Page 82 of The Grump I Got Stuck With

I grimaced, frustration pulsing in my temples. I was sick of arguing about how I am never good enough because I refuse to be their mini me. They knew nothing about what I really wanted, nothing about who I really was, and they probably wouldn’t listen even if I tried to explain. So why was I wasting time on this call when Kenna was waiting for me?

“Wait,” I said suddenly, my thoughts tripping over something Mom had said. “The cover?” Why would I be the one making the cover of the magazine? “What exactly did that journalist say about me?”

“He had a lot of questions. Then Marjorie next door couldn’t wait to show us a video clip of that billionaire talking to the press about you,” Mom said. “Apparently it’s going viral.”

I frowned. Alistair made a point of not talking to the media. This didn’t make any sense.

“I’ll send you the link,” Mom said.

“Okay, I’ve gotta run. Kid duties. Talk to you later.”

“Call us and let us know when you’re flying back,” Dad said.

Yeah, I’ll get right on that. I hung up and returned to Kenna. One very long story later, she was finally asleep, and I tucked myself into the library with a cup of tea and opened the video link. It was Alistair outside the police station, surrounded by screaming paparazzi.

So you’re saying she’s no one to you?

My heart thundered.

She’s just the nanny.

Hearing those words like that made my stomach turn.

I tried to tell myself Alistair was simply doing the same thing I’d done with my parents. He was being discreet, not wanting to blab about our personal relationship to people who wouldn’t treat that information with respect. But as I watched the video over and over on repeat, his words started to pierce the spaces between my ribs with dagger-like precision.

A swell of tears burned behind my eyes. I hadn’t felt like just the nanny in a long time. Alistair and Kenna…we’d become a little family, hadn’t we? Hadn’t we? Or had I only convinced myself of that? Perhaps I was simply a convenience to Alistair. A good time he could access without having to leave the privacy of his home.

Maybe I’d read far more into this relationship than he had.

A sharp laugh of disbelief bled between my lips. That had been my relationship track record, hadn’t it? I gave everything, every piece of myself, and still got disregarded.

But that couldn’t be what was happening here. I tried to think of how Alistair treated me. The way he looked at me. The way he held me. But that video played on repeat in my mind, and I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.

“You’re still awake?” Alistair said, walking into the library well past midnight. When he’d finally messaged to say he was boarding his flight back from London, all I could manage was a thumbs-up.

I wrenched myself out of my own spiraling thoughts to look at him. “I wanted to know how it went with Jessica.”

He shrugged, loosening his tie. “Fine.”

“Fine?” He breezed past me to his secret bar cart. “You went all the way to London for fine? Did the two of you even get to talk?”

“Of course we talked.”

I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. “What did you talk about?” I pressed.

“What do you think?” he snapped, pulling the stopper out of a crystal bottle of whiskey.

I shrugged. “I have no idea because you won’t tell me.”

“Look, I’m tired and I don’t want to get into it right now.”

“Right,” I said, crossing my arms to keep my hands from shaking. From his tone, he didn’t get that closure he was after, which I felt bad about, but it didn’t surprise me. Jessica wasn’t a good person.

I tried to shove my personal feelings aside. There were bigger concerns to discuss—namely Braeburn imminently being flooded with paparazzi. “While you were at the police station, Isla called. Apparently, the press located you in some of the pictures at the winter festival that she posted to the town tourism website.”

“I know,” he grumbled, pouring himself a rather large drink. “She left me a voicemail.”

“You could have at least responded to her. She called me freaking out, convinced you were furious with her.”