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He looks toward the associate, and she takes his card to run through before Caden turns back to me. “You think I’m going to let you pay? You’re the nanny, and you’re doing us a favor. Anyway, I kind of blindsided you with this. It’s my pleasure to treat you.” He gives me one of his customary winks to put me at ease.
I swallow, more tears threatening to fill my eyes, but I blink them away before Caden can see them. “I’ll return the clothes after…” I mumble dumbly, unsure of what else to say.
Caden’s face darkens, and he spins around. “Sure. Right. You do that. Come on, Lily. Let’s find you some pizza, Bug.”
He marches toward the little girl, and I wonder what I said wrong, my insides still shaking with his generosity—and with relief that I’m not on the hook for thousands more dollars of debt.
I need to tell them about my terrible credit rating and horrific debt because of Sean. They need to know how far in the red I am in case someone comes looking. This could be detrimental to Lily and the adoption process. I should have come clean when Flint mentioned secrets.
Biting on my lower lip, I vow to get them all together and come clean about it at the first opportunity when Lily is out of range. I only hope I’m not too late and that I don’t lose my job.
CHAPTER 14
Pike
At first, I don’t hear what Lily is chirping about, her constant chattering acting as background to my everyday life now. The child is always going on about something, as four-year-olds do, and it’s impossible to keep up with the never-ending flow of words coming out of her mouth, particularly in the mornings when caffeine has barely affected my brain.
It isn’t until she says, “Molly Jean” that my head jerks up, and I look at Aspen directly from my place at the kitchen island.
“You went on Caden’s boat yesterday?” I demand.
Lily stops speaking, her dark hair swept up in an intricate braid on top of her head, back to me, but Aspen’s solemn eyes meet mine.
“For a couple of hours,” she concedes. “You should have come. It was fun.”
I frown. “What else did you do?”
“We went jet skiing,” Lily calls out, spinning around on her chair to look at me, her baby teeth flashing wickedly. I pale at the admission as Aspen’s chin drops.
“You what?!” I growl, standing. “I specifically told him not to do anything stupid!”
“It was fine, Pike,” Aspen reassures me quickly. “I was with them the whole time, and he drove responsibly.”
“That’s not the point!” I interject. “He knows better! If he wants to kill himself, that’s one thing, but I won’t have him endangering Lily!”
“Pike, really, it wasn’t dangerous. It was fun,” Aspen pleads, following me as I stalk toward the front of the house, ready to confront Caden. I need Flint to back me up, but he’s in New York again. He left in the middle of the night, waking me before he had gone to warn me he was going to be out of town again.
I’m irked with both my housemates, the reckless one and the one who can’t get his work in order to maintain his house. Am I the only one who is consistently around for Lily?
I glance over my shoulder. Well, me and Aspen now, I suppose. Maybe it should have been me who adopted the girl.
“Pike!” Aspen hisses as my foot hits the bottom step, my irritation driving me. “Listen to me, please!”
I hesitate, the urgency in her voice giving me pause. Turning, I scowl at her. “You don’t get it. He’s always doing dumb shit like this. If it’s not jet skiing, he has her in the garage around dangerous tools. He’s teaching her how to shoot BB guns, he’s?—”
“His style of parenting isn’t yours,” Aspen concludes gently, her voice low as her eyes dart toward the back of the house. “Because you three are not the same people, are you?”
I stare at her. “Parenting 101 dictates that we keep the kid safe, Aspen.”
“Caden would never put Lily in danger,” she insists. “I’ve seen all three of you with her, and I find it hard to believe that you would ever put your interests over hers. Caden just has a different view of how she should be raised than you.”
“And Flint!” I growl back. “He thinks Caden is being careless, too!”
She exhales and puts a hand on my arm, the feel of her touch immediately calming me down. “Raising a child is never easy, under any circumstance,” she murmurs. “But I have to believe that Ryker and Alexandra put Lily in your hands because they had faith in you. All of you. Even Caden.”
“Caden has changed,” I snap. “He was different before.”
“I don’t think people change at the core, not that much,” Aspens says. “He’s still the same person, even if he’s made some different choices.”
