Chapter 2The Billionaire Maid Game

It took me less than an hour to pack.

I had almost nothing of my own. The silk blouses, the soft merino wool sweaters, the tailored trousers hanging in my room had all been ordered by Garrett’s executive assistant during my first week out of the hospital. I folded every single piece, lined them up neatly on the hangers in the closet, and closed the doors.

I took only the clothes I had worn on the day I woke up: an oversized, faded denim jacket, a pair of worn Levi’s, and a plain white tee.

On the kitchen island, beside the spare house key, I left an envelope containing a handwritten letter and the platinum debit card he had provided. The three months of salary he had deposited sat untouched. Every single cent.

Mr. Hayes,

Thank you for taking me in and giving me shelter over the past three months when I had nowhere else to go. You are about to begin a new chapter of your life, and it would be inappropriate for me to remain here. I cannot accept the money; please consider it a small repayment for the medical bills and your kindness. I wish you and Gemma a lifetime of happiness.

Sincerely, Grace.

By four in the morning, under a sky as black as slate, I pulled my beat-up carry-on suitcase down the gravel driveway.

With the three hundred dollars of petty cash I had found tucked into the lining of my jacket pocket, I booked a one-way ticket to Savannah at the airport kiosk. It didn't matter where I went, as long as it was far away, quiet, and full of strangers who didn't look at me with haunted eyes.

"Final boarding call for Flight 1482 to Savannah," the automated chime echoed through Terminal B.

I clutched my boarding pass, stepping into the line moving toward the gate agent.

A hand clamped down on my wrist with bruising force.

I gasped, spun around, and slammed straight into a wall of dark wool and tailored fury.

Garrett looked unhinged. His tie was loosened, his collar crooked, dark strands of hair falling into his forehead, and his gray eyes were crisscrossed with crimson veins. His chest heaved as if he had sprinted through the entire terminal.

"Where the hell do you think you’re going, Grace?" His voice was raw, vibrating with a terrifying mixture of fury and terror.

The sheer intensity radiating from him made me shrink back. I tried to twist my arm free. "Mr. Hayes, please let go of me. My flight is boarding."

"I am not letting you go!" His grip tightened, not enough to break bone, but enough to make me wince. "You're quitting? Who gave you permission to quit?"

His eyes dropped to the shredded piece of paper clutched in my other hand—a printed copy of the note I had left on his counter. Before I could pull it away, he ripped it from my fingers and tore it in half, then into quarters, letting the scraps flutter down onto the industrial carpet like cheap confetti.

"You don't get to leave!" he snarled, his voice cracking at the edges, his eyes dangerously wet.

The terminal passengers were staring. Mortification and the bitter, pent-up grief of the last twenty-four hours finally broke through my meek facade.

"Why can't I leave?" I shouted back, tears burning behind my eyelids. "Your fiancée is moving in! What am I supposed to do, stand around in an apron and watch you play house? Be an eyesore in your newly renovated dream home? I am doing you a favor by leaving with some dignity! Isn’t that enough for you?"

Garrett froze.

The wild panic in his eyes hitched. He stared down at me as if I had spoken in tongues, his jaw tightening until the tendon in his cheek twitched.

"Housekeeper?" he whispered, his chest rising and falling in violent, ragged breaths. "Fiancée?"

He let out a short, incredulous bark of laughter that sounded entirely broken. Then, with a sudden jerk, he pulled me flush against his chest, shoved his free hand into the inner breast pocket of his charcoal overcoat, and yanked out a small, navy-blue leather document folder.

He thrust it open right before my eyes.

"Look at it, Grace! Look at it with your own goddamn eyes!"

I stared down, my breath catching in my throat.

It wasn't a contract. It was a certified marriage certificate from the state of New York.

Garrett Hayes. Grace Hayes.

Tucked behind the certificate was a photograph: a sunny afternoon in Central Park. A woman with my face was laughing brightly, her head thrown back against Garrett’s shoulder, a sparkling diamond band on her finger. And Garrett—the cold, unapproachable billionaire who barely spoke a full sentence to me—was looking at the camera with a smile so soft, so helplessly in love, that it made my heart stop.

My knees turned to water.

Garrett’s hands shot out, gripping both of my shoulders, forcing my gaze up to meet his wild, bloodshot eyes.

"I played along with this sick, exhausting amnesia game for three whole months," he choked out, his voice trembling violently. "And you actually convinced yourself you were a stranger?"

The world tilted sideways.

Housekeeper? Wife?

Marriage? A game?

A violent, blinding throb exploded behind my temples. My vision fractured into dark spots, the airport sounds muffled as though underwater.

Seeing me sway, all the rage instantly vanished from Garrett’s face, replaced by pure, sickening dread.

"Grace!"

Before I could hit the floor, his arms hooked beneath my knees and back, lifting me effortlessly against his chest. Ignoring the murmurs of security guards and onlookers, he turned on his heel and strode toward the exit.

"Put me down, Garrett!" I gasped, weakly pushing against his firm chest. "What is this? Is that paper fake? Did you forge that picture?"

"Keep fighting me, Grace, and I swear to God I will kiss you right here in front of TSA," he warned, his voice dangerously low, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear.

I went rigid.

He didn't set me down until he reached the passenger side of his Maybach idling in the drop-off lane. He slid me into the leather seat, clicked the seatbelt into place, and slammed the door before jogging around to the driver's side. The locks clicked shut with a heavy, final thud.

The interior was suffocatingly small, completely saturated with the scent of cedar, clean linen, and his sharp, familiar cologne.

I huddled against the passenger window, pulling my knees up, trembling.

Garrett gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles stark white. He looked at me, his eyes full of an agonizing, helpless ache.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his throat bobbing. "I shouldn't have yelled at you. I panicked."

He reached out to touch my cheek, but I flinched, shrinking back into the corner. His hand hovered in midair for several agonizing seconds before dropping heavily onto his lap. A bitter, self-deprecating smile touched his lips.

"The certificate is real, Grace. We’ve been married for thirteen months."

The silence in the car hummed.

"Three months ago, on our first wedding anniversary," he continued, his voice dropping into a ragged gravel, "you were driving into the city to meet me at my office. A semi ran a red light on Route 7."

He swallowed hard, staring straight through the windshield.

"When you finally woke up from the coma, you had lost everything. You recognized my face, you knew my name, but you looked at me with sheer terror. Every time I tried to hold your hand, you started hyperventilating. You went into a panic attack so severe the nurses had to sedate you."

I listened, my stomach churning.

"The specialist told me it was acute psychological dissociation. Trauma-induced selective amnesia. He said your subconscious was rejecting our relationship because of the stress right before the crash, and that forcing the truth on you could trigger a permanent psychotic break. He told me to create a familiar, zero-pressure environment and let you find your own way back."

Garrett rubbed a hand over his face, looking utterly drained.

"I was losing my mind, Grace. I hadn't slept in weeks. That was when Gemma stepped in. She reminded me of a silly joke you made when we first moved into the Greenwich house—you said you wanted to play maid for a week just to order me around and watch me pretend to be helpless."

He turned his head to look at me, his eyes pleading.

"She said... maybe giving you a subordinate role, an everyday routine without the heavy emotional burden of being a wife, would keep you safe and close to me until your memories came back. I was desperate. I was so goddamn terrified of you running away that I... I believed her."

A cold, bitter chill spread through my limbs, freezing my veins.

"So," I whispered, the words tasting like ash on my tongue, "you let me scrub your floors for three months because it was convenient for you?"