nathan,” I whispered, taking his hand, “you don’t need to be ashamed. You’re still you.”
Advertisements
