Chapter 1

Three in the morning, rain coming down, and I grabbed a courier gig.

One box of ultra-thin condoms, one red lace teddy. Tip: a hundred bucks.

Looking at the surname Henson on the order, the fingertip pressed to my screen trembled.

I swallowed nervously. "Sir, your delivery's here."

"Just leave it outside."

A woman's voice on the phone. The knot in my chest loosened.

Not Miles Henson.

I was about to go when the door clicked open and a man took the bag from my hand.

"Celine Vance?"

I tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Long time no see, Mr.… Henson."

The air froze between us. I forced a small laugh and waved goodbye. "Don't let me keep you, Mr. Henson. I've got other orders to run."

The second I turned, Miles caught my rain-soaked hand.

"What happened back then—I was wrong about you."

1.

"I didn't know… that you really liked—"

"I was young back then and didn't know any better. It wasn't anything like really liking you."

I cut off whatever he was struggling to say.

I watched his eyes dim a shade.

Raindrops slid off my rain jacket onto the carpet, soundless, and somehow heavy.

I took a deep breath and lifted my head with a smile.

"Mr. Henson, I forgot about all that a long time ago. There's no need for you to keep it in mind."

Then I gently pulled my hand free.

His palm still held a little warmth where mine had been. He sighed, helpless. "These few years, after you left the Hensons—this is what you do?"

There was concern in it, and blame, but mostly contempt.

I didn't answer, and I couldn't be bothered to.

The door behind him hadn't been shut all the way, and a flash of skin and noise spilled out.

Miles frowned and looked back, and I slipped away in that gap.

Only when I ran out of the hotel lobby and into the rain did the knot in my chest finally come down.

Six years. I'd never once thought I'd run into Miles Henson again.

And least of all like this.

My phone chimed. I saw two zeros added onto the original hundred-dollar tip.

I let out a long breath. Miles hadn't changed.

He liked to solve things with money. People too.

I got on my scooter without looking back and left that place that made me so uneasy.

When the group chat found out my tip was ten thousand, it blew up.

【Holy crap, Celine, did you win the lottery or what?】

【If I'd known, I'd have grabbed that order!! I could kick myself!】

【Celine, that guy didn't take a liking to you, did he? Trying to keep you?】

【Right, our Celine's so pretty, no wonder someone's got their eye on her.】

Watching the messages flash up one after another, I gave a bitter little twist of a smile.

【No. He doesn't like me.】

【What's that mean? You two know each other?】

The chat lit up again, everyone jumping in a line at a time, all of them curious about my story.

【Yeah. My mom was a housekeeper at his family's place before she died.】

A dynasty heir and a housekeeper's daughter. Anyone could see the gap was too wide for anything to happen.

Life isn't a TV drama. There aren't that many prince-falls-for-Cinderella scenes.

The chat quietly moved on to something else.

Right. Miles didn't like me.

And he didn't like that I liked him.

After all, I was just a dead housekeeper's daughter. Someone living under another family's roof, there to be toyed with.

My mother was a housekeeper for the Hensons for thirty years. Even on the day she died, she was still worrying that Fay Henson's clothes hadn't been picked up from the dry cleaner's.

She gave nearly her whole life to that family.

So her dying wish, leaving me in their care, became the beginning of my story with Miles Henson.

The first time I met him, Miles stepped out of a luxury car in a white shirt and set his foot on the bare concrete outside my home.

He asked me, "Celine, will you come to the Hensons' with me?"

I looked at our empty, stripped-bare house, and I nodded.

I knew this was the only thing my mother had left me.

Sitting in the Hensons' car, I remembered what my mom said to me before she died.

"At the Hensons' you have to be sharp, and quick to work. Whatever you do, don't slip up and give anyone a reason to throw you out."

"Celine, I couldn't pick you a good father. That's my fault, and I'm sorry."

"Celine, you have to do everything you can to stay with the Hensons."

So except for school and homework, I kept my head down and worked.

Even though Miles said again and again that there were people to do all that, I never dared to stop.

Back then Miles had just come home from studying abroad, with endless parties, always drinking until the middle of the night before he came back.

I'd make hangover soup for him and wait in the front room no matter how late it got.

He liked me a lot back then. He was always telling people, "Celine's so thoughtful."

Later, wherever Miles went, he wanted to take me along.

Everyone said the Henson heir had picked up a little tail, and plenty of them teased me with the nickname.

I thought I'd found solid ground at Miles's side.

I thought I was supposed to be different from the rest.

Until the end of winter in '18, when I met Maggie Fox at a dinner party.

The person who changed the whole course of my life.