Elena: POV

How heartless he was!

After he left, I went straight to the restroom in the private resting room. I stood there for a long time, my reflection staring back at me from the mirror—hair mussed, lips swollen, blouse wrinkled despite my best efforts. I looked exactly like what everyone thought I was.

A mistress. A homewrecker. The girl who was warming the CEO’s bed while his real love waited in Paris.

If only they knew the truth was so much worse.

While tidying up in the room, my gaze swept over that untouched glass of water and the pills beside it, a wave of bitterness surging in my heart.

It wasn’t always like this. Sometimes I can’t help but remember who I was three years ago, when Julian would sometimes smile at me in the garden. Those smiles—gentle, fleeting—felt like spring sunlight, and I clung to them, convinced I was special.

I treasured those tiny moments—him asking about my book, the way the light played in his hair, the warmth in his voice when he said my name. I told myself, foolishly, that maybe he saw me.

But deep down, I knew the truth. Julian Sterling was always polite, always distant, with a kind word for everyone from board members to housekeepers. That warmth was just good manners, and I was a fool to think it meant anything more.

Still, I let myself believe. Until that night—when everything fell apart.

It was his twenty-fifth birthday, a yacht party off the Hamptons, all glitter and laughter and people I’d never belong among. I was only there because my mother—the housekeeper who raised me—insisted I be included.

I was just an intern, invisible among the real guests. Someone handed me a glass of champagne, and the world blurred at the edges. Dizzy, I stumbled through the corridors, searching for a quiet place to rest.

Julian appeared in the doorway, shirt half-unbuttoned, eyes glazed. I tried to tell him he had the wrong room, but then he kissed me. For a moment, everything else disappeared.

The next morning, I woke tangled in his arms. The look on his face when he realized it was me—shock, then pure disgust.

“You drugged me,” he said, recoiling as if burned. “You fucking drugged me.”

“No!” I scrambled for the sheet, desperate. “Julian, someone drugged both of us—I swear, I didn’t—”

“Don’t lie to me.” His voice was ice. “You’ve always wanted this. You finally got your chance.”

I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t listen. To him, I was just the servant girl who’d finally managed to trap him.

I thought that was the end. But the real disaster was just beginning.

Somehow, his grandfather found out. Arthur Sterling had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. He summoned Julian to his bedside and delivered his ultimatum:

“Marry her, or I’ll cut you out of the will.”

I saw Julian storm out of the hospital room, his glare like a knife, as if I could control an eighty-year-old man from his deathbed.

Two days later, the contract arrived: five years, a hidden marriage, no public acknowledgment. Fulfill his grandfather’s wish, then walk away in silence.

Julian signed it without looking at me.

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