The Million-Dollar Heart (Percival and Vivienne) novel Chapter 628

The Ellington Mansion.

Cecilia had just picked up her daughter, Isolde, from school and was looking forward to unwinding with some cartoons and a quick bite of afternoon snacks. This tradition had become their little sanctuary of mother-daughter bonding.

Just as they were settling in, the doorbell chimed persistently.

"Aurelia, who could that be?" Cecilia called out, a hint of annoyance creeping into her voice.

Aurelia, the housekeeper, appeared at a loss for words. "Madam, perhaps you'd better come see for yourself. It's, uh..."

The hesitation in Aurelia's voice was enough to pique Cecilia's curiosity. She set her snack aside and rose from the couch. "Who is it? What's with all the mystery?" she muttered as she approached the door.

As she reached the entryway, Cecilia stopped dead in her tracks, her expression shifting from curiosity to shock. Words failed her as she stood face-to-face with a sight too startling for words.

Isolde scampered over, her youthful curiosity piqued. "Mom, what's wrong? Oh, is that a beggar?"

The figure at the door was indeed a sight to behold. With a wild mane of hair resembling a lion's, a face smeared with grime, and clothes exuding a pungent stench, the visitor looked every inch the part of a beggar. The most frightening feature, however, was the jagged scar slashing across their face.

At Isolde's blunt assessment, the disheveled visitor suddenly collapsed to her knees, crying out, "Auntie, I've finally found you!"

Isolde clung to Cecilia, startled by the intensity of the moment.

Regaining her composure, Cecilia handed Isolde to Aurelia and knelt to brush the hair from the beggar's face gently. "Mara, how did you end up like this?"

The beggar was none other than Mara Boyd, Cecilia's niece and the youngest daughter of the Boyd family's second branch.

Mara was weeping uncontrollably, her tears tracing clean lines down her dirt-streaked face, adding a touch of absurdity to the tragic scene.

"Auntie, I've finally found you," she repeated between sobs, her voice filled with a heartbreaking mix of relief and despair.

Cecilia promptly instructed Aurelia to prepare a hot bath and fresh clothes, foregoing any further questions for the moment.

Once Mara had cleaned up, her original features emerged from beneath the grime, though the untreated scar still marred her face, red and angry, the edges dark and inflamed. Even in her clean state, Isolde was visibly frightened, and Cecilia, too, struggled to reconcile the image before her with the niece she once knew.

Aurelia brought a bowl of steaming chicken ramen, offering it with a gentle, "Ms. Boyd, please eat something."

Mara nodded, famished, and began to devour the meal with a ferocity born of long deprivation, nearly choking in her haste.

Cecilia handed her a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and softly patted her back. "Take it slow, there's no rush."

Mara paused, her tears flowing anew. "Auntie, I thought I'd never see you again," she said, her voice choked with emotion.

Cecilia had harbored great disappointment in the Boyd family, especially Mara, whom she had thought different—kinder, not as callous as the rest. However, she was wrong. Yet, seeing Mara so vulnerable, her maternal instincts still took over. Blood was, after all, thicker than water.

"Mara, weren’t you and your mother supposed to be abroad? How did this happen?"