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Grant and I were secretly married for six years. At his family foundation’s gala, he slipped off his wedding ring to lead the opening dance with Meredith, his pregnant ex-fiancée. He told the press she was the one who had always understood his dreams. Every newspaper in Boston celebrated them finding their way back to each other. When he came home, he warned me, “Don’t make a scene.” I didn’t. On our wedding anniversary, I left a gift for him in his study. A velvet box, the kind meant for a celebratory gift. Inside were the divorce petition I’d already signed, the property settlement agreement, and the eight-week ultrasound of our baby, tucked beside an appointment confirmation for a termination procedure. He never even glanced at it. He was already out the door, rushing to comfort his ex, who had supposedly “had a nightmare.” He didn’t know he’d just thrown away his last chance. ... I looked at him, at the bare finger where his wedding ring should have been. Grant rubbed the pale indentation, an unconscious gesture, as if soothing a phantom limb. “The gala was crowded. My grandmother was there,” he explained, his tone as flat as if he were discussing the weather. “It would have caused unnecessary complications.” The excuse was so lazy it was almost laughable. In the past, I would have pushed. I would have demanded to know where he’d put the ring, made him fish it out of his suit pocket, and watched him slide it back on his finger. This was, after all, the man I had once fought so hard for. Over the years, I’d grown adept at making excuses for him. Just like six months ago, when Meredith returned to Boston after her own divorce. He’d left me burning with a fever to drive halfway across the state to pick her up from the airport. When he got back, he ignored my protests and insisted on hiring her as a consultant for the family foundation. Back then, I’d chalked it up to his sense of responsibility, to the pul......

I woke up on the day my legal guardian, Beau, became delirious from painkillers. This time, I didn’t stay by his side. I did as he asked and called Claire. In my previous life, I’d fallen in love with Beau—the man who raised me. That day, he’d had an accident and taken too many painkillers, losing himself completely. Instead of calling Claire, I’d stayed with him. A month later, I found out I was pregnant. Beau married me for the baby. On our wedding day, Claire was in a horrific car accident while traveling overseas. Before she died, she called Beau one hundred and ninety-nine times, begging for help. He didn’t answer a single one. Later, Beau stared at those one hundred and ninety-nine missed calls in silence. He didn't break that silence until the day I went into labor, when he locked me in the basement. I begged him to take me to the hospital. He just stood there, watching as our child and I died together on the cold floor. The last thing I heard him say was, “If you hadn’t gotten pregnant, I never would have married you. I wouldn’t have missed Claire’s calls, either. You deserved this.” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on that day. ... “Xenia, call Claire. Now.” Hearing those words again jolted me back to reality. I was really back. I grabbed my phone and dialed Claire’s number without a second thought. Beau Mercer’s face was flushed, his breathing shallow and ragged. His eyes were unfocused, lost in the haze of the drugs. Last time, that look had been enough to make me disobey him. It had ended in my own brutal death. This time, I avoided his gaze and slipped out of the room. “Just hold on, Beau. Claire will be here in ten minutes.” The door clicked shut behind me, and I heard him murmur my name. I didn’t answer. I just stood outside the door and waited. Ten minutes later, Claire arrived. Her eyes landed on me first, her expression a complicated mix of suspicion and relief. She scanned my clothes, and only after confirming I was untouched did the tension leave her shoulders. Before pushing the door open, she threw a sentence over her shoulder. “You can go. You’re not needed here.” I turned and went upstairs to my room. It wasn't until late that night that the sounds from downstairs finally faded. I sat on the edge of my bed, the memories of my last life replaying in my mind. Back then, I’d been so in love with Beau that I’d stayed to take care of him myself. A month later, I was pregnant. He married me. But on our wedding day, Claire died in an accident. He lost the woman he’d always wanted to marry. He didn’t lash out right away. He held all that rage inside until I was about to give birth. Then he locked me in the basement. The pain was so blinding I nearly passed out. I cried. I begged. I told him I didn’t care if I died, as long as he saved the baby. But he didn’t move. He just stood there and watched me bleed out, watched our child die before it could even be born. In this life, I did what he wanted and called Claire. And soon, I would leave this place for good. The next morning, Claire was at the Mercer breakfast table. Beau took a bite of his eggs and a sip of coffee before speaking. “Claire is my girlfriend, and I intend to marry her. You will all treat her with respect.” His gaze landed on me, and he tapped his fork against his plate. “Especially you. Show my future wife some respect. Don’t make trouble.” I nodded. The corner of Claire’s mouth twitched into a smug little smile. I ignored her and stood to go back to my room. I’d barely pushed my chair back when Claire’s voice, thick with crocodile tears, stopped me. “Beau, does Xenia not want me here? I know how important she is to you. If she doesn’t like me, maybe I should just go.” A few tears slid down her cheeks as she spoke. Beau’s brow furrowed, his eyes snapping to me.......

