His Stolen Heartbeat

Three years after our brutal breakup, my billionaire ex checked into the Presidential Suite of my hotelwith another woman.

That night, he called my extension three times. The first time, he said, The sheets are dirty. Change them.

I sent housekeeping up to handle it. Two hours later, he called again for a sheet change. I complied.

At 2:00 AM, he made his third call. I politely cut him off before he could speak.

"I'm sorry, sir. Housekeeping is off the clock. Please request room service tomorrow morning."

The man gave a low scoff, his deep voice carrying a dangerous, commanding edge. "You're the receptionist? Then you come up and change them. I'm dropping tens of thousands of dollars to stay here, and it's not to hear you say 'no'."

Chapter 1

I ignored him and hung up. I worked the front desk. There was no reason for me to do a maid's job.

My coworker leaned in, practically vibrating with gossip. "Was that the guest in the Presidential Suite again?"

I nodded.

She covered her mouth, hiding a snicker. "Making housekeeping change the sheets three times in one night. The guy's got stamina, I'll give him that. So what did he say when you told him housekeeping was gone?"

I gave it to her straight. "He told me to come up and do it."

She blinked, then let out a sarcastic bark of laughter. "Does he think booking the big suite makes him God?"

"The disrespect. Does he think he owns the hotel? Treating the front desk like his personal 24-hour maids"

The sudden shrill ring of her phone cut her off. She cleared her throat and picked it up. A second later, her tone shifted into pure deference as she greeted the manager.

Whoever was on the other end said something. My coworker's eyes went wide, and she stared right at me. "You want Maeve to go up to the Presidential Suite and change the sheets right now?"

Fifteen minutes later, I stood outside the Presidential Suite, bracing myself as I pressed the doorbell.

Maddox answered the door in a white bathrobe. He saw me and stepped aside, leaving just enough room for me to slip past. The faint sound of a running shower echoed from the bathroom.

He led the way to the master bedroom. Then he dropped onto the lounge chair. He pulled out a cigarette, clamped it between his lips, and sparked a lighter with infuriating calm.

I kept my mouth shut and ripped the duvet back. A distinct wet patch on the white bedsheet slammed into my line of sight.

My breath hitched, the air knocked out of my lungs.

My fingernails dug so hard into my palms they went numb.

He blew out a ring of smoke, his tone dripping with the lazy satisfaction of a man who just got off. "Appreciate it."

"My girlfriend gets a little too worked up. Couldn't sleep in this. Make it quick, will you? She's pretty exhausted."

I swallowed the lump in my throat, keeping my voice deadpan. "Give me five minutes."

I stripped the soiled linens with quick, mechanical movements and tossed the fresh ones over the mattress. Once it was done, I bundled the dirty sheets into my arms and pivoted to leave.

He lunged, caging me against the edge of the mattress.

My retreat was cut off. He crowded into my space, his chest grazing mine.

I stumbled backward, my calves hitting the bedframe, and fell flat onto the mattress. His solid weight pinned me down, paralyzing every muscle in my body. The shower kept running in the background.

I gripped the edge of the bed, straining to shove myself upright. But the physical difference was a joke; my pushing didn't budge him an inch.

I planted my palms flat against his hard chest, keeping my voice down to a harsh whisper. "Your girlfriend's going to get the wrong idea. Get off me."

His gaze was pitch-black and lethal. The heavy scent of expensive liquor and mint washed over my ear as his breath ghosted across my skin. "All these years, I still can't wrap my head around it. Why the hell did you have to cheat on me with him?"

The running water in the bathroom abruptly shut off. He didn't flinch. He didn't even try to get up.

Panic spiked in my veins.

I swung my hand and slapped him hard across the face.

A sharp smack echoed in the room.

He didn't recoil. Instead, his jaw flexed, and he slowly licked a bead of blood from the corner of his mouth. His eyes darkened into something utterly predatory and dangerous.

I seized the second he froze, shoved him away with everything I had, grabbed the bundled sheets, and bolted.

