Princess Sally: The Billionaire's Secret

By Lee Mor

Everyone has a secret. Will his secret destroy the ones he loves?

When a young woman takes a job as governess for the ward of an enigmatic young American billionaire, she is thrust into a world of deception and secrets which threatens to destroy them both - or give them a second chance for love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aster Press
• Release date: Apr 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393019169

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I LOOK AROUND ME, AND I don’t know where to begin. Whenever a sentence or two floats into my head, something clicks off and everything goes blank. Am I afraid that if I look too hard, think too much, all this—the apartment, the diamond ring on my finger—will disappear in a poof of smoke, like in the children’s stories I used to read a long time ago?

Yet I want to remember. I don’t want to forget the person I once was.

Sally.

How I hated that name, growing up. Dilley-dally, silly Sally! some of the kids used to taunt me.

It was only later I learned that Sally was a diminutive form of the name Sarah, which in the Hebrew language means princess.

So, perhaps my life’s journey hasn’t been so strange after all. Perhaps this is where I was always meant to be—standing in a room overlooking Central Park, a room that is almost as big as the house I grew up in back in Iowa, a room that is only a small part of a three-floor apartment in an exclusive New York City apartment building that is now ... mine. Ours.

What makes it all so strange is that this was never my dream. I had one friend in school who wanted to be an actress. She was always talking about how one day she was going to fly to New York and become the biggest star in the history of Broadway, and go to swank parties, and be rich and famous, and live happily ever after.

What do you want to be, Sal, after we’re old enough to get out of this hick town? she once asked me.

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t imagine being anything other than Sally Thomas, daughter of Frank and Sheila Thomas. My parents had an antiques store—country classics, things you’d find in your great-grandparents’ attic, if they were smart enough to hang on to the good stuff—and I always supposed that one day I would help them run the business. I grew up loving the touch of real wood, the charm of a hand-carved ornament, the quilt stitched with tears and love.

Real things. Things that had been part of someone’s life. Witnesses to someone’s hopes and laughter.

I’m starting to sound like my father. He hated anything plastic, whether it was furniture or people. I wish he could see the room I’m in now. The antique chairs and tables are the real thing. He would have appreciated them—and the man who acquired them.

There was only one incident in my childhood that stands out as being out of the ordinary, in what was otherwise a very ordinary growing-up time in a small town in Iowa. When I was seven, my older brother Eddie fell off the roof and cracked open his head. He died that night, in the hospital. He was nine years old.

I don’t why—maybe all kids who have lost a sibling feel this way—but from then on, I felt everything in my world had changed. Whereas before I was a generally happy kid who didn’t think too much about how I was doing in school or the consequences of getting into mischief, after Eddie died, I became very careful. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it. I was careful to do my homework and do it well. I was careful to help clear the dishes after supper. I was careful to never hit the baseball too hard, lest it break the kitchen window of the Potter family, our next-door neighbors, like Eddie had once done.

And I was careful not to have any dreams of my own, to think too much about the future. It seemed selfish to think about my future, a future that didn’t somehow include my parents, now that Eddie was gone.

My parents would talk sometimes, over supper, about how they were saving some money, so I could go to college. So, I assumed that one day I would go to college. That was okay, because they wanted me to go.

Sally’s got a good head for numbers, my father would say. I bet she’d make a good accountant.

My mother would nod her head and say, It’s good for a woman to know how to manage her finances.

I didn’t question it. If my parents wanted me to go to college and learn accounting, that’s what I would do. I couldn’t let them down, not after they’d lost Eddie. I didn’t understand, then, that a person can love the dead without detracting from their love for the living; that there was room in a heart for both. So, when a small college in eastern Kansas accepted me, I accepted them. When it came time to choose a major, I chose accounting.

Towards the end of the fall semester of my junior year, I got an email from my parents. They were so excited. They had found a not-too-expensive group tour to Europe—the price was lower than usual because there had been a last-minute cancellation which the tour company was anxious to fill—and they signed up for it. Going to Europe had always been their dream. They said they hoped I wouldn’t feel too bad about spending Christmas and my winter break without them. But hadn’t I said something about wanting to spend some of the vacation with a friend from Kansas City?

I remember having such mixed feelings about that email—I can almost laugh about it now. Somehow it was fine for me to spread my wings a little bit and tell my parents I might not be home for Christmas. But for my parents to fly the coop and head off to Europe and leave me alone? Were parents supposed to do that?

Of course, I wrote back that I was so happy for them. And they shouldn’t worry about me. Then I went back to studying for my finals.

My last exam was late in the afternoon of the last day of finals for that semester. Most of the kids had already left the campus and gone home for the winter break. It had been snowing all day, and I still remember the crunching sound that my boots made on the icy sidewalk. When I got back to my dorm, the building felt eerily empty. Once again, I was aware of my footsteps. This time they echoed.

When I was about halfway down the corridor, I heard a woman call my name. Sally? Sally Thomas?

I turned. It was the woman in charge of the dorm. I’ve forgotten her name. I can’t recall her face clearly now either. It’s funny how memory works. I do remember her words, though: I’m so sorry, Sally. Your parents were in a car accident, on the way to the airport. They’re dead.

After I got back home, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head and cry and cry and cry. But I couldn’t do that. Someone had to bury my parents. Someone had to accept the offerings of cherry pie and homemade muffins and baked chicken and other gifts the neighbors kept bringing.

After a while, the visits stopped. Finally, I was left alone. Strangely, though, the tears didn’t come.

The tour company had kindly refunded the money for the European tour. For some reason my mind kept focusing on that one fact. My parents had wanted to go to Europe. I was going to do it for them. I would see the beauty and admire the cultural riches for them. I would