Page 81 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

"Grace."

"I didn't tell anyone. Not Kayla and not Ms. Ford. And not the lady with the bag." Grace pulled her pajama sleeves down over her hands. "I didn't tell because if you say a thing like that out loud, then a grown-up comes and stops it. That's what always happens."

"You did the right thing."

"But then the lady asked me who puts me to bed and I said both of you." Grace tucked her chin. "So I did say it out loud. Didn't I say it?"

"No, you didn’t."

"You have to tell me even if the answer's the bad one."

"It isn't the bad one. It's no, and no is the truth." Lucy leaned in and drew Grace's hand out of the end of her sleeve. "The lady already had her answer from me before she ever went to your school and talked to you. I told it to her in the kitchen that morning and I meant to be honest about it. You couldn't have made any of it happen and you couldn't have stopped it either."

Grace looked at their hands. Then she pulled hers back, but only to get both arms around Lucy's neck. She put her whole weight into it. Lucy wrapped both arms around her and was still holding on long after when Grace let go. Finally, Lucy let her grip slacken. Grace settled back on her heels and wiped her face on one sleeve, then on the other one.

"Are you talking now?" Lucy said. "To your aunt as well?"

Grace picked the pad up off the floor instead of answering, and what she wrote had nothing to do with the question.

A lady came for one day and then she left.

Nobody had told Lucy about that one either.

"Who was she?"

She was going to be my new nanny. Grace took the pad back and wrote underneath it, pressing hard. She got down on the floor next to me. I didn't want her to. I went and sat on the stairs until she left.

Lucy handed the pad back. "You did that to her on purpose?"

Grace kept her eyes on the pad and said nothing.

"Listen to me. Somebody else is going to be in this house to be your nanny sooner or later. You can be as rude to her as you like for the first week, and then you have to let her do her job." Lucy tapped the pad. "That's not me being on her side or choosing her over you."

Grace wrote one word and showed it to her. Okay.

"Talk to your aunt."

Grace shook her head.

"I don't mean tonight. She's downstairs right now, and she's the one raising you." Lucy waited. "You do it when you want to do it. Whenever you’re ready."

Lucy took the rabbit out from inside her coat and stood him on the rug between them. "He's been sitting up on a box in a rented room with his back against a wall. That's no good for anybody."

Grace picked him up by the middle and turned him over once. Then she rose onto her knees, hooked two fingers in Lucy's coat pocket, and pushed him into it headfirst.

"Grace."

"I gave him to you."

"You did."

"He's not for lending." Grace flattened both palms against the rug. Then she twisted around and dug the whale book out from under her pillow. She held it against her front with both hands crossed over it. "You have to take this one too."

"No. I’m not going to."

"You can bring it back when you come back."

"Grace, no." Lucy put her hand flat on the cover and pushed it gently back toward her. "That's your mom's. That one stays in this house and it stays in this room, and nobody takes it anywhere, including me."