Jane was shown to her room by one of the junior maids, a quiet, well-lit guest suite at the far end of the west wing. It was more space than she had ever had to herself, with crisp white sheets, polished wooden floors, and a large window that overlooked the garden. But despite the comfort and silence of her surroundings, sleep refused to come.
She sat on the edge of the bed, the memory of Kara's face haunting her like a ghost in the dark. Her rudeness had been cutting, yes, but it wasn't her words that had unsettled Jane the most.
It was her eyes.
Those eyes—so fierce, so defiant, yet filled with something deeper... something broken.
Jane had seen those eyes before.
Long ago.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she reached into the small handbag she had brought with her. From a hidden flap, she pulled out an old, worn photo. The corners were frayed, the image faded, but still clear enough to see the two small faces smiling back at her—her children. Her heart clenched.
The girl in the photo… her eyes were the same. There was no mistaking it.
Kara reminded her of her daughter.
Her lost daughter.
Jane had forced herself to forget—had buried the memories beneath years of poverty, of survival, of pain—but now they were crawling back to the surface with every word Kara spoke, with every flare of anger in her voice, with every stubborn glint in her eye.
What if…
No. It couldn't be.
Could it?
Tears burned behind Jane's eyes, but she wiped them away roughly, forcing herself to breathe. She lay down, hoping to will her body into rest, but her mind was racing. She turned to the side, stared into the dim light that filtered through the curtains, and clutched the photo to her chest.
Somewhere, deep inside, a terrible possibility was starting to grow roots.
And Jane didn't know if she was ready for the truth.
Jane lay on the bed, her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, but she wasn't seeing the fine carvings or the soft glow of the chandelier. Her mind was spiraling back to the past—years she had tried to bury deep in the corners of her soul. But tonight, Kara's face… her eyes… they had unlocked memories Jane had spent a lifetime trying to forget.
She remembered being just a girl, barely out of her teenage years, when she fell in love with Job. He was gentle, intelligent, full of dreams—and he loved her fiercely, or so she believed. They had whispered about the future under the moonlight, made promises of forever in the quiet corners of their youth. When she discovered she was pregnant, she wasn't afraid. She believed love would carry them through. She believed in him.
But her family thought differently.
The moment she confessed, everything changed. Their well-respected name, their pride, their status—it all stood on the line, and Jane became the disgrace. Her parents had demanded she terminate the pregnancy immediately. Her mother wept out of shame, not concern. Her father had been unforgiving.
But Jane refused.
Job had promised to return. He had gone back to his village to "take care of a few things" and told her to wait. She did. For days. Then weeks. Then months. He never came back. No word. No letter. Nothing.
Her family, seeing her defiance, exiled her to their ancestral home—a forgotten village where no one knew their family name. They said it was for her own good, to shield the family from shame. But it felt like punishment. There, under the care of a cold distant aunt, Jane endured a lonely pregnancy. No comfort. No care. Just waiting… waiting to give birth and somehow find a way to make sense of her broken world.
When she finally gave birth to her twins—a boy and a girl—she thought it would all be worth it. The moment she held them, she wept, not out of sorrow, but joy. For the first time in months, she had something to live for. She named them quietly to herself: Ethan and Kara.
But her joy was short-lived.
The next morning, her aunt came with strangers. Jane never got the full story. She had been weak, recovering. They took the babies and told her it was for the best. Her mother later wrote, saying the children had been handed to a "trusted institution"—a children's home that would give them a better life than she ever could. They never gave her the name. Never told her where. And every attempt she made to find them after was met with silence or shame.
Eventually, she was forced out of the family altogether. Homeless, rejected, and grieving, she drifted through life doing odd jobs, always wondering where her children were, if they were alive, if they were safe, if they ever wondered about her the way she wondered about them.
Now, all these years later, in a strange house, working for a rich man whose daughter looked at her with venom in her eyes…
That look…
That rage…
That pain…
Could it be?
"No," she whispered into the darkness, her hands trembling. "It can't be."