Chapter 1 - The Interview
“I May Not Be the Woman You’d Choose, but I Can Love Your Children,” She Told the Mafia Boss
The other women laughed when Madeline Brooks said she could love Adrian Valenti’s children.
They hid it behind jeweled hands, but Madeline heard every cruel whisper.
“She came here to be a nanny,” one woman murmured. “Not a replacement sofa.”
Madeline lowered her eyes to her secondhand navy dress.
She had heard worse.
From boys who asked her out as a joke.
From relatives who measured her portions.
From the man who once told her successful men were judged by the women beside them—and that she did not fit the life he wanted.
Now she sat inside a mansion guarded by armed men, interviewing for the only job standing between her and homelessness.
Then Adrian Valenti entered.
Billionaire shipping magnate.
Widowed father of three.
And, according to every whisper in New York, a mafia king whose enemies rarely received second chances.
One by one, he dismissed the polished women around her.
Then he opened Madeline’s file.
“Why should I trust you with my children?”
Madeline forced herself to meet his cold gray eyes.
“I know I may not be the kind of woman a man like you would choose.”
Someone laughed again.
“But I didn’t come here to be chosen by you.”
The room went silent.
“I came because your children need someone who won’t leave when loving them becomes difficult.”
Before Adrian could answer, a tiny girl appeared behind the staircase banister.
She clutched a stuffed rabbit with a torn stomach. Tears slid silently down her pale cheeks.
The housekeeper stepped toward her.
The child retreated.
Madeline lowered herself to the carpet but did not approach.
She opened a sewing kit.
“That rabbit looks hurt,” she said softly. “I can help him—but only if he gives me permission.”
For two long minutes, the little girl did not move.
Then she crossed the room.
She placed the rabbit in Madeline’s hands.
And when Madeline finished repairing it, the child sat beside her and wrapped one small fist around the hem of her dress.
Adrian Valenti stopped breathing.
Madeline looked up at him.
For the first time, the most feared man in New York no longer looked dangerous.
May you like
He looked like a father who had just witnessed the impossible.
***
