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Since Cal was mostly aiming for not bankrupting the estate in paying off Ross’s debts, Heather’s assessment seemed a little optimistic, but he took the point. Well, mostly...
‘This is what I can do for them,’ he said. ‘And this does matter.’
Heather rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, fine—it matters. But what good is it going to do them if they’re so screwed up by their childhood that they go off the rails before they’re eighteen and blow through their inheritance in a fortnight the moment they get it?’
Cal froze at her words. Heather couldn’t know it, but she was describing the life cycle of the average Bryce male right there. How had he never seen that before? Yes, their tendency towards scandal and self-destruction might be bred into the genes, but it wasn’t only there. It was learned, too.
It was too late for Ross, and probably too late for Cal, too. But maybe it wasn’t too late for Ryan and Daisy.
Obviously encouraged by his stunned silence, Heather went on. ‘They need more than a nanny and a good boarding school, Cal. They’ve lost their parents—you saw what lengths they went to today just to feel close to them again. They’ve closed off until they only have each other. They don’t believe anyone will stay—that’s why they’ve been driving the nannies away. Well, them and the ghost, I suppose...’
‘But you’ll stay,’ Cal said. ‘Won’t you?’
She met his gaze, her eyes a wonderful bright green against her pale skin. Like summer leaves, full of life and vibrancy.
‘Yes. I’ll stay.’
There was a promise in her words, a truth he could rely on, and Cal realised that he trusted her in a way he hadn’t trusted anyone since Ross. Since he was a child who hadn’t known any better.
Heather would stay.
If there were no other truths and hard facts in the world that at least he was sure of. Whatever happened to Lengroth and the estate finances, and the children and boarding school, and even that damn ghost, Heather was one of them now. Tied in through a baby no one had expected or wanted until it was growing inside her and Heather had decided to love it anyway.
Because that was the sort of person she was. He’d only known her two days but Cal knew that already. Heather was good and honest and true and faithful. She’d said she would stay, so she would.
And even if a large part of his brain was telling Cal that he should send her away...set her free from Lengroth before the Bryce family ruined her the way they ruined everything else... Cal knew he wouldn’t do it.
Not because she looked beautiful when she was feeling righteous about something, or because she’d shown up with a rubber duck under her arm to tell him about her night with Ross because it was ‘the right thing’. Not even because she was pregnant with Ross’s child, and the only nanny who stood a chance of sticking it out with Daisy and Ryan.
But because Lengroth Castle—and more specifically his niece and nephew—needed an infusion of that goodness if they ever wanted to stand a chance of breaking the cycle of destruction and pain in the future.
‘But if I’m staying, Cal—’
‘Which you are,’ he interrupted quickly, in case she’d changed her mind while he was ruminating.
‘Then I need you to support me with the children.’
‘I told you—laptops, books, whatever you need,’ he said quickly. ‘Money is no object.’ He might have depleted his own personal funds significantly to pay off Ross’s debts, but that didn’t mean he was exactly hard up compared to the rest of the population. He could afford whatever it took to help Heather fix his niece and nephew. And there were always investments he could cash in if it proved necessary.
Soon Lengroth would be back on its feet and the estate would repay everything he’d invested. At least that was the plan.
But Heather shook her head. ‘This isn’t about money, Cal. It’s about you.’
He stared blankly at her and she sighed.
‘They need more than things,’ she explained. ‘They’ve lost their parents—they’ve lost love and faith and their trust in the world. They need their new guardian to step up and fill that gap. They need you to love them and show them that. Every single day.’
