Chapter Seven

Gray

That evening, we spend time in the backyard. I read a novel as Callie and Emery walk around naming all the plants. I do my best to focus on the words, to try and lose myself in the story. It’s a thriller, and, usually, I can sink into these narratives quite well. But it’s impossible not to look up from the make-believe world and watch Emery beaming up at Callie, Callie smiling warmly down at her.

Soon, Callie carries Emery to the hammock. My daughter can fall asleep in the time it takes to blink. Callie walks over to me, sits down, and picks up her Kindle.

“I lost that video,” I say.

She looks up and chews at her lip. I wish she’d stop doing that. But I also wish she’d never stop. “Huh?”

“The workout video,” I murmur. “Turns out my phone wasn’t recording.”

“Oh, that’s okay.”

“Yeah.”

An awkward silence stretches between us. Callie is wearing pale blue jeans and a shirt knotted just below her cleavage. It’s casual attire, not like she’s trying to blow my mind. But she does. Every single moment, she floods me with fantasies and inappropriate thoughts that I definitely shouldn’t have about my child’s nanny.

For a few minutes, we both read. Or try to. Or pretend to. I glance over at her a few times, watching the way she smooths her hair from her face and how her eyebrows furrow. There’s something so gorgeous about her face when she’s concentrating.

“What’s your book about?” she asks after a while.

“I’m not even sure. I can’t concentrate.”

“Oh. Why not? Are you thinking about something? Maybe something you heard today?” She takes a breath. I can tell she’s been working up to this, especially when she places her Kindle down and looks right at me.

“If you have something to say, Callie, you can say it,” I tell her.

She takes another breath. Her chest rises and falls. I’m a goddamn idiot. Or I’m becoming one. Even now, when she breathes like that, my gaze flits to her chest. I have to drag my mind out of the gutter.

“You heard me talking with Callie about her mom… and my parents?”

I nod. “I did.”

“I didn’t ask her anything about her mom.”

“I know,” I tell her. “I heard the whole thing. Emery doesn’t realize how messed up it is, what Sloane did, running out on her own daughter.”

“I think she does, on some level,” Callie whispers. “She said no takebacks . But you’re right. She definitely isn’t as upset about it as you might expect.”

“Sometimes, that worries me,” I admit. “Sometimes, I wonder…” I glance over at the hammock, but Emery’s eyes are closed, and she’s breathing gently. She can’t hear us. Even so, I lower my voice. “What if she seems fine, and then, one day, it all just comes out as one big explosion of trauma?”

“You’re giving her an amazing life,” Callie says. “She’s got a loving parent. Her interests are encouraged. You’re doing a good job, Gray.”

I smile. Her words mean a lot. “Thank you.”

“What about the other thing?” she murmurs.

“That’s none of my business,” I say. “Your childhood is of no concern to your employer.”

“But you pieced it together, I assume.” She seems almost angry. At herself, at me? I’m not even sure. At her past? Maybe that. “You knew I wasn’t talking about a camp. ”

“I guessed that.”

“I was born into a cult,” she says. “It was run by controlling men who dictated what everybody did, but especially the women. We worked inside a compound. We were ‘home-schooled,’ which meant they filled our heads with crap about dedication to the supreme leader. His name is Josh Taylor, but they gave us silly things to call him. I only managed to see sense because I snuck in a cellphone and became addicted to watching videos, documentaries, and stuff from real life. It all fell apart. And when I left, I promised myself I wasn’t going to let anybody control me again.”

I want to offer her some comfort, hold her hand, but she’s looking at me as though I was part of the cult, as though I was this Josh jerkoff. Her message seems depressingly clear— I’m not going to let you control me, Gray .

“What happened with the stockbroker?” I ask.

She chews on her lip for a second. “You don’t miss anything.”

“Your previous job was for a stockbroker. He gave you a stellar reference. But earlier, it sounded like things didn’t go so well.”

“He was a creep,” she snaps. “An older man who thought he could take advantage of the young, dumb girl. A man who didn’t realize I’d made my heart hard years ago.”

My tone lowers as I lean forward. “What did he do to you?”

“Nothing… like that.” She sighs. “It was comments. It was a touch that lingered too long—making jokes to his wife about me being his girlfriend. It was always just over the line, but never so far that I felt like I could do anything. But the final straw was when he touched me, really touched me. I freaked. I threatened to report him. He was a coward. We made a deal—a severance package, a good reference.”

“Jesus,” I growl. “That bastard.”

She stares at me with wide eyes.

