Chapter 3 The Crash

Two years passed in a blur of silent dinners and cold beds. We were still married, but we were strangers living in the same penthouse.

The breaking point happened on a rainy Tuesday, exactly two years and three months after our wedding. But the foundation truly cracked six months prior, on the day I lost the baby.

I had been alone in the hospital, bleeding and terrified. I had called Stellin, sobbing into the phone, begging him to come to me. But he didn't answer. I later found out his grandmother had intercepted the calls, telling him I was just being dramatic and attention-seeking.

I went through the miscarriage completely alone. The emotional agony of lying in that sterile hospital bed, mourning a child I had never met, while my husband was nowhere to be found... it changed me. It hardened my heart. I buried the grief deep inside me and focused only on my bakery, determined never to rely on a Brooks for anything ever again.

On that rainy Tuesday, I had just finished closing up my shop when the grandmother's personal assistant handed me a thick manila envelope. Inside was a divorce petition, fully drafted. Attached to it was a sticky note in the grandmother's elegant, cruel handwriting: *"I have the board's support. If you don't leave him, I will destroy your mother's reputation and ruin Stellin's career. You have until Friday to sign."*

I stared at the papers until my vision blurred. The Brooks family had finally found my weak spot. I couldn't be the reason Stellin lost everything.

That night, I sat alone in our penthouse, the divorce papers on the coffee table. I planned to tell Stellin. But the clock ticked, and my phone buzzed. A text from Stellin: *"Working late tonight. Don't wait up."*

At midnight, a second envelope was shoved under the front door. No stamp. No return address. Just my name scrawled across the front. Inside was a single glossy photograph.

It was Stellin. He was standing in the grand lobby of the Grand Meridian Hotel. Beside him, draped in a slinky red dress, was Ara Finch. Stellin's hand was on the small of Ara's back, guiding her toward the elevators. The timestamp read: *11:45 PM.*

I couldn't breathe. The room spun. The text message played on a loop in my head. *Working late. Don't wait up.*

He was with her. He took her to a hotel.

Maybe the grandmother was right. Maybe I was just a maid who forgot her place.

I sat in the dark, clutching the photograph until the edges crumpled in my fists, waiting for the front door to open. It was nearly three in the morning when Stellin walked in. He smelled of rain and expensive perfume-perfume that definitely wasn't mine.

"You're up," he said. He looked tired. Guilty.

"Where were you?" My voice sounded hollow.

"I told you. Work."

"Work." I stood up and walked toward him. Without a word, I slapped the photograph against his chest.

Stellin looked down. He froze. The color drained from his face. "What is this?" he whispered.

"You tell me," I said, my voice shaking. "You told me you were working. But you were with *her*."

"Millie, it's not-"

"It's not what it looks like?" I laughed, a bitter, broken sound. "God, Stellin, don't use that cliché on me. I am not the dumb, naive maid you think I am."

"I don't think that," he snapped, his eyes flashing. "Millie, you don't understand. The hotel-"

"Then explain it!" I screamed, the tears finally spilling down my cheeks.

He opened his mouth. He closed it. He looked at the photo, then looked at me, and for a split second, he hesitated. He looked *guilty*.

That hesitation shattered me.

"Millie, it's complicated," he finally said.

"I don't care!" I backed away from him. "I care that you lied. I care that I have spent two years letting your family call me a gold digger and a servant, just for you to run to her the moment things got hard."

"Millie, please. Let me explain."

"Don't." I pressed my hands to my chest, trying to hold my heart together. "I want a divorce."

The words hung in the air, heavy and final.

I walked past him into the bedroom and locked the door. On the other side, I heard Stellin slide down to the floor, his back against the wood. And then, for the first time in his life, I heard the great Stellin Brooks cry.

***

The lawyer's office was cold. Four thick documents sat on the mahogany table between Stellin and me. *Petition for Divorce.*

"The 30-day cooling-off period is mandatory by law," our mediator explained.

"Just sign the papers, Stellin," I whispered.

He picked up the heavy gold pen. His hand trembled. He signed his name. I signed mine.

I stood up immediately, walking out into the hallway. Stellin followed me into the elevator, begging. "Don't throw away two years because of my family. I will cut them off, I swear. Just give me thirty days."

"Thirty days won't fix the fact that you lied to me."

The elevator doors opened into the dark underground parking garage. The air smelled of damp concrete and exhaust.

"Millie, I love you!" Stellin shouted behind me.

I stopped. My chest ached so badly I thought my ribs might crack. I turned around, ready to tell him it was too late.

But the words died on my lips.

A deafening roar echoed through the garage. A set of high-beam headlights flared to life at the end of the aisle, blinding me. A massive black SUV was accelerating right toward me. Not slowing down. Speeding up.

"Millie!" Stellin screamed.

He lunged forward with a speed I didn't know he possessed. He threw his body against mine, wrapping his arms around me, trying to push me out of the path.

The SUV hit us from behind. The impact was like a bomb going off. Pain exploded in my skull, a blinding white-hot flash of agony.

The last thing I heard was the deafening shriek of tires and the shattering of glass. The last thing I felt was Stellin's arms wrapped tightly around me, his body shielding mine, as we slammed into the cold concrete floor.

*I love you, Mrs. Brooks.*

His voice echoed in my mind, fading into a crushing, absolute darkness.