Ex-Convict Nanny and Billionaire Single Dad novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: House Rules

Kerstin hugs Holly for Nate's benefit and threatens her alone, Lulu sets her own rules at bedtime and Nate gives Holly his one rule, and in the morning Shelby screams that their grandmother's ring is gone and Nate orders Holly to open her bag.

My mother hugged me in front of the billionaire.

"My baby," she said into my hair. "Oh, my baby girl."

Over her shoulder Nate was carrying Lulu up the stairs, past Shelby.

He didn't look back at us.

"You've gotten so thin," Mom said, and held me at arm's length.

"She looks fine," Shelby said from the stairs.

"Twice," I said.

Mom's smile didn't move. "What, honey?"

"You visited twice. In four and a half years. I wasn't sure you'd recognize me."

The housekeeper had stopped in the dining room doorway with a stack of folded napkins.

Mom laughed softly for her benefit.

"Gig Harbor is a long drive for an old woman," she said. "Come help me with my coat, sweetheart."

She took my elbow and steered me down the hall into a mudroom full of rain boots and a dog leash with no dog.

She shut the door.

The smile came off.

"What are you doing in this house?" she said.

"My job."

"You don't have a job. You have a record." She kept her voice down. "Your sister has been with that man eight months. He's talking about Christmas in Ireland with his family. Do you understand what that means for her?"

"I understand she let his daughter crawl off the end of a pier."

"Children fall," she said. "You of all people should know."

I stared at her.

"I didn't," I said. "That's the whole point, Mom. I wasn't there."

She grabbed my wrist.

Her nails were pale pink and filed into neat ovals, and they dug in.

"You made a promise to this family. You keep it. And you leave this house by Friday."

"Or what?"

"Or Nate hears what you are." She leaned closer. "A drunk. A liar. A woman who'd say anything to get her sister's man. Who do you think he'll believe? The felon or the nurse?"

I pulled my wrist out of her hand.

"I kept my promise," I said. "Every day of fifty-four months. I'm not leaving that little girl alone with Shelby."

"Holly."

"Thanks for coming, Mom. Drive safe."

I opened the door and walked out.

Upstairs, Lulu was awake and sitting in the middle of a bed shaped like a sailboat.

Nate stood by the window with his hands in his pockets.

"She wanted you," he said.

"She has me."

He nodded once and went out, and he left the door open.

Lulu held up a shoebox.

"These are my rocks," she said. "You can look but you can't lick them."

"Who licks rocks?"

"Daddy did once. To see if it was salt."

"Was it?"

"No. It was a rock."

She took them out one by one and introduced them.

Potato was gray and lumpy. Lake was black and flat and smooth as soap.

"I got Lake from the lake," she said. "Not the bad lake. A good lake."

"Good lakes are the best kind."

She put Lake in my hand and closed my fingers around it.

"You can hold him while I have my bath."

The bath took forty minutes.

She wouldn't let the water come above her belly button, so we did a three-inch bath with a pirate ship and a lot of negotiation.

Afterward she had her inhaler, a blue one on a lanyard that she called Puffy, and she did two puffs like a pro.

Then she got under the covers and pulled out a piece of paper with crayon on it.

"These are my rules for you," she said.

"You wrote me rules?"

"Daddy wrote them. I said them." She pointed with a damp finger. "One. No pier."

"Agreed."

"Two. Read Frog and Toad with voices."

"I'm excellent at voices."

"Three. Don't leave."

I looked at the paper.

He had printed it in neat block capitals. Three. DON'T LEAVE.

"Okay," I said.

She was asleep before Frog found his list.

I turned off the lamp and stepped into the hall.

Nate was leaning against the wall across from her door.

He'd taken off the coat. He was in a gray T-shirt and jeans, barefoot, his arms folded.

"Your Toad is very depressed," he said.

"Toad has a lot going on."

He didn't smile, but his eyes did something.

"She asked for you at dinner. She asked for you in the bath. She asked if you were real."

"I'm real."

"I can see that." His voice dropped. "I have one rule, Holly. Not for her. For you."

"Let me guess. Don't steal the silver."

"Don't lie to me." He held my eyes. "I can live with a lot. I can't live with that. Not in this house. Not about her."

I thought of the stairwell, and my mother's hand, and the word yes.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay," he said, and pushed off the wall, and walked away down the dark hall.

My room was on the ground floor, off the kitchen, with a window over the gray lake.

I slept for the first time in a real bed with Lake the rock under my pillow.

At six in the morning a scream tore through the house.

Not Lulu's.

I ran out barefoot into the kitchen.

Shelby was standing in the middle of it in her robe, hair wild, holding up her bare left hand.

"Grandma's ring," she said. "Grandma Thornquist's ring is gone. I took it off by the sink last night and it's gone."

The housekeeper and the cook both looked at me.

Nate came down the stairs in a T-shirt, his face gray with sleep.

He looked at Shelby's hand.

Then at me.

"Holly," he said. "Get your bag. Open it."

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