Chapter 1 - The Ghost From The Past
My knees hit the cold marble floor with a sickening thud.
I could not pull my eyes away from the silver chain resting against his chest.
It was a custom pendant, shaped like a shattered compass.
I had given that exact necklace to a boy named Leo twenty years ago, right before a violent storm swallowed him whole.
Mr. Bennett flinched at my sudden collapse.
"What happened?" he demanded, his deep voice echoing off the bathroom tiles.
I swallowed hard, forcing the tears back down my throat.
"I slipped," I lied, my voice shaking uncontrollably.
"I am so sorry, sir."
I grabbed the edge of his motorized wheelchair and pulled myself up.
My hands trembled as I finished washing his back.
He did not say another word, but I could feel his piercing gray eyes watching my reflection in the mirror.
When I finally finished dressing him, the head housekeeper handed me a thick envelope of cash.
It was my first week's pay in advance, a rare kindness for a desperate mother.
I ran straight to the pharmacy to buy antibiotics for Brandon and a warm meal for Emma.
That night, as I watched my children sleep peacefully for the first time in weeks, my mind raced.
Julian Bennett was a billionaire who had supposedly inherited his fortune at birth.
But the man in that wheelchair was Leo, the penniless orphan I had loved when I was eighteen.
I needed to know how he had survived and why he had abandoned me.
The next morning, I returned to the massive estate.
I pushed his wheelchair into the grand library, pretending everything was completely normal.
While he read a book by the fireplace, I began dusting his enormous mahogany desk.
My cleaning rag brushed against a stack of private medical documents.
I glanced down, my heart pounding in my chest.
The top file was labeled with his full medical history.
It stated clearly that Julian Bennett had suffered severe amnesia twenty years ago after nearly drowning in a river.
He did not abandon me.
He simply had no idea who I was.
Suddenly, a cold hand clamped down hard on my shoulder.
I gasped and spun around to face Victoria, his elegant and terrifying stepmother.
May you like
"Snooping on your second day?" Victoria whispered with a wicked smile.
"I think it is time you leave this house permanently, and if you refuse, I will make sure child services takes your starving kids away before dinner."
