Chapter Sixteen

Callie

What game is this? Jorge sneers at me across the table. I wrack my brain, trying to figure out if he ever mentioned a twin. But even his demeanor is the same. That glassy-eyed look is identical, the exact one he’d get after one too many shots of whiskey. Everything is the same. It’s messing with my head.

Why is he here? And why is he saying his name is Maxwell?

The five of us sit around the dining table. Emery seems happy to be with the grownups, although my heart breaks a little every time she looks at her mother. I know that look. I’ve had that look. She’s waiting for approval and love, which will never come. Sloane seems more interested in smirking at me than paying attention to her daughter. I’m almost certain she knows who Jorge is and his connection to me.

But I won’t rise to the bait. For Emery’s sake, for Gray’s sake, I won’t turn this into a drama.

“Hmm, burgers,” Sloane mutters derisively when Gray brings in the food.

Emery misses the sarcasm. She bobs up and down excitedly on the spot. “Can I have extra ketchy?”

“Ketchy?” Sloane mutters in a tone that makes me want to slap her.

“That’s what she calls ketchup sometimes,” I say, resisting the urge to add, You should know that .

“Oh, how kitschy ,” Sloane says, laughing loudly at her joke. After a moment, Jorge-slash-Maxwell seems to realize he should be laughing too. He lets out a loud guffawing noise. That, too, brings back an army of memories. I feel like I may be hallucinating. This feels so surreal.

“Nothing special,” Gray says, sitting opposite me. He’s dressed down in a polo and casual jeans. I want to grab his thick arms for support and press my face against his chest.

“It’s great,” I tell him, grabbing a burger.

“Do you like burgers, Callie?” Jorge-slash-Maxwell says.

I almost glare at him, but that’s what he wants. Once, he forced me to make the family burgers, then yelled at me for apparently overcooking them. He did this in front of the boys, delighting that he could treat me that way. It was sick.

“Yes, Maxwell, I love them,” I reply.

“I’ll have a nibble,” Sloane murmurs. “You know what they say. A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”

Gray is reaching for a plate, but when she says this, he pauses. Tension visibly pulses through him. He clearly doesn’t like her little digs about my body. I remember what he said when I was half-naked. He called me perfect .

I give Gray a look, a tight smile. He raises his eyebrows, telling me he’ll fight for me if that’s what I want. We don’t need to say anything. I don’t know how we’ve gotten to this place so quickly, where words aren’t required to understand each other. It’s just happened, and it feels so good, so right , somehow. I try to list all the reasons this is destined to fail again, but my mind won’t work that way.

“So, Callie,” Sloane says, staring at me. Crap. She definitely just saw the exchange between me and her ex. She looks pissed about it too. “How are you finding it working for this lump?”

“Gray is a great boss,” I tell her.

“What’s so great about him?”

“Daddy is the greatest!” Emery beams, looking at her mother as if expecting some praise or attention, but Sloane doesn’t even glance at her. Emery stares down at her plate, her eyebrows furrowing when her mother ignores her. The look of concern on her face is too grown up. It hurts. It reminds me so much of me.

“He compensates fairly.”

“Oh, yes, he’s rich,” Sloane says. “We can all see that.”

I smile tightly. “He doesn’t give too many rules. Just—be kind to his daughter and give her room to develop and grow.”

“That’s fantastic,” Sloane mutters. “Yes, really fantastic.”

She sounds furious. She’s trying to mask it, to pretend to be civilized, but she’s doing a crappy job. She looks like she wants to leap across the table and tackle me. And don’t even get me started on Jorge, sitting there with his classic sneer. Maxwell . That fake-name bull crap. What twisted game are they playing?

Soon, we’ve all finished eating. Emery sounds a little disheartened when she says, “Daddy, can I read, please?”

“Of course, you can, sweetness.”

Sloane, who has barely talked to or even looked at her daughter, chooses now to pipe up. “Make sure you say goodbye to Mommy.”

Emery looks at me as if for approval, which is a grave mistake. I can tell how much it pisses Sloane off. The whole purpose of this evening was not to give Sloane a reason to resent me, but so far, we’ve massively failed.

