Chapter 5: Last Warning

Valen straightened up so slowly that it was almost an insult.

He did not step away from me.

"Conrad," he said.

"Take your hands off the counter."

"They're on the counter."

"Take them off the counter, Valen, or I will remove you from it."

Posy had appeared in the back room doorway and gone completely still, the pencil frozen in her fist.

I scooped her up and held her on my hip.

I was glad of it, because it gave my hands something to do other than shake.

"She wanted to give him a drawing," I said. "That's all this is."

"That's all this is," Conrad repeated, and looked at his brother's face, then at mine.

He was not shouting.

That was worse.

"Rule eleven. Rule ten. That is two in one morning. Rule twelve says I should send you down the drive with your suitcase."

"Then do it," I said. "In front of her."

His eyes flicked to Posy.

She had her face tucked into my neck, but one gray eye watched him over my collar.

"She spoke this morning," I said. "To me. Then to him. Four sentences.

"Are you going to fire the only people she has said a word to in two years?"

Conrad's mouth went white at the edges.

I saw it land.

I saw it hurt him in a place I had not meant to hit.

"Posy," he said, and his voice cracked. "Sweetheart. Is that true?"

Posy said nothing.

She hid her face harder.

Conrad shut his eyes.

"Valen," he said, without opening them. "Outside."

The two of them stood on the landing with the door half open.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Nanny's Rules: Forbidden Desires from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.