Burn Me Once Burn With Me (Ruby Grayson) novel Chapter 445

She slid down to the floor, arms wrapped around herself, leaning against the cold wall, feeling utterly drained.

Nearly fifty years old. If it weren’t for her son falling gravely ill and her daughter-in-law vanishing in a panic—leaving behind a wailing baby grandson—she should have been enjoying a well-earned rest at her age, not running herself ragged all the way to Quinborough to work herself to the bone.

The job paid well enough, came with room and board, and the person who’d hired her had even hinted that they could help arrange treatment for her son. So she’d hurried to Quinborough, desperate and hopeful.

She just hadn’t expected her charge to be so impossibly difficult—moody, irritable, and critical of her every move.

The housekeeper’s heart ached with misery, but she could only force herself upright and tiptoe off to find the first aid kit.

Once she’d cleaned up, she gathered the trash from tending the wounds and took it out to the dumpster behind the building.

That’s when she spotted a new notice posted on the bulletin board.

She’d seen the spot before—old papers mostly torn away, their words long faded—but now a fresh announcement was pasted over the scraps.

This one was untouched, and her eyes were drawn instantly to a familiar face printed right in the center.

“Oh—!”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

It was a missing person notice, unmistakably so. And the face on it—

It was her exacting employer.

A shiver ran through her. In that moment, all her confusion suddenly made sense.

No wonder—even though the woman was pregnant, her bump hardly showed. She never left the apartment, not even for checkups—the doctor always came to them. And even then, she kept a mask on the entire time, even at home.

The housekeeper’s gaze drifted lower.

She couldn’t read the words, but the numbers were impossible to miss.

Four zeros… five zeros… a million!

She stumbled back, hand flying to her mouth, panic and disbelief warring in her chest.

A million pounds. Her job paid well by Stormhaven standards, but nothing—nothing—compared to that sum.

Her heart hammered in her chest. With trembling hands, she glanced around, making sure no one saw her, then quickly snapped a photo of the contact information at the bottom of the notice.

She shoved her phone back in her pocket, hunched her shoulders, and hurried back into the apartment.

She’d barely opened the door when she found herself face-to-face with a scowling Hanley.

“Where did you go? Why were you gone so long?”

She hadn’t even heard him come in.

“I—I was just taking out the trash.”

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