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The Caretaker
Paperback
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ISBN13: 9789416053770
Publisher: Denny Van Der Borne
Published: Apr 11 2026
Pages: 200
Weight: 0.60
Height: 0.42 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
You're not here to fall in love. Trust me, sir... I don't even know what that means. She was sold like a possession-traded away by the very people who were supposed to protect her. At just seventeen, she finds herself in a cold, unfamiliar mansion owned by a powerful man known for his silence, strict rules, and a heartbreak he never talks about. His only condition? Take care of his one-year-old daughter. Don't speak unless spoken to. Don't enter his study. Never touch him. For her, following orders is nothing new. Obedience has kept her alive this long. But the baby's soft cries break something inside her, and her tender touch begins to warm a house that forgot what love felt like. He tells himself she's just a caretaker. Just a temporary solution. But night after night, she shatters rule after rule... And soon, his heart becomes the final one to break.
The night her mother died, the stars disappeared.
Not in the sky-they were still there, blinking behind the clouds-but inside the small, suffocating world of a girl who stopped believing in miracles at the age of seven.
The funeral was quiet. No one cried.Not her father, who smoked through the ceremony like it bored him.Not her brother, who rolled his eyes when she reached for his hand.Just her. Silent. Still. Small. Dressed in a torn white dress and holding a daisy she'd picked from the roadside.
After that, the house changed.Warmth became cold.Meals became punishment.And her name? Forgotten.
She was now you.You, clean this.You, shut up.You, stop breathing so loud. Sometimes the beatings came like storms.Sometimes the hunger was the only friend she had.But worst of all were the words.
You should've died instead of her.
She started believing it.
Years blurred by, stitched together with bruises and silence.She stopped talking. Stopped crying. Stopped hoping.
Until one evening-quiet, too quiet-she heard them whispering in the next room.
Her father and a man with a deep, gruff voice.
Seventeen, right? Pretty face, works like a mute servant. You'll get your money's worth.
Just take her. Clear my debt, and she's yours.
She didn't move.Not when the man walked out and glanced at her like a piece of broken furniture.Not when her father patted her head like a stray dog and muttered,
Try not to ruin this, girl. You're finally worth something.
That night, she sat by the window, clutching her tattered blanket and staring at the stars.
They were still there.Blinking. Distant. Cold.
She whispered to herself.
Don't cry. They don't get to see you cry anymore.
The next morning, a black car came to take her away.
She didn't say goodbye. She just looked back once at the door she had called home...
And never looked again.
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