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“I’m not using a fucking nanny,” I growl, my anger boiling over.
I want to chuck my empty beer bottle across the room and watch it shatter against the wall, the pieces falling to the ground in a broken, irreconcilable mess.
Oh how quickly I can see that what I thought I built up with stone I actually built with sand. Sand that has washed away to reveal just how unsteady and broken our foundation was.
What was I thinking, picking up our life and moving? As if simply walking away from our problems could solve them.
“How about this?”
The sound of my dad’s voice draws my head up, and I find him leaning back on the kitchen island, watching me with the same kind of care and attention he has always given to me during rough times.
“Why don’t we give you a few weeks and see how things go? Get some quality time with Teddy. Move through some of the stages of grief.”
I almost want to laugh at that. My father might be caring, but he also lives by deadlines and the idea that men don’t need to take too much time to mourn. Grief should be processed quickly and efficiently.
But I let it pass without comment because…he means well.
“Your mother and I will be heading back to Charleston on Sunday, and then you can take some time, just you and Ted, to grieve and adjust. We’ll plan to be back out here in a month or two, and we can talk about it then.”
I grit my teeth but bite my tongue.
“Okay. We can talk about it when you come back to town,” I say, knowing full well I have no intention of doing so.
But he doesn’t need to know that now. He can find out later when he comes back and I’ve sorted everything already and have no need for a fucking nanny.
My nose crinkles just thinking the word.
chapter two
emily
“Still the same?”
I let out a sigh and close my laptop a bit too hard, as if it’s Apple’s fault that there’s nothing in my inbox.
“Yeah, pretty much,” I reply, letting out a long sigh of frustration and slumping further into the massive bean bag chair I’m currently flopped upon.
Leighton crosses the room and comes up behind me, placing a kiss on the crown of my head.
“It’ll all work out, Em. I just know it. The universe has a way of making everything alright in the end.”
I give my best friend a small but genuine smile. She has been an absolute godsend over the past few months, coming to my rescue and saving me from homelessness. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
“Well, maybe it’s time to give the universe a nudge, you know? Suck it up and move somewhere new. I mean, that’s why lots of people become live-in nannies, right? To live in exotic locations?”
A stricken expression forms on Leighton’s face and she rushes over to me, gripping my shoulders and shaking me dramatically.
“No, no, no!” she exclaims. “You can’t just pick up and move. I need you here.”
I let out a brief laugh. She’s always been one with a flair for the dramatic.
“Leighton, I can’t stay in Sandalwood just because you want me here.” I give her head a few condescending pats, and she makes a hmph noise and flops down on top of me, my response having apparently sucked the life out of her. “As lovely as it would be, I have to make money. Which is why I’ve encroached upon your living room in the first place.”
Leighton’s head pops up and she glares at me.
“You I know I love it, right? Having you here?”
I give her a look.
