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But not everything was as it seemed. From day one, the maid, Valerie, gave me a look that screamed, \u201cYou don\u2019t belong here.\u201d I tried to shake it off; I was here to stay. Valerie was going to have to deal with that.\n
A few days into settling in, I decided to make breakfast for my new family. The house was huge, and George\u2019s younger brother and sister still lived at home, so I prepared for a large spread.\n
Valerie stood in the kitchen with me, eyeing every move I made, while she wiped the countertops. She made me nervous. When I reached across the table to look for my phone \u2014 to look up different ways of making eggs \u2014 it wasn\u2019t there.\n
\u201cHave you seen my phone?\u201d I asked Valerie, certain it had been on the table in front of her.\n
Valerie shook her head, barely glancing my way.\n
\u201cI\u2019d hurry up with the breakfast if I were you,\u201d she said coldly. \u201cThe family expects it on the table before they come downstairs.\u201d\n
I took her advice and finished the breakfast, while Valerie left the kitchen.\n
I eventually found my phone, left on the seat Valerie had just vacated. But it was the message on the screen that turned my world upside down:\n
Check your husband\u2019s drawer. The top left one, specifically. Then RUN!\n My heart pounding, I made my way to our bedroom, the warning playing on repeat in my head. In my absence, Valerie had made the bed and folded the clothes we had discarded on the floor the night before.\n I hesitated before opening the drawer, a sense of dread washing over me. I didn\u2019t know what would happen the moment I opened it. I didn\u2019t know what secrets George had, waiting for me to find.\n Inside, I found a stack of letters tied with a faded ribbon and an old key. The letters, written by my husband, were to someone named Elena.\n I sat on our bed and read through them all \u2014 each letter spoke of a love and future that George had promised another person.\n With each word, my heart broke a little more. The last letter was a goodbye; according to the date, it was just before George proposed to me \u2014 three days before, to be precise.\n And the key?\n \u201cDo you know what this key is for?\u201d I asked Ivy, George\u2019s younger sister, when I found it didn\u2019t fit anything in our room.\n \u201cOh, I think it\u2019s for the attic,\u201d she said, inspecting the key. \u201cIt has to be; that was George\u2019s favorite room. I don\u2019t know why; it\u2019s always been so dark and drafty to me. I haven\u2019t been there in years.\u201d\n I found my way to the attic, and it was just as dark and drafty as Ivy had said.\n But once I turned on the light, my blood ran cold.\n The walls of the room were covered in photographs of my husband and a woman \u2014 Elena, I assumed. In each photograph, their love was clear, bouncing off the paper.\n It mocked me. It mocked our marriage. It mocked all the feelings I had for George.\n I sat in the only armchair in the room, taking in the surroundings before my knees could give way. That\u2019s when my eyes found their way to an ultrasound, stuck onto the wall beneath a photograph of George and Elena dancing in a courtyard.\n George and Elena were going to have a baby. Of course, they were.\n I couldn\u2019t understand how he could have kept it hidden from me for so long.\n The truth about Elena was one thing, but to keep a baby hidden from me? That was inconceivable.\n I was looking through each photograph, wondering how George could have left Elena when she was pregnant with his child.\n \u201cFreya?\u201d a soft voice came from the doorway.\n \u201cValerie,\u201d I said, suddenly wary that I was in a place I shouldn\u2019t have been.\n \u201cYou weren\u2019t supposed to find out this way,\u201d she said, her voice a whisper of sympathy.\n \u201cYou knew about this?\u201d I asked, unsure how to approach her.\n She nodded slowly.\n \u201cElena is my sister. She thought you deserved to know the truth. She gave me the letters, and I put them in George\u2019s drawer this morning when I was cleaning up.\u201d\n \u201cAnd the baby?\u201d I asked, my voice wavering.\n Valerie leaned against the wall and told me about Elena. When the family was planning their annual Christmas party two years ago, Valerie asked Elena to help with the cleaning.\n \u201cThey hit it off immediately. And then they fell in love. But when Elena found out about the baby and his condition, George wanted nothing to do with her.\u201d\n Valerie said that George was prepared to marry Elena out of love, but when he found out the baby had Down syndrome, he saw them as a burden.\n \u201cHe told Elena he would fight for her with his family and make them understand she was more than a maid. But things changed.\u201d\n Together, we went into the living room, where the family was lounging around \u2014 George nowhere to be seen. I told his parents about the letters and the attic covered in photographs.\n Valerie told them about Elena and her baby.\n When we were done, George walked into the living room \u2014 his face a clear tell of someone who had overheard the conversation.\n \u201cIs this true?\u201d his father demanded, his gaze fixed on my husband.\n George had no words; his silence was a damning admission.\n The family fallout was quick. George was cut off, his inheritance now redirected to support Elena and her soon-to-be-born child.\n And me?\n I was granted a divorce \u2014 George didn\u2019t even try to fight it; he was broken from the loss of his money. My in-laws gave me a fresh start with assets meant for George.\n I sold off some of them \u2014 ensuring that the real victory was the foundation I started for Elena\u2019s baby. A foundation for children with disabilities. Now, Valerie manages it, with input from myself and George\u2019s mother\u2014 who disowned her son the moment she found out about the baby.\n What would you have done in my shoes?\n Here\u2019s another story for you | Elena is a maid in a big mansion. After a couple of unexpected events, the owner and lord of the estate falls in love with her, but what can Elena do when so many obstacles stand in the way of her finding true love?\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Freya was ready to begin her life as a newlywed and moved into her husband George\u2019s family estate. However, when Valerie, the maid, tipped Freya off about George\u2019s secret life, their vows quickly unraveled. Fresh off my wedding high, I moved into my husband\u2019s family home \u2014 a place that seemed straight out of a …\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":97329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1439],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97334,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97328\/revisions\/97334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/echowoven.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2025%5C/01%5C/2ef32c67d9d47800adf184c9161415ae2e3dca99e123fca83ccd136a79d352a5-1024x683-1.jpg%5C%22 "\\"\\"")
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