Chapter 3

The first week of working at Grandview Estate felt less like a job and more like a high-stakes psychological experiment where Linden was both the scientist and the primary test subject.

Every morning at exactly 8:45 AM, the sleek black sedan would drop her off at the modern monolith of a mansion. By 9:00 AM, Mr. Harrison would vanish into his administrative quarters, leaving Linden entirely alone in a house that felt too vast, too quiet, and too impeccably designed for a single human inhabitant.

Well, one human and five highly chaotic, emotionally volatile cats.

"Barnaby, ibaba mo ’yan. Huwag mo akong tingnan nang ganyan, alam kong naiintindihan mo ako," Linden warned, her tone flat but authoritative as she pointed a finger at the massive white Persian.

Barnaby was currently perched on top of a minimalist, raw-concrete plinth in the main living room and his front paw hovering deliberately over an antique ceramic vase that probably cost more than her entire four-year college education. His flat, aristocratic face was a mask of pure defiance. He was testing her. He was asserting his dominance in the absence of his alpha—the mysterious 'Employer.'

Linden didn't flinch. Instead of rushing over and triggering his oppositional reflex, she slowly reached into her linen blazer pocket and pulled out a small clicker and a piece of air-dried Japanese wagyu beef—courtesy of the sub-zero pantry.

"Positive reinforcement, Barnaby. Step down, and you get the premium fat. Stay up there, and I ignore you for the next hour," she said, her words bouncing off the high glass walls. She turned her back to him, deliberately depriving him of the attention his narcissistic ego craved.

Grabeng pusa, napaka-entitled! Well, billionaire ba naman ang tatay, she thought to herself.

Three seconds later, she heard the soft, heavy thud of paws hitting the Turkish rug. She smiled, clicked the device, and tossed him the treat. One down, four to go.

By 2:00 PM, she had managed to transition Siam from her hiding spot behind the floor-to-ceiling drapes by playing a low frequency of classical cello suites, and she had successfully negotiated Winston away from his third emotional binge-eating episode of the day by engaging him in a strict twenty-minute tactical chase with a feather wand.

But as the physical chaos subsided, the quietness of the house would creep back in, heavy and thick with a strange, lingering intimacy.

Linden spent her afternoons in the pool-house suite, which had quickly become her designated sanctuary. It was a separate pavilion connected to the main house by a glass walkway, overlooking an infinity pool that mirrored the gray afternoon sky. The suite was minimalist but intensely luxurious—dominated by a massive king-sized bed covered in silver-gray silk sheets.

And it was there, in the quietest hours of her shift, that Linden felt the ghost of the house the most.

Every single morning when she arrived, the bed would be slightly unmade. The silk fabric would hold a faint, deep indentation, as if a large, heavy body had been resting there just hours before she walked through the door. And then there was the scent. A rich, intoxicating blend of high-end woodsy cologne, fresh sea salt, and a sharp hit of ozone—like a thunderstorm rolling over the ocean.

It was the night caretaker's scent.

She shouldn’t have been paying attention to it, for God’s sake. She was a twenty-six-year-old woman working herself to the bone just to keep her family afloat and secure her degree. But human nature was inherently driven by curiosity and sensory stimulation, and right now, her starved senses were hyper-focusing on the invisible man who shared her space.

On a Tuesday afternoon, exhausted from an all-night study session on cognitive behavioral therapy, Linden found herself sitting on the edge of that massive bed. Her laptop was open on her knees, displaying a complex spreadsheet of statistical data for her 6:00 PM class, but her hand was absentmindedly smoothing over the cool, rumpled silk of the pillow next to her.

She leaned down, just an inch, and inhaled.

The scent was there. Deep. Crisp. Raw. It didn’t smell like a regular domestic household; it smelled like the wild, untamed horizon of the sea, anchored by a heavy, masculine warmth that made a sudden, unfamiliar ache ignite deep in her lower stomach.

Linden snapped her eyes open, her breath catching as she abruptly sat up straight. Ano ba, Linden? Nababaliw ka na ba talaga? she chided herself, her face instantly burning with a fierce, solitary blush. She was literally sniffing the bedsheets of an anonymous coworker like a starved, touch-deprived lunatic.

