Chapter 3The Billionaire Maid Game

"Did you enjoy watching me jump every time you called?" I pressed my fingernails into my palms until the skin nearly split. "Did it amuse you to watch your wife bow her head, call you Mr. Hayes, and ask if your tea was warm enough?"

"Grace, no—"

"And what about Gemma?" I cut him off, my voice shaking with fury. "The phone call in your study. You told your mother you were bringing 'Gemma' home, that you were saving the master suite for her!"

"What fiancée?" Garrett frowned deeply, genuine bewilderment cutting through his exhaustion. "I was talking to my mother about my cousin, Gemma! My sister's daughter—"

He stopped dead.

At that exact moment, the dashboard screen illuminated. An incoming call from Gemma Ward flashed across the console.

Garrett’s jaw tightened. With a cold flick of his finger, he tapped the steering wheel and answered on speaker.

Gemma’s silky, honeyed voice purred through the car's premium audio system.

"Garrett? Where are you? I’m already at the Greenwich house. I saw the renovation blueprints on your desk—honestly, they are divine. Especially the walk-in dressing room you designed for me. I was thinking we could—"

"Gemma."

Garrett’s voice was stripped of every ounce of warmth, dropping to sub-zero.

"Pack your things, drop the house key on the console, and get the hell out of my home. Right now."

A stunned silence pooled over the line.

"Garrett? What... what are you talking about?"

"I said get out," he clipped, each word landing like an iron hammer. "If you ever come near this property or speak to my wife again, I will strip your father's firm of every vendor contract with Hayes Enterprises. Do not test me."

He ended the call before she could draw breath.

The silence inside the cabin returned, suffocating and thick.

I looked at his rigid profile, the vein throbbing at his temple. There was no triumph in my chest, only an overwhelming, chaotic dizziness. If Gemma wasn't his lover, what were the blueprints? What did those initials mean?

Garrett seemed to read the questions racing behind my eyes. He shifted the car into drive, his voice rough. "Let me show you something."

We drove south, away from the manicured lawns of Greenwich, crossing back into the city. An hour later, the car pulled up in front of a pre-war brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, the brick draped in ivy.

He led me up the creaking wooden stairs to the third floor.

When he unlocked the heavy oak door and pushed it open, a wave of cedar, old paper, and vanilla washed over me—a scent so achingly familiar that my breath hitched.

The apartment wasn't massive like the estate, but it was bathed in warm, golden light.

Covering the exposed brick walls were dozens of framed photographs. In one, I was bundled in an oversized wool scarf, holding a snow cone in the middle of winter, laughing up at Garrett. In another, Garrett was asleep on a velvet sofa, a paperback book splayed across his chest, with a black Sharpie mustache drawn crudely on his upper lip—and my handwriting in the margin: The CEO defeated by chapter four.

In every single photo, the man who was currently holding his breath behind me looked at me as though I were the only living thing in the room.

My heart twisted, an acute, sharp pain blooming behind my ribs.

"We lived here for three years before we got married," Garrett said quietly from the doorway. "You hated the cold modernism of the Greenwich house when I bought it. You cried the first night we stayed there, saying it felt like a corporate lobby and you missed our little cave."

He walked toward the bedroom, opening the closet doors.

Rows of colorful sundresses, vintage leather jackets, chunky knit cardigans—all arranged haphazardly, lived-in, distinctly mine.

He pulled open the nightstand drawer. Inside lay a collection of mundane treasures: ticket stubs from an indie rock concert, a leather-bound journal, and a prescription bottle of antacids with a crude, crooked smiley face drawn on the white plastic cap in yellow highlighter.

I reached out, my fingers trembling as I picked up the small plastic bottle.

A sudden, sharp sensory memory slammed into my consciousness:

“Look, Garrett,” a bright, teasing voice—my voice—echoed in my head. “I drew a face on your medicine. Every time your stomach acts up during a board meeting, look at the smile and remember me. Maybe the chalky pills won't taste so bitter.”

My head throbbed violently. I stumbled backward, clutching my temple.

Garrett caught my elbow instantly. "Grace, don't force it. Stop trying to push through the pain."

I wrenched myself out of his grip, backing up against the dresser, my chest heaving.

"Stop it, Garrett! Just stop lying to me!" Tears spilled down my cheeks, hot and bitter. "If you loved me so much, how do you explain those blueprints? The initials in the corner—G & G! That’s Garrett and Gemma!"

"It’s not!" He stepped toward me, his voice cracking with sheer desperation. "G & G is Garrett and Grace! Grace Miller! Your maiden name!"

I froze, staring at him.

"As for the house..." Garrett took a deep, shuddering breath. He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a small, worn black velvet box, and sank slowly to one knee on the hardwood floor.

He flipped the lid open. Inside sat a vintage-cut emerald diamond ring, blazing in the afternoon light.

"Before the accident, we were falling apart," he confessed, his voice breaking completely. "I was buried under the international merger. I was working eighty-hour weeks. You told me I had turned into a ghost, that I didn't care about our life anymore. You packed a bag and demanded a divorce."

He looked up at me, his eyes brimming with tears, his composure entirely shattered.

"I was terrified, Grace. Truly, desperately terrified. I bought this ring. I booked our favorite table at the bistro down the street. I was going to get on my knees on our anniversary and beg you to stay. The blueprints were your sketches from six months ago—the warm wood, the terrace, the south-facing sunroom you always wanted. I hired an architect to turn your napkin doodles into reality as a surprise."

A tear slipped over his lower lid, tracking down his hollowed cheek.

"I waited for you at the restaurant for three hours. And then the police called to tell me your car had flipped."

He bowed his head, his broad shoulders shaking.

"I am so sorry, Grace. I shouldn't have listened to Gemma. I shouldn't have let you spend three months waiting on me like a servant. I was a coward. I thought... I thought if you didn't remember how angry you were with me, I could find a way to make you fall in love with me again from scratch."

He held up the velvet box with trembling fingers.

"Can you ever forgive me? Will you please come home?"

I stood there, looking down at his bowed head, at the deep circles beneath his eyes, at the undeniable posture of a powerful man brought entirely to his knees.

The heavy iron wall around my heart cracked, letting in a flood of blinding, confusing light.