Boundless Love

At eleven forty-five p.m., the Ashford Group tower was silent except for the hum of the elevators and the squeak of Ella Ames's cart.

She had worked on the 31st floor for nine months. She knew which glass wall caught every fingerprint, which carpet tile always curled at the edge, and which executive left half a sandwich in his trash. She knew the building's heartbeat in the dark.

What she did not know, and would not for a long time, was that the tower had been built by the family she was born into.

"Evening, Miss Ella," Walter called from the security desk as she passed the elevator bank. He was sixty, silver-haired, and always had a thermos of something hot. "You're early tonight."

"Mrs. Delgado let me out of the laundromat shift early," Ella said, smiling. "How's the knee?"

"Terrible. Pays to complain." He winked. "There's cocoa in the lounge. Don't tell the night supervisor."

"I never tell anyone anything."

"That," said Walter, "is why you're my favorite."

She laughed, softly, and rolled her cart toward the glass double doors at the end of the corridor. The brass plate beside them read E. ASHFORD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (IN TRAINING).

Ella paused outside the doors, the way you hesitate before a dog you know bites.

Just the trash and the floors, she told herself. Twenty minutes. In and out.

She had a stack of unpaid hospital bills waiting at home, a mother who skipped meals to hide how little they had, and three weeks until the next payment. She could survive twenty minutes of anything.

She pushed the doors open.

The office was dark. Moonlight spilled across a white leather sofa, a desk the size of a small car, and a wall of framed magazine covers, every one of them showing the same smiling woman. Eden Ashford, Rising Star of the Year. Eden Ashford, 30 Under 30. Eden Ashford, The Future of Ashford Group.

Ella tied her hair back and got to work. She emptied the bin. She wiped the desk. She was on her knees, scrubbing a stain from the rug, when the lights snapped on.

"Well. Look who it is."

Ella's shoulders went rigid. She knew that voice. She had known it since she was five years old, and it had never once said her name kindly.

She turned slowly.

Eden stood in the doorway in a midnight-blue evening gown, a champagne flute dangling from two fingers. Her dark hair fell in glossy waves, her lipstick was flawless, and her eyes were bright and cold.

"I heard the cleaning staff had been reassigned," Eden said, strolling in. "Imagine my surprise."

"I'm sorry, Miss Ashford. I'll be out of your way in a few minutes."

"Miss Ashford." Eden savored it. "You used to call me Eden. Back when you thought you were my friend."

"That was a long time ago."

"Not so long." Eden circled the desk, trailing one finger along the polished edge. "Eighteen years? Nineteen? Funny how some things never change. The scholarship girl with the dented lunchbox. Still crawling around on the floor."

Ella said nothing. She dipped her cloth in the bucket and went back to the stain, because arguing with Eden was like arguing with the weather.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you."

Ella looked up.

For a moment, neither woman moved. The same height, the same dark eyes in a different shade, the same stubborn tilt to the chin. If anyone had stood in the doorway just then, they might have wondered, for half a second, why the two looked so strangely alike.

No one was there to wonder.

"You know what I can't stand?" Eden said softly. "You never fight back. Everyone else cries or begs or runs. You just kneel there with that calm little face, as if you're better than all of us."

"I'm not trying to be better than anyone."

"No?" Eden tipped her wrist.

Red wine poured onto the white rug.

It spread in a slow, dark bloom, soaking into the fibers Ella had just cleaned. Eden watched it, smiling.

"Oops," she said. "Clean that up."

The silence stretched. Ella stared at the stain. Her hands, wet and red to the wrist, trembled once and went still.

She wants me to cry. She wants me to quit. If I quit, the bills win.

She picked up the cloth.

"Yes, Miss Ashford," she said evenly, and began to scrub.

Something flickered across Eden's face, anger, or something that looked almost like confusion, and then it was gone. She set the glass on the desk with a sharp click.

"Hurry up," she snapped. "I have a call."

It took Ella twenty minutes to get the worst of the wine out. When she finally straightened, her knees ached and her fingers were stiff, and Eden was lounging behind the desk, scrolling her phone.

"Done," Ella said quietly. "I'll check the other offices."

"Wait."

She stopped at the door.

"I'm telling you this because I want to see your face." Eden's lips curled. "Tomorrow night, there's a gala. The whole city will be there. My parents are announcing something. Something big."

"Congratulations."

"It isn't for me to congratulate. It's an engagement." Eden rose and walked slowly around the desk, one hand pressed to her chest in mock modesty. "Mine. To the most eligible man in the country."

Ella said nothing. She did not care who Eden married. She hoped, in a distant, generous way, that the man would be kind.

"Julian Whitmore," Eden said.

The floor seemed to drop.

For one long, silent moment, Ella forgot how to breathe. The name landed in her chest like a stone in still water, and the ripples ran all the way back to a rubber-floored playground, a tire swing, and a small boy with serious gray eyes who had once stood between her and a crowd.

Julian.

Eden saw it. Of course she did. She had always been able to find the soft places.

"Oh," she breathed, delighted. "You remember him."

"I..." Ella's voice came out thin. "I haven't seen him in years."

"You will tomorrow. He's flying in tonight." Eden's smile widened, slow and sharp. "He's going to be my husband, Ella. Isn't that wonderful?"

Ella gripped the handle of her cart until her knuckles blanched.

"Yes, Miss Ashford," she said, and her voice did not shake. "I'm happy for you."

She walked out of the office with her head high and her heart in pieces. She did not look back. She did not see the way Eden's smile slipped the moment the doors swung shut, or the way her hand strayed to her own bare left shoulder as she stared after the girl she could never explain hating.

At the end of the corridor, Ella stopped at the window.

Thirty-one floors below, the city glittered, a spill of gold on black. Somewhere out there, in a plane or a car or a quiet hotel room, a man she had once loved with the pure, uncomplicated devotion of a child was coming back into her world.

And somewhere deep inside the Ashford house, in a drawer nobody had opened in twenty-five years, a hospital wristband marked E.A. lay folded in tissue paper, waiting for someone to ask what it meant.

Ella pressed her forehead to the cool glass.

"Don't," she whispered to herself. "Don't hope. Not for him."

But hope had never once asked her permission.