To distract herself from her own scandalous thoughts, she slammed her laptop shut, grabbed her canvas backpack, and marched back into the main house to check the leather-bound logbook on the kitchen island.

Up until now, the logbook had been used for clinical status reports left by the previous staff. But as Linden picked up the heavy fountain pen, she felt an overwhelming urge to break the cold, clinical silence of the mansion. If she was sharing a bed and a workplace with a ghost, she at least wanted to know if the ghost had a pulse.

She flipped to a fresh page, her cursive handwriting neat and precise across the white paper.

Night Shift,

Barnaby’s oppositional defiance is peaking. He attempted to hold a high-value ceramic vase hostage today in exchange for unearned attention. I have implemented a strict schedule of extinction bursts—ignoring his negative behavior while rewarding his compliance with the wagyu treats. Do not break this protocol tonight, or you will undo all my progress.

Also, Winston is using food to self-soothe his apparent boredom. Please ensure his evening enrichment involves physical stimulation, not an extra portion of salmon tartar. We are running a rehabilitation program here, not an all-you-can-eat luxury buffet.

— Linden (Day Shift)

She left the book open on the marble counter, stepping back with a small, satisfied nod. It was professional, direct, and slightly challenging.

When 5:50 PM arrived, she quickly packed her things, ensuring she left before the 6:00 PM shift hand-off. As the estate’s town car drove her away into the chaotic, traffic-choked reality of her university life, she couldn't shake the strange, electric anticipation humming under her skin. For the first time in years, she wasn't just dreading the next day's exhaustion. She was actually looking forward to tomorrow morning.

Another week had passed, at exactly 9:00 AM, Linden practically sprinted through the glass pivot doors of the mansion, bypassing the pool house entirely to march straight into the white-marble kitchen.

The house was as silent as ever. Barnaby was sleeping regally on a leather armchair, and Siam was grooming herself under a sunbeam. But Linden’s eyes were locked entirely on the kitchen island.

The leather-bound logbook was still there, but it had been moved. It was now resting precisely in the center of the marble counter, closed.

With a racing heart and slightly trembling fingers, Linden reached out and opened the cover. She flipped past her own entry from two weeks before, and there, right beneath her neat cursive, was a fresh paragraph written in thick, aggressive black ink.

The handwriting was commanding—bold, sharp lines that slanted heavily across the page, written with a pressure that had slightly indented the paper itself.

Day Shift Doctor Linden,

Your progress with Barnaby was highly evident tonight. For the first time in three weeks, he did not attempt to claw my ankles when I walked through the door. He merely stared at me from across the room, which I consider a massive psychological victory.

However, your assessment of Winston is entirely too clinical. The man—or rather, the cat—simply appreciates fine dining. I find it difficult to deny a client who truly understands the value of a perfectly executed meal. But since you are the professional, I followed your orders. I replaced his midnight snack with a twenty-minute chase session using the laser pointer. He is currently exhausted and, I suspect, holding a grudge against both of us.

Your notes are remarkably sharp, Linden. It’s refreshing to have someone in this house who doesn't flinch when the clients push back. Tell me, do you apply these strict behavioral modification theories to everyone who steps out of line, or am I an exception?

— E.

Linden's breath hitched, a slow, intoxicating warmth spreading from her chest all the way up to her cheeks. She read the last sentence three times, her eyes lingering on the way his 'E' was written with a sharp, elegant flourish.

Is he handsome? she thought. But more than that, his tone was entirely unexpected. It wasn't the clinical response of a strict employer; it was a low, slow-burn challenge, dripping with an intellectual and entirely physical playfulness.

"Isang chef na may ganitong sulat-kamay?" she whispered to herself, her thumb unconsciously tracing over the thick black ink where his hand had rested just hours before.

She could feel the sudden, dramatic shift in the air of the house. The empty mansion didn't feel lonely anymore. It felt wired, charged with an invisible tension that was building between two people who hadn't even looked each other in the eye.

Linden pulled the pen from her pocket, an unbidden, wicked smile stretching across her lips as she pressed the tip to the paper, ready to fire back. The slow-burn game had officially begun, and she had no idea that in just another two weeks, this very ghost would return to land—shattering the safety of her paper walls to claim exactly what she was so playfully challenging.