Emery dutifully walks around the table to her mother. “Bye-bye, Mommy.”

Sloane hugs her in the most over-the-top way—like she’s putting on a show. It’s gross. But it’s not my place to judge. I’m just the nanny. I have to keep reminding myself of that. Just the nanny, that’s all. I’m not part of the family. I’m not Gray’s girlfriend, and I never will be.

Once Emery leaves, Sloane says, “Shall we have some coffee? Something stronger? Then Maxwell and I will hit the road.”

Sloane stares at me, one eyebrow raised in a challenge. Clearly, she knows exactly who Jorge is, but I can’t figure out how she would know about our connection or how she could have contacted him so quickly for this date. Jorge agreeing to it is not a mystery. Give him a chance to hurt me for not succumbing to his so-called seductive wiles, and he’ll take it. That part doesn’t confuse me in the least.

***

We sit on the back porch, fires lit in the grates. I drink tea, Gray drinks coffee, and Jorge and Sloane drink wine. I’m not in the mood to even think of him as Maxwell anymore. It’s all too ridiculous.

“So, Gray,” Jorge says, his words slurring as he leans over and looks at Gray with glassy eyes. “How are you finding this one, huh?” His hands tremble slightly as he points at me. “Is she satisfying all your needs?”

“Excuse me?” Gray snaps. His big, hulking, muscle-bound body tightens. For a terrifying second, I think he’s going to grab Jorge and toss him off the porch.

I stare at Jorge, willing him to shut the hell up. I’ve done my part by not outing him as to who he really is. Maybe, if he was somebody else, I could threaten to tell his wife. But Jorge used to brag about cheating on his wife. She knew about it, always took him back, always forgave him. Escaping that messed-up dynamic made me all the more certain to be loyal if I ever found a man.

“Does she please you?” Jorge says.

Gray clenches his fists, looking as if he’s ready for extreme action. It’s like the urge to protect me swells inside him. It reminds me of how he looked when we got steamy, his passion so intense, it was almost freaking intimidating.

“Callie’s doing a great job,” Gray growls.

“But what kind of job ?”

Gray looks at Sloane as if she’s going to tell her date to rein it in, but Sloane is smirking like this is the best show she’s ever witnessed. After a pause, Gray snaps, “Sloane.”

“What?”

“He needs to stop.”

“Has he struck a nerve?” Sloane counters. “Come on , Gray. Do you think I’m blind? We’ve all seen the little looks between you. It’s obvious. Something’s going on here, isn’t it? You’ve moved a young woman into our home, trying to make her Emery’s new mommy. It’s cold.”

Gray stands up, his hands on his hips, breathing through clenched teeth. I want to go to him, put my hand on his chest, and tell him to calm down. But I can’t, obviously. I just have to sit here, wait, and watch as disaster gets closer and closer.

I’m just the nanny . I try to turn it into a mantra.

“I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation,” Gray snaps. “You walked out, Sloane.”

“You never cared about me. You were always cold. You were always distant.”

“After what you did, you’ve got some goddamn nerve talking like that,” Gray snaps.

“Are you going to say Emery was a mistake again, huh?”

“I never said that,” he growls.

“Gray,” I whisper. “Emery might hear…”

Gray looks at me with sorrow, and I almost feel like I might start crying. It’s devastating, the pain in his eyes, the tightness in his jaw.

“Yeah, listen to the nanny .” Jorge laughs coldly, a sound I remember well. “Listen to Miss Up Her Own Ass, the bitch too prissy to know when she’s got a good thing.”

Gray walks over to Jorge, looming over him, making the size difference obvious. In my life, before leaving the cult, I saw violent exchanges. I learned how to turn off my panic so they wouldn’t tear apart my mind. But that doesn’t mean I want to see them.

“Gray.” I stand up and touch his arm. “That’s enough.”

“What’s your goddamn problem?” Gray growls. “All night, you’ve been looking at Callie like…”

He trails off. A tremor moves through his body like the warning signs of a volcanic eruption. He looks at me, then looks at Sloane. “What the fuck ? His name’s not Maxwell. That’s Jorge Lopez. That’s Callie’s ex-boss. I knew I recognized him. What sick game is this, Sloane?”