Chapter 2 - The Girl Above the Garage
Ten years earlier, Isabella lived in a small apartment above an auto repair shop in Pasadena.
At least, that was what everyone believed.
The apartment was real.
So was the repair shop.
Edward Whitmore worked there every Saturday, wearing faded coveralls and rebuilding classic engines with his own hands.
He did not need the money.
Whitmore Global owned ports, manufacturing plants, logistics networks and investment funds across four continents.
Edward had begun as a mechanic at seventeen.
He repaired trucks during the day and studied engineering at night.
His first invention improved fuel efficiency in commercial fleets. The patent financed a small transport company.
That company became Whitmore Global.
But Edward never sold the garage.
“It reminds me what things cost before people start confusing price with value,” he told Isabella.
After Isabella’s mother died, Edward became intensely protective.
Too protective.
He selected schools, screened friends and once hired security to follow Isabella without telling her.
At twenty-three, Isabella left the family estate.
She moved above the garage and began working as an architectural preservation consultant.
She used her mother’s last name, Reed.
She asked Edward not to reveal her connection to Whitmore Global.
“I want people to meet me before they meet your money,” she said.
Edward agreed reluctantly.
That was how Nathaniel first saw her.
He arrived at the garage in an expensive car that would not start.
Edward was beneath an old truck, his hands black with grease.
Nathaniel barely looked at him.
He noticed Isabella instead.
She stood beside the workbench in jeans and a white shirt, studying blueprints for an abandoned theater.
“You work here?” Nathaniel asked.
“My father does.”
Nathaniel glanced at Edward.
“A mechanic?”
“The best one I know.”
Nathaniel smiled at her.
He assumed she was poor.
Isabella saw the assumption.
She did not correct it.
Over the next several weeks, Nathaniel returned even after his car was repaired.
He brought coffee.
Asked about her projects.
Listened while she spoke about restoring neglected buildings.
At the time, he seemed curious rather than judgmental.
Edward noticed something else.
Nathaniel was kind to Isabella.
But he never learned the names of the mechanics.
He thanked Edward only when Isabella was watching.
Edward warned her.
“He respects what he wants.”
Isabella defended Nathaniel.
“He just doesn’t know you.”
Edward looked toward the luxury car leaving the garage.
May you like
“He thinks he does.”
👉 Isabella believed Nathaniel loved her despite her modest life, unaware that he was already measuring how little power her family seemed to possess.
