Page 67 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

Chicago, penthouse, new job, tiny aviation child, insane golden retriever, and Ethan Strong. Billionaire pilot, silver fox, occasional source of emotional instability, sleeping somewhere down the hall like my life isn’t currently balanced on the thinnest possible edge of professionalism.

Cool. Good morning to me.

I drag a hand down my face and groan quietly into the pillow. Because that's the thing no one tells you about making a dramatic fresh start in a new city: you still wake up as yourself.

Same brain, same feelings, same deeply inconvenient awareness of your own boss’s mouth.

Nope.

Stopping that thought before breakfast.

I sit up, force myself into the shower, and get dressed in jeans and a cream knit top that sayscompetent nanny with a pleasant disposition.

By the time I make it to the kitchen, it’s just after seven.

And because the universe occasionally likes me, Oliver is already there, sitting at the island in pajamas and socks, staring into a bowl of dry cereal like he’s in a very serious negotiation with it.

“Good morning,” I say.

He looks up. “Morning.”

Captain thumps his tail from where he’s sprawled by the windows, then decides I deserve a full greeting and heaves himself up to come over.

“Hi, yes, good morning to you too,” I murmur as he shoves his head into my hip.

“Dad left early,” Oliver says, like he’s reporting a weather event.

“Oh.” I glance around instinctively, as if Ethan might still materialize from the coffee machine. “Okay.”

“He had calls.”

“Right.”

That shouldn’t make my stomach dip slightly.

And yet…

I move around the kitchen, opening cupboards with more confidence than yesterday. “Did he leave instructions or just a vague legacy of control?”

Oliver considers this. “He told me to eat breakfast.”

“I respect the specificity.”

He nods gravely.

Breakfast goes smoothly enough, which feels like a small miracle considering yesterday I was negotiating lunch.

I find myself wondering, briefly, how the previous nanny handled this part of the day.

Claire.

She must have had systems. A rhythm. Maybe a drawer for quick snacks, a backup plan for mornings when Oliver decided cereal was offensive. Structured enough that Ethan never had to think about whether his son had eaten or what brand of yogurt constituted a crisis.

Because that’s the thing I’m starting to notice.

Ethan isn’t checking.

He isn’t hovering in the background asking what Oliver’s eaten, or whether I’ve figured out lunch, or how I’m planning to manage the next few hours. There’s no follow-up text, no quiet audit of how I’m handling things.