Chapter 1 - The Kitchen Floor
The heavy wooden hockey stick struck Grace across the shoulder before she could pull Lily out of the way.
She collapsed to her knees on the cold kitchen tile, wrapping her trembling body completely around the terrified four-year-old. The sickening thud echoed through the massive, empty mansion.
“Please,” Grace gasped, fighting for breath as agonizing pain flared down her spine. “Don’t hurt my child. I'll leave. I'll do whatever you want!”
Victoria stood over them in her spotless white designer dress, looking entirely out of place in the sprawling industrial kitchen. Her knuckles were bone-white as she tightened her grip around the polished wood of the stick. A cold, cruel smile twisted her perfectly painted lips.
“Leave? Oh, honey, you don't get to leave,” Victoria whispered softly, her voice dripping with venom. “Dead people keep secrets. And your little brat is the biggest secret of all.”
She raised the stick high above her head once more, her eyes flashing with a murderous rage.
Before she could bring it swinging down, the heavy oak front door down the hall clicked open. Footsteps echoed heavily against the marble floor.
Nathan Cole stepped into the kitchen and froze. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
His fiancée, the elegant heiress he was supposed to marry in just two weeks, was standing over the bruised maid he had hired barely three months ago. Grace was trembling on the floor in her torn black-and-white uniform, fiercely shielding a sobbing little girl beneath her fragile body.
Victoria’s face drained of color instantly. The hockey stick slipped from her perfectly manicured fingers, clattering loudly against the pristine tile.
“Nathan…” she stammered, her voice shaking as she frantically tried to compose herself. “I… I caught her stealing. She attacked me!”
Lily slowly lifted her tear-covered face from Grace’s chest. Her tiny hands clutched Grace's apron. She locked her large, innocent hazel eyes—eyes that mirrored Nathan's exactly—directly onto the billionaire.
“Daddy…” the little girl whimpered.
Nathan felt his heart stop. The air vanished from his lungs. He stood paralyzed, unable to take a single step forward. He had never heard the child speak to anyone like that before. He didn't even know the maid had a child living in the servant's quarters.
Grace raised her head, gritting her teeth against the searing pain in her shoulder. Tears streamed down her pale, bruised cheeks.
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“She’s your daughter, Nathan,” Grace choked out, her voice barely a whisper, yet it rang through the room like a gunshot.
In that single second, Nathan’s perfect, meticulously constructed world shattered into a million jagged pieces.
