Prologue
Well, fuck me sideways.
I’m standing in the middle of a stupidly gorgeous foyer with marble floors and a chandelier that probably costs more than my entire bloodline’s debt, and I’m having a full-blown mental breakdown.
Because the man standing in front of me — arms crossed, looking like a Greek god who got lost in France and decided to become a billionaire — is him.
Nikolas fucking de Beaumont.
I’ve never met this man in real life, not even once. But I would recognize those shoulders and that annoyingly perfect jaw anywhere. The gym selfies. The café photos with the little espresso cup looking tiny in his big hands. That one cursed picture where he tried to cook eggs and they looked like alien fetuses on the plate.
Yeah. It’s him.
What the fuck?
Out of the millions of rich assholes in this country, I somehow managed to land a housemaid job with the exact guy I ghosted three months ago like a certified coward.
My brain is screaming every possible escape route at once:
Option A: Fake a seizure and flop on the floor.
Option B: Speak only in broken Japanese and tell him my cat died. I don’t even have a cat.
Option C: Slam my forehead into the nearest wall and pray for selective amnesia. Or brain damage.
Option D: Or... just tell him I have BPD, I’m a walking red flag, and he should kick me immediately for his own mental health.
Instead, I just stand here like an idiot, clutching my shitty duffel bag, and let out the most pathetic awkward laugh known to mankind.
“Well… shit. That… unexpected.”
I can feel my left eye twitching. My mouth is dry. My heart is doing that annoying cha-cha where it wants to punch him and kiss him at the same time.
Any second now he’s gonna open his mouth and ruin my life. Or fire me. Or kick my ass straight back to whatever hole I crawled out of.
To be fair, Nikolas has about a thousand valid reasons to be pissed at me. Hell, he should’ve had at least ten solid reasons to punch me in the face for what I did to him a few months ago. Ghosting someone after four months of daily “good morning, mon cœur” and “I had a nightmare, can you talk?” voice notes? Yeah. That was psychotic behavior, even for me.
But like… I thought it wasn’t that deep?
I figured he’d be annoyed for a week, then go back to swiping on French girls who actually know how to pronounce croissant correctly. I didn’t expect him to still be mad. I definitely didn’t expect him to be rich.
If my half-fried brain had thought about it for two seconds, I would’ve realized the odds of landing a housemaid job at the house of the exact man I ghosted into oblivion were basically zero. And yet here we are. Universe has a sick sense of humor.
At this point, if he kills me and hides my body in the wine cellar, I wouldn’t even be surprised. I’d probably respect it.
I shift my weight from one foot to the other, still clutching my sad little duffel bag. My mouth decides to keep running because apparently my survival instinct is... none.
“So… small world, huh?” I let out another awkward laugh that sounds like a goose being strangled. “I mean, Paris has like, two million people and I somehow end up here. That’s some next-level cosmic comedy. Or karma. Probably karma. My therapist would be so proud right now.... if I could afford one.”
Nikolas doesn’t move. He just stares at me with those dark, unreadable eyes. The gentle guy who used to send me photos of his shitty cooking is gone. This version looks like he could ruin my life and enjoy it.
The silence stretches so long I can hear my own pulse screaming in my ears.
Then, in a low, dangerously calm voice that makes the hair on my arms stand up, he finally speaks.
“Three months, Sable. Not a single word. And now you show up in my house with a fucking maid uniform in your bag like nothing happened?”
His lips curve into a cold, unhinged little smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Welcome home, ma petite fantôme. Try to run again… and I’ll make sure you never disappear on me twice.”
Fuck... I'm wet.
