I gave him a small shrug

I gave him a small shrug.

“Go because you want to.”

I walked out before he answered.

Behind me, Damien ignored three flashing messages on his phone and opened his calendar instead.

I didn’t know that.

Not yet.

What I also didn’t know was that somebody else had noticed he moved that meeting.

And she was already following him.

PART 3: His fiancée called me trash, while a camera recorded everything.

By Tuesday afternoon, the entire estate knew.

Conversations stopped when I entered rooms.

One kitchen assistant nearly polished the same apple for ten minutes because he didn’t know where else to look.

Gloria Reed, the head housekeeper, found me cleaning silver.

“Mr. DeMarco didn’t hire you to become household entertainment.”

I kept polishing.

“I wasn’t aware I had.”

She stepped closer.

“Women like you always misunderstand powerful men.”

I looked up.

“Women like me?”

She smiled without warmth.

“Employees.”

Before I could answer, heels clicked against marble.

Cassandra Blake walked in.

Damien’s fiancée.

Tall.

Thin.

Old money.

The kind of woman who could wear cream near marinara sauce and somehow remain spotless.

“Leave us,” she told Gloria.

Gloria disappeared.

Cassandra placed a designer bag on the table.

“I followed Damien Sunday.”

My stomach tightened.

“I saw the nursing home.”

I said nothing.

“I saw him holding your hand.”

“There is nothing happening between us.”

“You call him Damien now?”

Mistake.

Her mouth curved.

“I know what women like you do.”

There it was again.

Women like me.

Poor.

Heavy.

Service staff.

Apparently interchangeable insults.

“My grandmother is sick,” I said. “Whatever you’re angry about, leave her out of it.”

Cassandra leaned closer.

“So the fiancé story is fake.”

I stayed silent.

Her eyes sharpened.

“I wonder how your grandmother would feel if someone told her.”

That did it.

I stood.

“You can insult me.”

She blinked.

“You can call me a liar. You can remind me I clean toilets in your fiancé’s house.”

My voice stayed quiet.

“But you do not get to frighten an eighty-one-year-old woman with heart failure because you’re jealous.”

Her smile disappeared.

“Jealous?”

“Yes.”

The word surprised both of us.

Cassandra’s face hardened.

“Men like Damien don’t marry women who carry their laundry upstairs.”

That one hurt.

I let it.

Then I put down the polishing cloth.

“No.”

I looked directly at her.

“Women like me just wash the shirts women like you expect to magically appear clean.”

Someone inhaled behind us.

Gloria had returned.

So had two staff members.

Cassandra saw them.

Humiliation flashed across her face.

“East Wing,” Gloria snapped at me. “Starting tomorrow. No guest areas.”

Punishment.

We all knew it.

I nodded.

“Understood.”

Then a voice came from the corridor.

“Gloria.”

Everyone froze.

Damien stood beneath the security camera mounted over the service hallway.

He looked at Cassandra.

Then at me.

And above us, one tiny red light kept blinking.

Cassandra had just threatened my grandmother in a mansion where almost every corridor was recorded.

She just didn’t know the camera had audio.

PART 4: Damien ended his engagement with one quiet, brutal sentence.

“Why is Phoebe being reassigned?”

Damien’s voice never rose.

That made Gloria look even more nervous.

“There have been concerns about boundaries.”

“Whose?”

Cassandra stepped forward.

“Mine.”

She walked toward him like she expected him to remember which side of the social line he belonged on.

“This has gone far enough, Damien. She lied about a fiancé, manipulated her way into your personal life, and now the staff is gossiping.”

Damien looked at her.

“Did you threaten her grandmother?”

Cassandra stopped.

Phoebe.

He had used my first name.

Everybody noticed.

“I asked a question.”

“No. You threatened to expose something to a woman with a heart condition because you wanted to hurt Phoebe.”

Cassandra laughed.

“She’s a maid.”

Damien waited.

“And?”

Her face changed.

“You cannot seriously pretend there’s no difference between someone like her and someone like us.”

“There are several differences.”

My stomach tightened.

Then he continued.

“She works for what she has. She protects people who cannot give her anything. And when you tried to humiliate her in front of an audience, she showed more restraint than you did.”

Cassandra went pale.

“You’re humiliating me for her.”

“No.”

Damien’s eyes dropped to the engagement ring on her hand.

“Your behavior did that.”

She stared at him.

“I’m your fiancée.”

“Not anymore.”

Nobody breathed.

Cassandra actually laughed.

It sounded broken.

“You’re ending our engagement over a housekeeper?”

“I’m ending it because I saw how you behave when you believe someone has less power than you.”

She pulled off the ring.

Her hand shook.

“You’ll regret this.”

“I’ll take that risk.”

The diamond hit a side table with a tiny click.

Then she left.

Damien turned to Gloria.

“Phoebe will not be reassigned.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you have concerns about her work, document them.”

He glanced at the camera above us.

“If your concerns are about her social position, keep them to yourself.”

Gloria’s cheeks turned red.

“Yes, Mr. DeMarco.”

Everyone scattered.

I stayed.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You ended an engagement.”

“I ended something that should have ended earlier.”

I swallowed.

“Because of me?”

“No.”

That answer stung more than I wanted it to.

Then he stepped closer.