Page 97 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

"What was that?" Lucy asked Grace.

"I said good," Grace said.

Over the top of her head, Lucy watched Carrington get a clean plate down out of the cupboard. She put it out in the middle of the island and pulled out the stool in front of it.

Lucy flipped the last two pancakes before they burned.

EPILOGUE

Which one of them was Constance?

Carrington had narrowed it down to two. Both were orange with a black smudge at the base of the tail, and both ducked behind the plant whenever she leaned toward the glass. The tank stood under the north window of the study on a stand she and Grace had put together wrong the first time. Grace had picked the gravel. It was teal. Carrington thought it belonged in a gas station and had never said so.

"Pick one," Grace said.

She sat in the doorway with her shoulder against the frame and her knees pulled up to her chin. She was twelve, and her feet were bigger than Carrington's now.

Carrington pointed at the one nearest the heater. "Constance."

"That's Edwin."

"You told me Edwin was the pale one."

"Barnaby's the pale one. Edwin's the fat one." Grace said it without looking at the tank. "Constance has a notch out of her tail. You can see it when she turns around."

Both fish swung around. Carrington couldn't find a notch on either tail.

"Try again," Grace said.

"I'd rather not."

"Mom did this to you."

"She did. She sat in the doorway and waited, same as you."

"Did you ever get it right?"

"No," Carrington said. "Not once."

Grace picked at the rubber on the toe of her sneaker. Carrington went back to the desk. Lucy had the twins until five, and Devika needed the Hollis report by Monday. She read the same paragraph she'd been reading since Grace started quizzing her.

"Is the fish thing in the letter?" Grace said.

Carrington set the pen down.

Grace kept her eyes on her shoe. The rubber had peeled off the toe in a strip, and she worked at it with her thumbnail.

"Yes," Carrington said.

Grace didn't say anything. Carrington turned her wedding ring with her thumb and waited.

"I'm not asking you to read it to me or anything." Grace pulled the strip of rubber off and rolled it between her fingers. "You said she used to make you name them. So I thought maybe she put that in. Kayla at school, her grandma wrote her a whole letter before she died, and it was mostly about money. So I just wondered."

"Do you want to read it?"

Grace looked up.

"You can," Carrington said.