Page 58 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

Carrington’s fingers moved inside Lucy, and she'd found exactly the right place. Lucy felt the orgasm coiling from somewhere deep and low. Her climax was inevitable, like a wave she could see coming from a long way off. When the orgasmic wave crested, Lucy's back arched off the bed and she came against Carrington's mouth in a long, shaking, vocal climax that she didn't muffle and didn't try to. Carrington's fingers stayed inside her through it, moving slower now, easing her through the aftershocks.

Carrington withdrew her fingers carefully. She pressed a kiss to the inside of Lucy's thigh, then another one higher up, then one against the crease of Lucy's hip, and then she moved up the bed and gathered Lucy against her. Lucy could feel Carrington's heartbeat against her own chest, fast and hard then slowing.

Lucy pressed closer, finding the curve of Carrington's waist, and rested there, thumbs tracing small circles against the warm skin. Carrington's arms tightened.

"Lucy," Carrington said, into the top of her head.

She pressed her mouth against Carrington's throat and felt the pulse there, steady now, and she closed her eyes. Carrington lay on her side with one hand in Lucy's hair, working through it slowly, catching on a knot now and then and easing it apart. Every so often, her thumb moved along the top of Lucy's ear and stopped there. Lucy wanted to say something to her, but there was nothing she could think of that would still be true at breakfast. So she said none of it and lay still.

Lucy did the math in the dark, factoring in how long it would take her to get up and out, back in the cottage before there was any risk. Out of the room by five. Down the landing, down the stairs, through the courtyard, and inside her own front door before twenty to six. That gave her seven and a half minutes to spare. She had run it every night in April, once in the rain.

"You should sleep," Lucy said.

"In a minute," Carrington said and kept threading her fingers through Lucy’s hair.

Lucy woke ten minutes before the alarm, and she turned it off before it could make a sound. The bottom sash was up and the air coming in over the bed smelled like cut grass. Carrington had rolled over in the night and was lying on her stomach with one arm thrown across the pillow where Lucy's head had been. She didn’t stir when Lucy got up and the mattress shifted. Lucy got dressed by the chair with no light on. It took her under a minute.

She carried her shoes along the landing. Grace's door was shut and the strip underneath it was dark. The nightlight switched off on an automatic timer at four, long past Grace would fall asleep and notice the missing light. Lucy waited outside the door, holding her shoes and her breath, and then she walked downstairs.

The hall floor was cold enough through her socks to make her walk faster. She sat on the second step and put her shoes on. Then she pushed the courtyard door shut, holding the handle down until it was closed, and stepped out onto the gravel and straight off it again onto the grass. It was soaked with morning dew, and within three steps, she could feel it through the canvas of her shoes. She kept her eyes down and watched where she put her feet.

The cottage door stuck again. She pressed against it with her shoulder, and it finally budged. Her phone was on the counter beside the logbook. Mira had sent her a message on Thursday that she hadn’t yet answered. Lucy picked up the phone, her thumb hovering over the text until the screen went dark again. She laid the phone screen down beside the logbook then walked to her bed.

Carrington came in at ten to seven on Monday with her hair up and her rings on. The chef had the stove on and the back door propped open.

"Ms. Harper. There's a call at half past seven that I'm taking in the study, so I'd like Grace to eat outside. It shouldn't run past eight."

"That's fine."

Carrington took her coffee into the study and shut the door.

Grace came down at half past in her uniform with one sock down. She pulled herself up onto the stool, dragged the bowl over, and then checked the spoon in it. It was the big one. She pushed it half an inch away from her with one finger.

"Ms. Harper, can I have the other spoon please?"

The chef was at the range with her back to them, moving eggs around a pan. She didn’t stop or look around, but Lucy's ears grew hot anyway. She got the small spoon out of the drawer and placed it next to Grace. She took the big one away and said nothing, in case the wrong words came out instead.

But what she really wanted to do was crouch down in front of Grace and tell her that her name was Lucy, that it had always been Lucy, and that Grace shouldn’t call her anything else. Lucy just stood there, still holding the big spoon, instead.

"Thank you," Grace said, and started eating.

They left at ten past eight.

"There's a girl in my class who can do a cartwheel on one hand," Grace said.

"On only one hand?"

"Yep. She does it during recess."

"Did you see it?"

Grace looked out the window. "Kayla saw it."

"So somebody told you about it."

"Yes."

"Then I'd want to see it before I believed it," Lucy said. "No offense to Kayla."