The interview had been excruciating. Mum had looked between us with curiosity while Hollie had asked who the “pretty lady” was. I'd watched Rory pull herself together, crouching down to win my daughter's heart within minutes.
I'd offered her the position because I'd had no choice. But mostly because I couldn't bear to let her walk away entirely.
That evening, after Hollie was tucked into bed and Mum had finally left, I'd found Rory in the kitchen, and despite my best efforts to stop myself, my mind relives the details in gory technicolour.
Rory is standingat the sink, staring out the window at the darkened garden, her silhouette backlit by the soft glow of the pendant lights. When she hears me enter, she turns, and the look in those blue eyes nearly breaks my resolve before I even open my mouth.
Waiting. She’s been waiting for this conversation.
“We need to talk.” The words taste like ash on my tongue.
She nods slowly, moving to the table where a mug of tea sits cooling, forgotten. Her movements are calm and measured. She wraps her hands around the mug, composed, steady, but I can see the effort behind it.
I pull out the chair across from her, every instinct screaming at me to reach for her hand. To pull her close. To tell her we’ll figure it out.
Instead, I force myself to speak.
“What we had over the past two days…” I start, then stop, running a hand through my hair. “Rory, it was real. More real than anything I’ve felt in years. When I said I wanted to see where this could go—I meant every word.”
She listens in silence, her face calm, unreadable. But I know her well enough now to see the tiny shifts—the slight stillness of her breath, the way she holds herself perfectly straight, as if balance alone might keep her from breaking.
“But Hollie has to come first.” The words are barely more than a whisper, each one cutting like glass. “She’s already lostone parent. I can’t—” My voice cracks, and I have to pause, gripping the edge of the table. “I can’t risk her bonding with you as more than her nanny, only to have it fall apart if we—if this doesn’t work out.”
The silence that follows stretches long and heavy.
When Rory finally speaks, her voice is even. “I understand. She’s your priority. She should be.”
“Rory—”
“No, Cole. You’re right.” She sets down her mug with careful precision. “We can be professional. I can do this job and do it well.” Her eyes meet mine, unwavering. But behind that composure, I catch a flicker—something soft, something she refuses to let show. “But we can’t be… anything else.”
“I’m sorry.” The words feel pathetically inadequate.
She stands then, smoothing down her jumper, every motion deliberate. “Don’t be. You’re protecting your daughter. That’s what agoodfather does.”
As she walks past me toward her room, she pauses in the doorway, her back to me.
“For what it’s worth,” she says quietly, her tone calm and clear, “those two days were the best I’ve had in a very long time.”
Then she disappears down the hallway, and I sit there alone in the kitchen, staring at that abandoned mug of tea—its surface still, undisturbed—and wondering if I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life.
The worst part?She’s been nothing but gracious. Understanding. Mature.
And it has slowly fucking destroyed me.
That first week had been agony. Every time she laughed with Hollie, I remembered that same laugh at the Mirror Bar. Everytime she tucked her hair behind her ear, I felt ghost touches of threading my fingers through it. Every smile she gave my daughter was a reminder of the smiles I'd forfeited.
By the second week, I'd begun working later. Coming home after Hollie was asleep, leaving before breakfast, keeping our interactions to brief exchanges about schedules and routines. Professional. Distant.
Safe.
If Rory noticed, she never said anything. She remained warm with Hollie and professionally polite with me, playing her part perfectly while I slowly came apart at the seams.
The third week, I'd caught her singing to Hollie at bedtime—some soft lullaby I didn't recognise—and I'd had to grip the doorframe to keep from walking in there and begging her to give me another chance. To tell me I was being an idiot. That we could make this work.
But how? How could I risk my daughter's happiness on something that might not last? How could I be selfish enough to want both when I could only guarantee one?
Reed and Jace had cornered me at the Landmark last Wednesday, clearly having had enough of my new and improved brand of sleepwalking through life.
