Chapter 1

Five years as his children's nanny, and the billionaire never once looked at my face.

Until the night I saved his daughter's life — and he fired me anyway.

"Pack your things, Miss Byrne. You're done here."

Dominic Ashford stood in the doorway of the nursery, still in his black-tie suit, smelling like champagne and another woman's perfume. His jaw was set. His eyes were cold. Behind him, his fiancée, Celeste, leaned against the hallway wall with a smile so sharp it could cut glass.

I was still in my wet clothes. Still shaking. Twenty minutes ago, I'd pulled his four-year-old daughter, Lily, out of the estate pool after she'd wandered out during the party. No lifeguard. No alarm. No one watching except me.

And now I was being fired.

"Mr. Ashford," I said carefully, "Lily fell into the pool. She wasn't breathing when I reached her. I performed CPR for two minutes before—"

"Before you caused a scene in front of two hundred guests," Celeste interrupted, stepping forward. "Lily was fine. She was playing. You overreacted and embarrassed the entire family."

I stared at her.

Lily had been blue. Her lips were blue. I had breathed life back into a child's lungs on the cold stone edge of a swimming pool while party guests stood around with their mouths open.

And I was the problem?

"Celeste is right," Dominic said, not even looking at me. "Lily's nanny should know how to handle situations discreetly. You created a panic. The press was there. Do you have any idea what tomorrow's headlines will look like?"

I felt something inside me go very still.

Five years.

Five years I had raised his children — Lily and her seven-year-old brother, Oliver. I'd held them through nightmares. Taught them to read. Sat with Oliver during his asthma attacks when his father was on another continent closing another deal.

Dominic Ashford had never once attended a parent-teacher conference. Never once read them a bedtime story. And in five years, he had never once asked me my first name.

I was always just "Miss Byrne."

But his children called me Mama.

And that, I realized now, was probably the real reason Celeste wanted me gone.

"You'll receive your final paycheck by Friday," Dominic continued, pulling an envelope from his jacket. "There's a severance agreement inside. Sign it, and we'll provide a neutral reference. Don't sign it, and—"

"And what?" I asked quietly.

His eyes finally met mine. For a fraction of a second, something flickered there — confusion, maybe, as if he was seeing me for the first time and couldn't quite place what he was looking at.

Then it was gone.

"Just sign it, Miss Byrne. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."

I took the envelope. I didn't open it.

"Can I say goodbye to the children?"

"No," Celeste said immediately. "Clean break. It's better for everyone."

Better for everyone.

I looked at the nursery door behind Dominic. I could hear Lily's breathing monitor beeping softly inside. Oliver's nightlight was on — the one shaped like a rocket ship that I'd bought him for his birthday because his father had forgotten. Again.

My throat burned.

But I didn't cry. Not in front of them. Never in front of them.

"Goodbye, Mr. Ashford," I said.

I walked out of that mansion with nothing but my coat and the envelope I would never sign.

Because what Dominic Ashford didn't know — what Celeste didn't know, what nobody in that glittering world of old money and champagne knew — was that I wasn't just a nanny.

Six months ago, I'd sold my tech startup to a Fortune 500 company for $1.2 billion.

And in three weeks, I was scheduled to appear on the cover of Forbes as the youngest self-made female billionaire in the country.

But none of that mattered right now.

What mattered was that two children I loved were about to wake up tomorrow morning and find me gone.