Page 55 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

Lucy's hand tightened on the pins. "She hasn't done anything."

"I know she hasn't."

"I told her I'd call her if you weren't all right."

"Then tell her I'm fine," Carrington said.

"All right."

"Thank you."

Lucy laid the pins out in a row on the nightstand, small and bent, and picked her book up off the chair. She stood there holding it, and Carrington wanted to take it away from her and put it back down, but she didn't move.

"You don't have to go down tonight," Carrington said.

"If I'm doing it, I'm doing it." Lucy stopped at the door with her hand on it. "What do you want in the log?"

"Whatever's true," Carrington said.

"All right," Lucy said and left.

Carrington sat where she was until she heard the courtyard door open and shut again. Then she crawled into bed. She lay down on the side she had been sleeping on since April and left the other side alone.

Carrington was in the study before six with the lamp off. The reply to Diane was on the desk mat, signed, with the household list clipped behind it to go out Monday.

She had been awake since four. She looked out the window. The low lights were still illuminating the path as far as the hedge and the grass shone with dew. The cottage light was on, but the curtain was pulled so she couldn’t see inside. At almost six, the cottage door opened and Lucy walked up the gravel pathway, not rushing.

She was in the house for about ten minutes. Carrington did not go out to the hall. Then Lucy came back out through the courtyard door with a box against her hip and went down the path again, never once taking a backward glance at the house. When she got to the cottage, she opened the door and carried the box inside. A minute later, the light winked out.

Carrington breathed out, and something in her chest that had been clenched since the day before let go. She stood there and waited to feel bad about being relieved, but she didn't.

20

LUCY

"Does Ms. Harper eat down there now or up here?"

Lucy had her hands in the sink. She started to turn around.

"Down there," Carrington said.

"Right." The chef marked it off on her list and went into the pantry for the flour.

The water was hot enough that Lucy had stopped feeling it. She shut it off and stood there with her hands dripping into the basin. She lifted the pan out and stood it on the rack.

"Ms. Harper."

Lucy looked over her shoulder. The pantry door was open and the chef was at the back of it, moving cans. Nobody else was in the kitchen.

"Ms. Cole," she said.

"There's a form on the hall table about the aquarium trip in June. Fill it in and leave it out for me to sign."

"All right."

She shook the water off her hands and dried them down the front of her jeans, then turned around. Carrington was standing across the island from her in the gray suit, a book open in front of her and her mug of coffee at her elbow. She had been down here in the kitchen for about ten minutes and had not touched either one.

"In front of Grace, I'd like you to still call me Lucy," she said.