The pregnancy test was still warm in my pocket when Mrs. Ashford handed me the termination letter. "Effective immediately, Sophia." She didn't look up from her phone. "We've found a younger au pair. Someone more… suitable for the children." I stood in the marble foyer of the Ashford estate, the house I'd cleaned, cooked in, and bled for over three years. The house where I'd raised two children who called me "Mama Soph" before their real mother corrected them. "May I ask why?" My voice was steady. I'd learned long ago that crying in front of this family was like bleeding in shark-infested water. "You're getting too attached." She finally looked up, her Botoxed face arranged in rehearsed sympathy. "The children need boundaries. And frankly, you've been looking… unwell. We can't have that around the kids." Unwell. I was eight weeks pregnant with her son's baby, and she was firing me for looking unwell. "Does Dominic know?" I asked. Something flickered in her eyes—Loss? Annoyance? "My son is engaged to Vivienne Hale. The wedding is in six weeks." She placed an envelope on the hall table. "There's three months' severance. Be gone by tonight." Three months' pay for three years of service. For raising her grandchildren while she lunched at the club. For warming her son's bed when he stumbled home drunk and lonely. For carrying his child right now, this very second. "Mrs. Ashford," I said carefully, "I need to speak with Dominic. It's important." "No." Her voice turned to ice. "Whatever you think happened between you and my son—forget it. He was lonely. You were convenient. That's all it was." She picked up her Hermès bag and walked past me, heels clicking on marble. At the door, she paused. "And Sophia? If you try to contact him, or make any… claims… our lawyers will destroy you. You have no proof of anything. You're a nanny. He's an Ashford." The door closed behind her. I stood alone in the foyer, hand pressed against my stomach, staring at the family portrait on the wall. Dominic's face smiled down at me—the same face that had whispered "I love you" in the dark, the same lips that had kissed my forehead and promised we'd figure things out. I pulled out my phone and called him. It rang once. Twice. A woman answered. "Hello? Dom's phone." Her voice was bright, musical. Vivienne. "I need to speak with Dominic." "Oh, is this the help? Mrs. Ashford said you'd been let go. Sorry about that, sweetie." A muffled giggle. "Dom, your old nanny's calling—should I tell her you're busy?" I heard his voice in the background, distant and careless: "Just block the number." The line went dead. I lowered the phone slowly. Three years. I gave this family three years, my body, my heart, and the life growing inside me. And I was "the help." I picked up the envelope, stuffed it in my bag, and walked toward the servants' exit—the only door I'd ever been allowed to use. But as I passed the study, I noticed the door was ajar. Inside, on the mahogany desk, sat an open folder. I shouldn't have looked. But the name on the first page caught my eye—not Ashford. My name. My real name. My birth name, the one I hadn't used since the orphanage. And beneath it, a photograph of a baby girl, stamped with a red seal I recognized. My hands went cold. I wasn't just their nanny. I was something they'd been hiding from me my entire life.

I printed out three documents. The first was a petition for divorce. The second revoked my husband, Graham Whitaker’s, medical power of attorney. The third prohibited him from using any of our remaining frozen embryos. An hour ago, at a charity gala being livestreamed across the internet, my husband of six years—the man I had married in secret—declared that his first love was “the woman who taught me what home means.” Then he placed the Whitaker family ring on her son’s hand. On TikTok, everyone was praising him as Stepdad of the Year, waiting for him to give his first love the grand wedding she deserved. And I had just lost our baby, alone on an operating table. Late that night, Graham finally came home. He saw me watching the video of him putting the ring on that child and snatched the iPad from my hands. His brow furrowed, his voice sharp with impatience. “It’s PR, Nora. Why are you getting so worked up?” I looked up at him and smiled. He had no idea I’d channeled all that agitation into three notarized documents. Soon enough, his lawyer would tell him just how “worked up” I was. ... The moment he finished speaking, I turned and walked toward the study. I could feel his gaze on my back, laced with the irritation of a man who’d been defied. I stopped in front of the safe and looked back at him. “Where’s the ring?” I meant the Whitaker family signet ring, the one that had been passed down for a century. He had inherited it from his father and given it to me to keep. Tonight, that same ring had been on another woman’s son’s hand. Graham’s gaze flickered away, instinctively avoiding mine. “The foundation needed footage for the annual report. Something about family legacy. I just… lent it to Elise for a while.” The explanation was so clumsy it was almost funny. If this had been the old me, I would have pressed him until I got the truth. I would have demanded to know why the legal wife was absent from......