Just as the heavy suite door clicked shut behind me, a woman's breathy, sweet voice drifted from the hallway:

Chapter 2

"Stop it. If you make them change the sheets again, I'll be too mortified to show my face tomorrow."

""

His response was a muffled blur. The heavy oak doors sealed the rest inside. I walked down the dead-silent corridor, my pulse pounding against my ribs until it finally slowed to a steady, numb rhythm.

I had imagined running into him again. But I never anticipated this. Three years later, and his hatred for me was absolute. It would have been better if our paths had never crossed again.

Back at the front desk, my coworker immediately invaded my space, vibrating with fresh gossip. "Do you have any idea who the guy in the Presidential Suite is?"

It was the middle of the night. My bones ached. I didn't have the energy to humor her.

That only fueled her excitement. "I just looked him up online. He's Maddox, the heir to a multi-billion dollar empire."

I kept my eyes on my monitor. "Running background checks on guests is against protocol."

"Oh, come on, I was curious! No wonder he can drag our manager out of bed with a single phone call at two in the morning."

She fired off her findings like a machine gun. "I literally did a quick search, and the internet is flooded with articles about that massive inheritance war his family had three years ago! Right at the climax of the corporate takeover, Maddox got hit with some critical illness. Almost lost his entire claim to the empire."

"He had a girlfriend back then. His first love. A total gold-digger, obviously. The second she realized he was circling the drain, she cheated on him right at his lowest point."

"The guy was literally hooked up to life support in the ICU, and she turned around and slept with another man. Almost killed him! Thank God he pulled through."

"The internet still tears her to shreds to this day. Pure scum. She must be ripping her hair out in regret right now, throwing away her spot as a billionaire's wife like that."

"Oh, wait, I haven't even told you the wildest part. Do you know who she cheated with?"

"Yeah. I know."

Her pitch spiked. "You know? You read the articles too?"

I slowly turned my head, locking eyes with her dead-on. My expression didn't shift a fraction of an inch. "I don't need to read the articles. I'm that first love."

The eager gossiping smile froze on her face.

Meeting Maddox was the wildest accident of my life. I had stepped in to help a girl being harassed on the subway, delivering a brutal kick straight to the creep's balls. I dragged the guy all the way to the police station. Maddox had followed me the entire time, highly entertained.

He leaned against the brick wall outside the precinct, waiting for me to walk out, and smoothly asked for my number. One thing led to another, and we started talking.

The day he asked me to be his girlfriend, I asked him why he liked me.

He just smirked, tracing the knuckles of my hand with his thumb. "I was totally captivated by the way you shattered that guy's nuts."

He was a menace. Always messing with me. We were together for a long time. He bought a penthouse near my college campus.

We lived in that suffocatingly sweet bubble like any normal couple.

My parents split up when I was a kid, and I grew up relying entirely on my grandmother. Later on, during a FaceTime call with her, Maddox overheard the doctors discussing her deteriorating condition.

The very next day, he deployed his private legal team and directly paid off her $200,000 heart bypass surgery bill.

Later, the crushing weight of that debt gnawed at me. I brought up the astronomical medical costs, overwhelmed. That surgery was easily over two hundred grand.

He hadn't even blinked when he signed off on that six-figure invoice, but I had no idea how I would ever repay it.

He saw right through my hesitation and cut me off. "Don't sweat the hospital bills. I've got it handled."

I looked at him, treading carefully:

Chapter 3

"If we ever break up, promise me you won't send your lawyers to repossess my grandma's newly fixed heart."

He burst out laughing.

I knew he was loaded back then, but I didn't grasp the sheer scale of his wealth. Not until the day I casually vented about my college scholarship being delayed. Miraculously, the very next morning, the foundation funding my tuitionthe Maddox Groupoverhauled their entire disbursement process. Approved and paid out on the exact same day.

That was when it clicked. He wasn't just rich. He was the heir to the Maddox empire.

Then, his father died. The ensuing war for the Maddox inheritance made front-page news across the country. Maddox was the only legitimate heir on paper, but his father had left behind a scattered trail of illegitimate children.

Right at the bloodiest climax of the corporate war, Maddox collapsed. Acute kidney failure.

