NEARLY FOUR HUNDRED GUESTS WATCHED A FIVE-YEAR-OLD BILLIONAIRE’S SON IGNORE THREE ELITE WOMEN AND RUN STRAIGHT INTO A MAID’S ARMS, THEN CALL HER “MOMMY”—BUT WHY DID HIS FATHER TURN PALE WHEN HE DISCOVERED THE RESIGNATION LETTER HIDDEN IN HER APRON? / Chapter 3 / 20

Chapter 3 - Ghosts of St. Jude’sThe crackle of the fireplace was the only sound left in the room.

The air grew so thick with tension that it felt impossible to breathe. I stood paralyzed, my fingers frozen around the pen, staring at the yellow folder lying on Alexander's desk. The secret I had buried under five years of grief and silence had just been ripped open and scattered across the mahogany floor.

Alexander didn't move. Slowly, his gaze shifted from his mother’s triumphant face down to the folder, and then finally to me.

"Is this true, Emma?" Alexander asked. His voice was frighteningly quiet, lacking any emotion.

I swallowed the lump of glass in my throat. "I was at St. Jude's five years ago," I whispered, my voice trembling despite my desperate attempts to keep it steady. "That part is true."

"She isn't just an employee, Alexander!" Eleanor shouted, her hands shaking with rage. "She tracked our family down! She took a job as a low-level maid in this house eight months ago because she knew who you were! She orchestrated everything! She groomed Noah, manipulated an innocent motherless child, just to worm her way into the Sterling fortune!"

"I didn't!" I finally snapped, looking Eleanor dead in the eye, my fear vanishing beneath a surge of raw indignity. "I didn't even know who owned Sterling House when I applied through the agency! I was placed here by a third-party recruiter!"

"Lies!" Eleanor scoffed bitterly. "A grieving woman who lost a baby happens to end up cleaning the nursery of a boy born on the exact same night in the exact same wing of the hospital? What are the odds? It is a calculated, sick obsession!"

"Enough!" Alexander’s voice cracked like a whip, bringing an immediate silence to the room.

He stood up slowly, picked up the yellow folder, and opened it. His eyes scanned the medical records, the admission dates, the death certificate of a baby girl listed as Brought In Dead, signed by a Dr. Richard Vance—my late uncle.

Alexander’s face remained an unreadable mask, but I saw the subtle pulse beating wildly in his jawline.

"My wife, Victoria, died of heavy postpartum hemorrhaging at St. Jude’s on November 14th," Alexander said, his voice cold and analytical, as if he were reading a police report. "Noah was delivered via emergency C-section. He was placed in an incubator for three weeks due to severe respiratory distress."

He looked up at me. "Your child was born on November 14th at 2:15 AM. Cause of death: Stillbirth."

"She was born alive," I blurted out before I could stop myself. Tears finally spilled over my eyelashes, burning my cheeks. "I heard her cry. I heard her take her first breath. But when I woke up from the anesthesia... they told me she was gone. They didn't even let me hold her."

"A tragic story," Eleanor mocked heartlessly. "And you decided to use my grandson as a substitute for your dead child!"

"I loved Noah because he was a lonely, terrified little boy who was crying in his bed every night!" I shouted, turning on Eleanor, my voice echoing off the high ceiling. "I loved him because nobody else in this cold, miserable palace bothered to ask him why he was afraid of the dark! I didn't care about your money, Mrs. Sterling! I didn't even know about his birthdate until three months after I started working here!"

"You expect us to believe that?" Eleanor sneered.

"I don't care what you believe," I said, wiping the tears from my face with the sleeve of my uniform. I picked up the pen and slammed it onto the desk. "I’m not signing your contract, Mr. Sterling. Keep your half a million dollars. I'm leaving."

I turned on my heel and walked toward the heavy double doors.

"Emma, stop," Alexander called out.

I didn't stop. I reached for the brass doorknob.

"If you walk out that door right now," Alexander’s voice rang out, heavy and commanding, "I will have my legal team file a restraining order against you by 8:00 AM. You will never be allowed within five hundred yards of Noah again. If he calls for you, no one will answer. If he cries, no one will bring you."

My hand froze on the cold brass handle.

I turned around slowly. Alexander was standing behind his desk, holding the signed contract in one hand and the yellow folder in the other.

"You have two choices," Alexander said, his eyes piercing into mine. "You can leave right now, be branded a lunatic stalker by my mother’s lawyers, and never see Noah again. Or you can sign the seven-day contract. Stay here, give my con a proper chance to say goodbye, and let me investigate what really happened at St. Jude’s five years ago."

I blinked, caught completely off guard. "Investigate?"

Eleanor gasped in horror. "Alexander! Are you insane? You're taking her side?"

Alexander didn't look at his mother. His eyes remained locked on mine. "My wife died under mysterious circumstances in that hospital, Emma. The doctors claimed it was a sudden complication, but Victoria’s personal journals—which I found after her death—implied she was terrified of her attending physician. The same physician who signed your child's death certificate."

A cold shiver ran down my spine. "Dr. Richard Vance..."

"My uncle," I whispered. "He... he managed my medical care."

"He committed suicide four years ago," Alexander added, his voice dropping low. "Two weeks after Victoria died."

The air in the room vanished. The realization hit me like a physical blow. This wasn't just a coincidence. The night I lost my daughter and the night Alexander lost his wife were tied together by a web of lies that had been spun in the dark five years ago.

"Seven days, Emma," Alexander said, extending the pen toward me once more. "Help my son, and help me find the truth."