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Uncle.
It was the first time he’d called me that. I realized with grim embarrassment that he’d never referred to me at all. Not by name, title, or otherwise.
How had I not noticed that before?
“Can I… have a word with you, please?” I said to Bianca.
“Sure,” she said. Then she turned to Cleb. “I’m going to talk with your uncle for a minute, okay? I’ll join you in your room later so you can show those fancy toys you told me about.”
“Okay!”
He told her about his toys?
Cleb took off at a run into the house.
“No running!” I said feebly.
Cleb slowed down to the fastest walk known to Titan and proceeded up the stairs.
I spun on her.
“How did you do that?” I said. “He’s been here three months and he’s never played like that!”
“He’s a little boy,” she said. “They all play like that, given the chance.”
That rubbed me up the wrong way.
“He’s going to want you to stay now,” I barked. “That was your plan all along, wasn’t it? That might be how other families like their children to be treated, but not here.”
She blinked in surprise at that. A series of lines drew across her face as she frowned at me with incredulity.
“I was outside with Waev, who was showing me the beautiful flowers in your garden when Cleb started talking to me. There was no plan. He spoke to me.”
I ground my teeth, chagrined. I’d flown off the handle. All she’d done was be friendly to Cleb.
“I apologize,” I said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Sometimes I see ploys where there aren’t any—”
“I understand now why Cleb acted up the way he did before,” Bianca said, ignoring my apology and going on the offense. “You asked me how I got him to play like that. The answer is simple. You have to be in the same room as him to do it. That’s the magic ingredient. And not spy on him from the bathroom.”
If I turned any redder with embarrassment, I would have exploded. Others had beaten me in negotiations before but never so quickly or with apparent ease.
I swallowed my pride.
“I want you to be his governess,” I said. “I’ll give you the same deal I gave the previous one.”
“Oh no,” Bianca said, her eyes meeting mine. “You’re going to do no such thing. You’re going to give me something a lot better than what she got. You can bet your bottom credit on that. And that’s if I decide to accept the position. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some toys to go look at.”
I knew a losing position when I saw one. With Cleb in her back pocket, she held all the cards. I didn’t have a leg to stand on.
She took off up the stairs with the energy of a newborn gazelle.
She was going to cost me, I thought, and cost me big.
And yet, I couldn’t help but smile. There was no such thing as a dead cert in business. Things always came with risks. But I would have staked everything I owned that she would take me to the cleaners.
What frightened me even more was that I wanted her to.
Because then she would be in my house and I could gaze at her every day.