I almost tell her I’m not like him . But that would mean bringing this beneath-the-surface communication out into the open. It would mean acknowledging the time in the gym and making it real.

“I don’t know why I told you that,” she says a moment later, visibly calming herself down.

“I think you do,” I reply.

She arches her eyebrow. “Oh?”

“It’s because I’m Mr. Aldridge, and you’re my employee. It’s because you’re my nanny. Because we both have our roles.”

She flinches as if shocked I’d come so close to addressing what’s really happening here. Then she nods and folds her arms, her breasts pressing together. “Okay. I guess we understand each other, then.”

“You’re the best thing to happen to Emery in a long time,” I say. “Nothing’s going to happen to jeopardize that.”

“Guh-good,” she murmurs, stuttering, hesitating, looking at me as if she wishes she could take this all back. No takebacks . That’s what Emery said, and she’s right. Without coming out and explicitly saying it, Callie has told me to back off.

“You’re doing a good job,” I tell her. “Who knows… this position could last for a long, long time. Emery has to come first. She really likes you. You bring out the best in her.”

“You don’t have to convince me. I’ve already taken the job.”

She’s right. But it’s not her I’m trying to convince. It’s me.

Maybe you can be— That’s what Emery started to say earlier. Clearly, she was going to tell Callie that she could be her new mommy, but Callie cleverly cut her off. But seeing them together makes me feel many crazy things, too. It makes me wonder what it’d be like to find a woman—and when I think of ‘ a woman, ’ I’m just kidding myself—and building a family for my daughter.

A short while later, Emery hops down from the hammock, yawning and stretching her arms over her head. She skips over to us and then sits on Callie’s knee. Warmth grips me when I see them so comfortable together.

“Daddy, can we go for ice cream?” she asks, laying her head against Callie’s chest.

“That depends…” I smile at Callie, and she returns the smile, her eyes sparkling. This feels a little too couple-like, but we’ve made our position clear on that. “Has Emery been a good girl today?”

Emery looks up at Callie with cute-as-a-button desperation on her face. “So far, Emery’s been the most well-behaved kid I’ve ever nannied for. So far .”

“I’m always good. Aren’t I, Daddy? I haven’t had a tantrum in like a gazillion years.”

I laugh in pure delight. Callie laughs along with me. Again, that we’re-in-this-together feeling grips me. It’s so strong, inappropriate, but all too real.

“Okay, yes, let’s go for ice cream,” I say.

“Can Callie come?”

“That’s up to her.”

Callie grins down at Emery. “How could I say no to you, huh?”

“I’ll just grab a quick shower, wash the work off me, and then we’ll get going.”

Callie looks at me sharply when I mention a shower. But then she quickly turns away. She can’t hide what just passed between us, though. She can’t deny it. Neither can I. It’s like we’re existing in two universes at the same time. All the time. It should be exhausting, but it’s not. I feel more alive than I have in years.

Before I take my shower, I search for two men on the internet. Josh Taylor is the leader of Mindfulness for You—A Commune of Happiness. He’s been investigated several times, but so far, he’s managed to maintain a respectable front for his cult. He’s a hollow-cheeked man with vacant blue eyes. He looks capable of anything. The other man is Jorge Lopez, the stockbroker who employed Callie before me.

I stare at these men, my jaw pulsing, my body flooding with a rage I can’t even understand. I only met Callie a few days ago, but already, the idea of somebody hurting her makes me savage. It makes me want to find them. Break them. Make them scream for ever dreaming of laying a hand on her or injecting an ugly thought into her mind.

My cellphone rings. It’s Wes. “Hey,” I say, answering.

“S’up? Got back from the West Coast early. Was wondering if you and Emery wanted to hang?”

“That’s great news,” I say. Wes is an art dealer and is always flitting between the coasts. “We were about to head out for ice cream, actually, with the new nanny. Callie.”

“Sorry, what’s her name? Your voice went funny.”

Did it? I need to be more careful about that, then. I clear my throat. “Callie. Emery’s really taken to her. She’s a…” Beautiful woman. Sexy as fuck. Funny, smart, humane, vulnerable, passionate, and interesting. A professional young lady.”

“Ah, awesome. Yeah. I’ll meet you at The Scoop?”

“Sounds good.”

I hang up, conscious that I’m going to need to make an extra effort to compose myself. If my voice went funny just by mentioning her name, controlling my behavior’s going to be one hell of a challenge, especially because Wes can read me better than anyone. We’ve been friends since we were kids. That makes what I did even worse, getting with his sister, having a kid with her—putting a rift between them when he sided with me after she ran out.

With a feeling of impending doom, I step into the shower.