Chapter 3 - THE KNOT BENEATH THE SILK
Daniel noticed Elena staring intently at his wrist, but before he could speak, she pulled her hand back, tucking the silk square into her pocket. The ballroom hummed with whispers, eyes lingering on the unexpected intervention.
“You’re bleeding,” Daniel said quietly, noting a thin red line across her knuckle where a glass shard had scraped her skin.
“It’s nothing, Mr. Valdés,” Elena murmured, her voice breathless and shaken. “Thank you for... what you did. But I have to collect my belongings.”
“Allow my driver to take you home,” Daniel offered gently. “It’s late, and the rain hasn’t stopped.”
“No,” Elena replied quickly, pulling back with that fierce, stubborn pride he had glimpsed through the shop window. “I can take the bus. I have to get Nico’s medicine early tomorrow. Please... excuse me.”
She fled through the service doors before he could insist.
In the employee locker room, Elena’s hands shook so violently she could barely turn the dial on her locker. She pulled out her mother’s old tin keepsake box, which she kept tucked in her tote bag for luck. Inside lay old photographs, her mother’s worn rosary, and a matching navy-and-silver woven cord bracelet—identical to the one on Daniel Valdés’s wrist.
Her mother, Clara, had always claimed the knot was a private design, an emblem created by a small coastal workshop in Galicia where she had worked before Elena was born. “A promise between people who protect each other,” Clara had said on her deathbed. How did a luxury fashion billionaire end up wearing a frayed, faded Galician good-luck cord?
The next morning, Elena stood in the neighborhood pharmacy in Carabanchel, clutching the crisp fifty-euro note Herrero had grudgingly handed her the night before.
“Here you go, Elena,” the pharmacist said, sliding the two boxes of specialized beta-blockers across the counter. “Ensure he doesn't miss the midday dosage. The clinic phoned; his pulmonary pressure has ticked up again.”
“I know, Don Mateo. Thank you.”
When Elena returned to the apartment, she found Nico sitting at the small kitchen table, sketching on a piece of cardboard. He looked pale, but his eyes were bright.
“You’re late,” Nico said, setting down his pencil. “Did the fancy party keep you cleaning crystal until dawn?”
“Something like that,” Elena said, setting down the medication alongside fresh bread and milk. “Take your pill first.”
Nico swallowed the tablet obediently with water, then pulled the cardboard toward her. He had drawn the blue dress from memory, but he had added a small figure inside it—a woman with Elena’s dark curls, wearing a genuine, unburdened smile.
“One day,” Nico said softly, looking up at her with an earnestness that shattered her heart. “I’m going to get an apprenticeship and buy you that dress myself.”
Elena pulled her brother into a tight embrace, burying her face in his hair so he wouldn't see the tears pooling in her eyes. “You just focus on finishing school and keeping that heart beating steady. That’s all the luxury I need.”
Her phone buzzed against the table. An unknown number flashed on the screen. Hesitant, Elena answered.
“Elena Martín?” a crisp, professional voice inquired.
“Yes?”
“This is Marcos Silva, head of human resources at Valdés Atelier corporate headquarters. Mr. Daniel Valdés has requested your presence for a formal interview regarding an open administrative coordinator position in our executive suite.”
Elena gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. “I... I didn’t apply for any position, Mr. Silva.”
“Mr. Valdés reviewed your employment file from the agency, which listed your previous university studies in textile design and business administration before your leave of absence,” the voice explained smoothly. “He believes your background is suited for our logistics branch. The interview is scheduled for two o’clock this afternoon. Can we expect you?”
Elena looked at Nico, then at the two boxes of heart medicine that would only last thirty days.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I will be there.”
At one-thirty, Elena arrived at the towering glass monolith of Valdés Atelier on Paseo de la Castellana. She wore her cleanest pressed black slacks and an ivory blouse, keeping her scuffed shoes tucked back.
She was ushered not to Human Resources, but directly to the penthouse floor. When the elevator doors slid open, she was guided into a vast, sunlit office overlooking Madrid.
Daniel Valdés sat behind an ebony wood desk, reviewing a series of fabric swatches. He looked up, his expression softening into an approachable smile. “Elena. Thank you for coming.”
“Mr. Valdés,” she began, standing rigidly before the desk. “If this is charity because of what happened last night with Miss Montenegro, I can’t accept it. I appreciate your intervention, but I don't take handouts.”
Daniel set his pen down, leaning back slightly. “Do you think I built an eight-hundred-million-euro brand by hiring people out of pity, Elena?”
He opened a leather portfolio on his desk. Inside were sketches—rough, vibrant, hand-drawn apparel designs signed with the initials E.M. from five years ago.
Elena gasped. “Where did you get those?”
“You applied for a junior internship here during your second year at the Complutense University of Madrid,” Daniel explained, his dark eyes studying her carefully. “You were ranked first among two hundred applicants. But before the contract was finalized, you withdrew your application without an explanation and vanished from academic records.”
“My mother became bedridden that autumn,” Elena said quietly, her voice tightening. “There was no one else to care for her and Nico.”
“I know,” Daniel said softly. “I remember your portfolio because your sketches possessed something most designers spend decades trying to fake: soul. I don’t offer charity, Elena. I offer second chances to people who were forced to sacrifice their talent for duty.”
Elena’s eyes welled, but before she could speak, the office door clicked open.
An older woman stepped inside without knocking. She was impeccably dressed in an austere gray suit, her silver hair pulled into a severe chignon, wearing an unmistakable aura of cold authority.
“Daniel,” the woman said, her voice sharp as winter ice. “Why is my schedule interrupted for a personal meeting with caterers?”
Daniel stood, his jaw setting firmly. “Elena, this is Doña Sofia Valdés, my stepmother and chair of our executive board. Sofia, this is Elena Martín. She is joining our creative coordination department on Monday.”
Doña Sofia stopped dead in her tracks. Her sharp, pale eyes shifted from Daniel to Elena’s face.
Suddenly, Sofia’s gaze dropped down to Elena’s left wrist, where the frayed blue-and-silver Galician cord peeked out from her cuff.
Sofia’s aristocratic face turned completely white. Her fingers clenched violently around her crocodile-skin handbag.
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“Where,” Sofia whispered, her voice trembling with sudden, virulent dread, “did you get that bracelet?”
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