Chapter 221:


    On the other end of the line, Isolde went silent for a beat. “Speak.”


    “I have a business trip to San Francisco this weekend. I’m taking Belle with me,” Grayson said, watching Kaiden tear down the hall screaming and hurling a toy car at the wall. “The nanny quit this morning. Kaiden needs someone.”


    Isolde’s breath hitched. “And?”


    “The agency can’t send a recement until Monday,” Grayson said, his voice devoid of any feeling. “Youe to the penthouse. You watch Kaiden for two days. You do that, and the vase is yours.”


    “You —” Isolde choked on the words, disbelief saturating every syble. “You want me to babysit your mistress’s child? The child of the woman who destroyed my home? Just to get back my own property?”


    “It’s a trade, Isolde,” Grayson said. “Kaiden seems to listen to you. Or at least, you’re the only one he hasn’t bitten.” It was a lie. Kaiden listened to no one. Grayson simply needed a body in the house, and he knew Isolde was desperate enough.


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    “That is my grandmother’s legacy,” Isolde whispered, her voice trembling with humiliation.


    “Then earn it,” Grayson said. “Friday night. Be here.”


    Isolde gripped the phone until her knuckles turned white. She looked at Effie, still coloring innocently across the room. She thought of The Tear of Time sitting in that foyer, filled with dirty water, cracking under the pressure of careless hands.


    It was her dignity against her grandmother’s soul.


    Tears pricked her eyes, hot and stinging. She closed them, and let a single tear slide down her cheek.


    “Fine,” she whispered. The word tasted like ash. “Deal. But I only want the vase. Not a cent of your money.”


    “Agreed,” Grayson said, and hung up.


    Isolde lowered the phone, feeling a hollow ache settle in her chest. She was going back to the penthouse — not as the mistress of the house, but as a servant to the woman who had reced her. But for the vase. For Evelyn. She would walk through fire.


    Even if that fire was named Kaiden.


    Friday evening, the sky over the city was a bruised purple as Isolde drove to the entrance of Lancaster Tower. She didn’t hand her keys to the valet. She parked in a visitor’s spot herself.


    She checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. She had deliberately changed out of her sharp office attire. She wore faded jeans and a loose gray sweater that had seen better days. If they wanted to treat her like a servant, she would dress the part. She wasn’t here as the mistress of the house, nor as a high-powered executive. She was here as the help.


    When the elevator doors opened onto the penthouse foyer, the scene that greeted her was one of chaotic luxury. Open suitcases were scattered across the marble floor, overflowing with silk and linen.


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