Chapter 3

A snort of derisive laughter came from beside Brandon.

I hadn't even noticed the other man standing there, a sycophantic little weasel in a suit identical to Brandon's. His name tag read "Liam."

"She's trying to get back with you, Brandon?" Liam said, looking me up and down with disdain. "She really doesn't know her place. You're a big shot now, on your way to the top of the Beaumont Corporation. You're going to be a senior executive soon!"

Brandon nodded, soaking in the flattery. "That's the plan, Liam. Hard work pays off."

"She must be kicking herself for leaving five years ago," Liam continued, his voice loud enough for several passersby to hear. "Missing out on a guy like you. Now she comes crawling back."

I finally found my voice. It was calm, measured, and cold.

"I am not here to 'get back' with anyone," I said, my gaze fixed on Brandon.

Brandon just chuckled, shaking his head as if I were a child telling a silly lie.

"Abby, Abby, Abby," he said, his tone patronizing. "There's no need to be proud. I understand. You see me now, successful, important. It's natural to have regrets. But you can't just show up and expect things to go back to the way they were."

I could feel a headache starting to form behind my eyes. The sheer density of his ego was suffocating.

Inside, a part of me confirmed what I had suspected for years. I was Ava Beaumont. I was the wife of William Beaumont, the heir to the entire Beaumont fortune. And this man, my ex-fiancé, was a glorified baggage handler for my family, and he had absolutely no clue. The information gap was a chasm, and he was standing on the wrong side of it, shouting into the void.

"I'm not asking for anything to go back to the way it was," I stated clearly.

"Of course you are," Seraphina cut in, her voice sharp. "Why else would you be here? You probably saw Brandon's name on some company newsletter and booked the first flight you could afford."

Brandon then had another brilliant, terrible idea. His eyes lit up with misguided magnanimity.

"I'll tell you what," he said, as if proposing a truce. "Seraphina sometimes needs help around the house. With our son, and the cooking and cleaning. It's a lot for her to handle."

He looked at Seraphina, who nodded slowly, a malicious glint in her eyes.

"We could hire you as her personal assistant," Brandon declared. "Live-in, even. We have a small spare room. It would give you a place to stay, and you'd get to be near me. It's the best I can do for you, Abby. It's more than you deserve, frankly, after how you just disappeared on us."

Disappeared on them. He was rewriting history right in front of me, painting me as the one who had abandoned him.

Liam, the bootlicker, clapped his hands together softly.

"What a generous offer, Brandon! A true gentleman. She should be thanking you on her knees," he gushed. "After all, she's the one who ran away without a word five years ago. Just vanished! Caused you so much trouble."

The pure, unadulterated gall of it all was breathtaking. They had constructed an entire false narrative where they were the victims and I was the unstable runaway who had finally come to her senses.

And they wanted to hire me to be their maid.