He was trapped in the ICU for over ten days. After two grueling rounds of dialysis, his kidney function still flatlined. Out of options, the doctors delivered the final verdict: he needed a transplant.

But the waitlist was a death sentence. We couldn't find a match. I went so far as to track down his half-siblings, begging them one by one. Not a single one agreed to get tested.

Why would they? With Maddox out of the picture, the pie got divided into much bigger slices. They were actively counting the seconds until he died. Why the hell would they save him?

Those days were a suffocating nightmare. I couldn't see a way out.

Maddox must have felt the end creeping in, because he ordered his legal team to transfer every last liquid asset and property under his name over to me.

Lying in that sterile hospital bed, his pale, IV-bruised hand reached up to cup my face. He patiently brushed away the tears spilling over my cheeks. He looked at me and said that meeting me made his life complete.

But then came the plot twist that left high society reeling.

The ink on the asset transfer was barely dry when I threw myself into another man's bed.

I didn't stay to hold Maddox's hand in his final days. I betrayed him, scrambling to pledge my loyalty to his biggest rival. And that rival was Ezrahis father's favorite illegitimate son.

The backlash was apocalyptic. I became public enemy number one.

Maddox's inner circle ripped me apart whenever they saw me.

"Did you really expect a trailer-park gold-digger to have a heart?"

"The inheritance is still up in the air, and the second she sees Maddox knocking on death's door, she realizes he can't win the throne. So she instantly spreads her legs for the bastard with the best odds. Fucking brilliant move. I severely underestimated her."

"Once a whore, always a whore. God, my mom was right. You can screw the charity cases, but you only marry within your own tax bracket."

The rumors bled into the ICU. Maddox begged to see me. His friends, disgusted but out of options, cornered me into going.

When I walked into that room, he looked worse than before. A literal ghost. He grabbed my wrist, his grip weak but desperate, his voice trembling.

"They're telling me you're with him. I don't believe it. I need to hear it from you."

"It's a misunderstanding, right? I know you. You would never do this to me."

I stared down at him. I smoothly pried my wrist out of his grip, my eyes dead and hollow. "Maddox. I don't love you anymore."

His entire body flinched. The bloodshot red flooded his eyes in a fraction of a second.

The untouchable golden boy of the empire shattered.

Even now, the raw, agonizing visual of his breakdown is burned into the back of my eyelids.

His knuckles turned white as he desperately clawed at my hand, his voice breaking into a gut-wrenching sob, begging me not to walk out that door. He choked on his own tears, pleading with me to just wait for him, swearing he would secure the inheritance for me.

If I just stayed, he would rip his way out of that deathbed and fight the world for me.

But I just stood there. I watched his world collapse with the ice-cold gaze of a stranger. Until his best friend finally couldn't stomach the sight of it anymore.

Chapter 4

He ripped his friend's grip away and shoved me out of the hospital room. "Get the hell out!"

"Take your new piece of trash and get as far away as possible! If I ever see your fucking face again, I'll end you! If Maddox doesn't pull through, we will destroy you! Mark my fucking words!"

At 8:00 AM, I finally got off my night shift. I barely managed four hours of sleep before my phone buzzed. It was my coworker. She told me to get back to the hotel immediately.

The guest in the Presidential Suite had lost something valuable.

The exhaustion evaporated from my bones. I scrambled out of bed and rushed back.

Stepping into the VIP lounge, the first thing I saw was Maddox lounging on the leather sofa. His girlfriend was half-leaning against his chest. The manager hovered to the side, wearing a sickeningly sweet customer-service smile.

Maddox's girlfriend discovered this morning that her half-a-million-dollar earrings were missing from the room. The only people who entered their suite last night were me and the housekeeper. The housekeeper had already been interrogated and cleared.

The woman marched up to me in her red-bottom heels, her voice a shrill shriek. "Empty her bag and all her pockets right now! If you don't, I'm calling the NYPD, and I'll make sure you never work in this city again!"

My eyes instinctively flicked to Maddox. He watched my every move last night. How could I have possibly stolen those earrings right under his nose