Rags to Riches, Heart to Heart

Previously

…As Mr. Sterling turned and entered the building, leaving Elara standing on the threshold of a new, unimaginable future, he couldn't shake the image of her earnest face. He had offered her a job, a role within his meticulously controlled world, a small crack in the fortress he had built around himself. He told himself it was purely a matter of practicality, of efficiency. But deep down, a nascent, unacknowledged feeling stirred within him, a faint warmth against the habitual chill of his solitude. Elara, the waif from the cobblestones, had, in a single, brave moment, begun to chip away at the hardened exterior of Mr. Sterling, and in doing so, had opened a door she never thought possible.