Her leg began to ache.
She shifted her weight and tried not to show how much pain she was in.
Olivia noticed.
"Would you like to sit down while we check this?"
"Thank you. I think I'll be all right."
"There's a chair right over there."
Claire offered a faint smile.
"Thank you, dear."
She moved toward the nearby seating area, but before she could reach it, Marcus spoke again.
"Madam, we really need to keep the reception area clear."
Claire stopped.
"I am standing beside the desk. I'm not blocking anyone."
Marcus looked toward the other guests.
A wealthy couple had just entered the lobby.
He straightened his jacket and greeted them warmly.
"Good afternoon, welcome to the Bellmont. It's a pleasure to have you with us."
The contrast was impossible to miss.
Claire said nothing.
She had spent years learning how to survive situations in which people judged her before hearing her story.
She had learned that arguing with someone who had already decided she was unworthy rarely changed anything.
But she had not expected to experience that treatment in the place she had once called home.
Because the Bellmont Hotel was not just another building to her.
It was where her mother had worked for nearly forty years.
It was where Claire had spent much of her childhood.
And it was where she had last seen the woman she had been trying to find for almost a decade.
Twenty-eight years earlier, the Bellmont had been a very different place.
Claire was eight years old when her mother, Margaret Bennett, began working there as a housekeeper.
Margaret was a hardworking single mother who cleaned guest rooms, washed linens, and worked double shifts whenever the hotel needed extra help.
She rarely complained.
Even when her feet hurt, she smiled.
Even when she was exhausted, she found time to sit with Claire after school and help her with homework.
They lived in a small apartment several blocks from the hotel.
Their furniture was old, their kitchen was tiny, and their television frequently stopped working.
But Claire remembered that home as the happiest place in the world.
Her mother used to tell her something every night.
"Never allow someone else's opinion to determine your worth."
Whenever Claire asked why, Margaret would answer:
"Because people can see your clothes, your face, and your mistakes. But they cannot see your heart unless you give them the chance."
Claire carried those words into adulthood.
When she was nineteen, she left the city to attend nursing school.
Margaret cried at the train station but refused to let her daughter see how frightened she was.
"Go build your life," she said. "Don't worry about me."
Claire promised she would return often.
For a while, she did.
Then life became complicated.
She graduated, became an emergency nurse, and moved from one hospital to another.
She worked night shifts, treated accident victims, and learned how to remain calm when everyone else was panicking.
She fell in love with a man named Daniel Carter.
At first, Daniel seemed wonderful.
He was charming, successful, and attentive.
But after they married, his behavior changed.
He became controlling.