Page 66 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

"She's in a deposition until two," the receptionist said. "I can book you after that. Or I can go in and get her, if it's about the guardianship."

Two o'clock. Alvarez would be at the school by then.

"After two is fine," Carrington said.

"I'll block it."

She put the phone down and made a mental list of what Melinda had walked away with: a signed statement from Deborah Mensah, a household list, and two differing answers to the same question. She hadn’t seen that coming from the other side of her own kitchen island. She considered calling the school and got as far as pulling up the number on her phone, then stopped. Calling in advance wasn’t a good look, and what could she even say anyway? She considered calling Deborah but dismissed that idea too. Calling her would only signal to family services that she had something to fix. She didn’t. Or at least, she didn’t know if it could be fixed. Her scalp ached. She’d put twice as many pins in it than she needed, a small act of control in an uncontrollable situation. In the end, it wasn’t her hair that had fallen apart.

She walked to the kitchen and stood in the doorway. "Bettina."

The radio went off.

"Ask Ms. Harper to come to the study."

She walked away and paced in the space behind her desk. Less than two minutes later, Lucy stopped inside the door, holding a dish towel. She was in the same clothes she had worn at breakfast. She had not slept, and it had been obvious across the island all morning.

"Shut the door," Carrington said. "And sit down."

Lucy shut the door but stayed where she was.

"Fine, don’t sit then. We need to talk about what happened. The social worker asked you a question, to which you gave an answer."

"Yes."

"You knew what impact your answer would have before you said it." She didn’t phrase it like a question.

"I did." Lucy folded the towel in half and draped it over her forearm.

"She asked me that question no more than four minutes before she asked you, and yet you still gave a different one. She told us it didn’t change anything today, but today isn’t the problem. Our differing answers mean two things: One, the file won’t close in January like it’s supposed to, and two, Melinda Alvarez is now going to Grace’s school, presumably to ask her what she knows."

"I know," Lucy said.

"Then tell me why you did it."

"Because she asked me a direct question." Lucy said it unapologetically. "I'm not going to lie to family services."

"Nobody asked you to lie."

"There's no way to lie about one of us and not the other one, and you've known that longer than I have." Lucy still hadn't moved away from the door. "And it wouldn't have ended this morning either. What happens in June, when Ashgrove closes for the summer? Or in September, when school starts up again? Every single time anybody at that school asks Grace an ordinary question about who lives in her house, you'd want me to say it again." Her voice never went up at all.

"Then let me tell you exactly what the next eight months will look like." Carrington braced both hands on the desk. "You're off this property by the end of the month and into an apartment in town. Diane will find it, the trust will pay for it, and the lease will be in your name. You keep the job, and Grace doesn't lose any time with you. I'll send Melinda a corrected statement in writing before Friday, with an explanation she can put in the file, and whatever comes back about it, I'll reply by myself. Nothing personal can happen in this house until the case closes in January, and by then, it won’t be anyone’s business what we do."

"No," Lucy said.

"Which part are you objecting to?"

"All of it."

"Break it down and take me through it sentence by sentence."

"I'm not going to do that." Lucy was still holding the towel. "It's a good plan. It's better than anything I would’ve come up with on my own. That isn't what's wrong with it."

"Then what’s wrong?"

Lucy didn't answer her, just shifted her weight to her other leg.

"What happens to Grace in your version of this?" Carrington said. “She knows something is coming and blames herself. That’s what you said last night, and you were right. I haven’t slept properly since. If you leave or if social services decides to remove her from the house, Grace is going to think she caused it, and nobody will ever be able to tell her otherwise.”