"Clash."
"What did you just say?" a woman yelled angrily as she threw a vase on the floor, her chest pumping and fuming with anger while glaring at the middle-aged woman in front of her.
Looking at the woman wearing a standard uniform, black and white, the dress code for the family's servants, she just wanted to raise her hand and hit the other.
However, when she thought of the person backing this woman who stood in front of her as if she was the mistress and the real madam of the house was a servant, Lena wanted to cuss out loud.
"Third madam. Fifth Miss said that she doesn't want to see you. And you know how she gets irritated easily. You wouldn't want something happening to her, would you?" Emma Wilson calmly repeated what she had told Lena Hansley before.
Lena felt like she was on fire as she looked at the woman, who was around the same age as her. She was also the woman she was the most grateful for and hated at the same time.
Twenty-three years ago, she was fortunate enough to conceive and give birth to a lovely and beautiful daughter. A daughter that was favored from birth, even until now. She was a daughter that she was very proud of, as she knew how to capture her father's heart.
Although she and her daughter weren't liked by the others, at least by the person in charge of the house, her husband, they were the apples of his eyes and that's all that mattered to her.
However, it would be very mystical if a person were granted everything. There was no such thing as abundant luck and infinite fortune, for she finally tasted what it was like to be hopeless when her daughter turned eight.
Her daughter, Zara, her princess, was diagnosed with an unknown illness that had eaten her slowly and her twenty-three-year-old daughter looked as if she was fourteen or fifteen.
Her beloved daughter wasn't fully developed, and it could be said that she was still a girl and not a woman. There were so many things that she didn't dare let anyone know, though she was fully aware that everyone was probably in the know-how.
Her sickly and dying daughter was the only child that she ever gave birth to. If she could conceive again, she would gladly give birth to a child she could see and pamper. Unfortunately for her, as if she was being punished for sins, she wasn't aware of, she couldn't give birth anymore.
And since it was like that, it meant that her rebellious and sickly daughter, who didn't even allow her to see her just as what a mother should do, was her only hope.
At least her husband loved her daughter so much. Otherwise, with the money that the family had spent on medical bills and other things, they would have been cast away a very long time ago.
Not only did Zara refuse to see her, but it's been like that for many years. They both lived in the same compound and yet the number of times she gets to see her daughter was less than ten times in a year.
While she couldn't even see her beloved daughter, this woman, this Emma Wilson, the person she hired herself personally twenty-three years ago, was staying beside her little princess like a mother.
Lena hated Emma so much that the more she looked at her, the more she got reminded that her daughter sees Emma more the more she saw her, the mother.
Emma knew everything that her daughter liked and disliked, while she knew nothing. Her daughter's activities became even more secretive ever since Zara's favorite brother, that rebellious child that even her husband couldn't control, took over Zara's matters.
From that day going forward, they didn't know what she was up to. Even what she was eating, how she was sleeping, and so forth. Unless it was time for the doctor to give them a report on Zara's health, she, as a mother, didn't know anything.
And as if that wasn't enough. The first time in nearly eight years that her daughter decided to go out and leave her villa, despite being a dangerous move, she refused to see her, the mother just once.
"Why? Why is she doing this to me? Does she blame me? Even if she does, can't she see her mother just once? I haven't seen her in like two months, for crying out loud, Emma. Are you going to keep my baby away from me?" Lena couldn't help but yell in grievance as she crumbled in front of the same person that she hated.
Emma shook her head helplessly as she looked at Lena, the third madam, the third wife of the richest man in Kuville.
Lena was fortunate to have caught her Master's eyes when she was just a university student. Cade Hansley, a hopeless romantic who had married and divorced two wives, and had two mistresses outside during his two marriages, was very well known.
If it wasn't for his hard work, riches, and fame, she didn't even want to imagine where he would be right now. But fortunately for him, despite his hopeless romanticism, he knew how to manage the business and turn it into what it is today.
He single-handedly made the company become the top company in Kuville, and it even surpassed some companies from other major cities as well.
Through his hard work, Cade made the Hansley's, the richest family in Kuville, and there was a family that others looked towards to all the time. They also had a lot of enemies who were trying to bring them down and the internal battles were something that even Emma, a servant, was getting tired of seeing.
Lena got married as soon as she graduated and conceived Zara, the fifth Miss that Emma was responsible for.
She was hired by Lena when Zara was just a few months old to become her nanny. She had been by Zara's side until now. In other words, the time she had spent with Zara was much more when compared to the time that Lena, the mother, spent with her daughter.
Emma could see Lena's hatred and envy for her, but there was nothing that she could do about it.
How could she even tell Lena that it wasn't as it seemed?
But that wasn't something that she, a servant who only followed her mistress's order, said. Until Zara was willing to share her thoughts with her mother, she would continue to act like a bad person.
She was willing to do anything for her fifth Miss. She had guarded her for twenty-three years, after all.
"Third Madam, I am just a messenger. Think whatever you think, but don't say I didn't warn you. Don't make the fifth Miss, ban you from seeing her again. We all know that the clock is ticking and don't let yourself see your daughter when she is in the coffin!" Emma coldly said that with her fists clenched.
Although she knew how much her words would hurt Lena, she knew that the others would understand and not act rashly. After all, which mother wouldn't want to spend time with her child?
Especially one that didn't have much to live.