He Thought Taking His Maid to the Gala Would Be a Joke

The words hung in the charged air of the ballroom like a dropped blade.

How much I charge by the hour.

Julian Vance’s smile vanished, his mouth remaining open in a confused O. Arthur Pendleton blinked rapidly, leaning forward as if he hadn't quite processed the grammatical structure of what she had just said.

The reporters froze, their pens hovering over notepads, their cameras lowering as their journalistic instincts screamed that something far more interesting than a high-society romance had just detonated in front of them.

Darian Costa stared at Nadia.

The ice in his eyes had melted away, replaced by an absolute, terrifying shock. He had expected her to cower. He had expected her to stutter, to blush, to let him rescue her or throw her to the wolves.

Instead, she had just cocked the hammer and aimed it at both of them.

"What... what did you say?" Julian stammered, glancing nervously at the reporters behind him.

Nadia turned back to face the circle, her plum silk gown catching the amber chandelier light as she smoothed down an invisible wrinkle over her hip.

"I said, Mr. Vance, that my rates are strictly professional," Nadia said, her voice dripping with aristocratic ice that made her sound infinitely more high-born than anyone standing in the room. "Though I must admit, Mr. Costa’s standard compensation package for private engagements is far more generous than most."

A sharp intake of breath rippled through the surrounding crowd.

Arthur Pendleton’s face flushed a deep, alarming shade of crimson. He looked at Darian, scandalized. "Darian! You brought a... a professional companion to a charity gala?! In front of the governor? In front of my daughter?!"

"She is not a companion, Arthur," Darian managed to say, his voice a low, gravelly warning that vibrated with suppressed fury. He shot a piercing glare at Nadia, a silent command to stop before she tore his entire social standing apart.

Nadia met his glare and didn't yield an inch. You wanted a joke, Darian? she thought. Let's see how funny it is when the punchline bites back.

"Oh, Mr. Costa is quite right," Nadia purred, stepping closer to Julian, who instinctively shrank back from her as if she carried a contagion. "I'm not a companion. Companions have standards. Me? I get down on my hands and knees for the Costa family every single week. I scrub their floors. I scour their grout. I clean up after them when they make a mess."

The silence in the ballroom became absolute. The string quartet, oblivious to the social earthquake, continued playing Vivaldi, the cheerful notes sounding grotesquely out of place against the frozen horror of Pendleton’s face.

"You... you're a maid?" Julian whispered, the word tasting like ash in his mouth.

"Senior custodial engineer, technically," Nadia corrected sweetly. "Though based on the state of Mr. Costa’s grand foyer after a rainy Tuesday, I spend half my life treating him like a toddler who doesn't know how to wipe his boots."

A muffled snort burst from a young corporate heir near the back of the circle, quickly swallowed by a cough.

Darian’s face was carved from dark, unyielding granite. A muscle throbbed violently in his jaw. For the first time all evening, the untouchable mafia underboss looked entirely unequipped to handle the woman standing beside him.

He reached out, his heavy hand closing firmly around Nadia’s bare elbow. The grip was tight—a silent, physical order to shut her mouth and let him handle the wreckage.

"We are leaving," Darian rasped, his voice lethal. He began to pull her toward the exit, cutting through the paralyzed crowd like a scythe through wheat.

"Ah, leaving so soon, Darian?!" Pendleton recovered enough of his voice to shout across the ballroom, his face purple with righteous indignation. "You bring a domestic servant into my ballroom to mock us?! This is an insult to every person of standing in Chicago!"

Darian stopped dead in his tracks.