The Tycoon's Secret

r discovery in the secret passage, she no longer saw Hugo in the same way. The man who had been her protector, the embodiment of an almost invincible authority, now appeared to her in a mu

r longer than she would have done before. She would let her hand trail on the table just close enough to his to create a subtle tension. When he p

she knew would be hard to justify in broad daylight. Hugo, absorbed in a newspaper, barely looked up, but

ds of clothes," he said, not

, feigning i

es it bo

the table, and stared at her with an intens

me, Clara. It's a questi

ward, determined no

nd appropriate doe

mixture of anger and amuse

for. Sometimes you get m

point of backing down. If Hugo thought he could simply push her away with words,

d. Meanwhile, the mansion itself seemed to sink into an increasingly heavy atmosphere. One of the new maids, Sofia, disappeared overnight. I

conversation between two ot

tly. Hugo doesn't like

ink she'll

'll ever se

everyone accept these disappearances as inevitable? She knew she had to tell Hugo, but a part

ssed him by his desk. He seemed preoccupied, his face marked by an expre

at these hours?" he aske

rying to downpl

you the sam

less smile, cro

planation, Clara. But

ser, testing the limit

d. The others say she left in

, and the tension in the

ou should really stop askin

efused to

? If something's going o

, closing the distance bet

mansion... my life... it's all beyond what you can

ice was cold, but she heard something else in it, a kind of sincere warning. She should hav

ery she couldn't solve, but it wasn't just his secrets that fascinated her. It was him, his pre

re. What if Sofia was just a taste of the