CHAPTER 3 – THE MEMORY SHE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO HAVE
"Call an ambulance!"
Damian caught her before she hit the floor.
The maid's eyes fluttered open.
She stared at Victoria.
"You..."
Victoria instinctively stepped backward.
"I don't know what game you're playing."
The maid pressed both hands against her temples.
"My head..."
"I remember rain."
"I remember my car."
"And..."
She looked directly at Victoria.
"I remember you."
The ballroom exploded.
Victoria laughed nervously.
"She's delirious."
Damian's voice turned cold.
"What do you remember?"
The maid closed her eyes.
"I wasn't driving alone."
"There was another car behind me."
"It kept getting closer."
"I tried to pull over..."
"It hit me."
Oliver clung tightly to her arm.
"I told Daddy you were alive."
Damian's breathing became uneven.
"The police said your brakes failed."
The maid slowly shook her head.
"No."
"I remember someone saying..."
She covered her mouth.
"Oh God..."
"'Make sure she doesn't survive.'"
Every person in the ballroom stood frozen.
Victoria suddenly grabbed her purse.
"I've had enough of this."
"I'm leaving."
Damian stepped into her path.
"No."
She forced a smile.
"Move."
He didn't.
"Not until you explain why you hired a woman who looks exactly like my dead wife."
Victoria's eyes flashed.
"I thought it was funny."
No one believed her.
Just then...
An elderly groundskeeper pushed through the crowd.
"I've been trying to tell someone for months."
He pointed at the maid.
"The day she applied here..."
"I recognized her immediately."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Damian demanded.
The old man lowered his head.
"Miss Victoria paid me fifty thousand dollars to keep quiet."
The ballroom erupted.
Victoria's face turned white.
"He's lying!"
The groundskeeper reached into his pocket.
"I kept the check."
"And I recorded the conversation."
He placed a small voice recorder on the table.
Damian stared at it.
Victoria stared at it.
No one moved.
The old man pressed PLAY.
Victoria's voice filled the silent ballroom.
"If anyone finds out she's Eliza... we're both finished."
The recording ended.
Victoria's knees buckled.
Damian looked at the woman in his arms.
For the first time in two years...
He allowed himself to believe the impossible.
His wife hadn't died.
May you like
Someone had stolen her life.
SUMMARY
During billionaire Damian Harlow's engagement party, his three-year-old son shocks hundreds of guests by running past everyone and calling a quiet maid "Mommy." At first, everyone believes the child is mistaken—until the maid unknowingly finishes a lullaby that only Damian's late wife ever sang. As fragments of her memory return, she recalls the car crash that supposedly killed her. An old groundskeeper then reveals that Damian's fiancée secretly hired the maid months earlier and even paid him to keep her identity hidden. A hidden voice recording exposes Victoria's involvement, revealing that Eliza's fatal accident may have been an attempted murder rather than an accident.
