Page 6

“Sophie, get off the table,” I barked.

Sophie climbed down, the wooden spoon dangled at her side. She looked at the floor, her shoulders hunched forward, and the smile I’d seen on the security camera was long gone.

I stood there looking between the two of them while everyone on the call waited. A four hundred million dollar deal was waiting while I stared at the two of them.

“Apparently, it looks as if we will have to discuss the rules again later,” I said through clenched teeth to Ember. “Now keep it down.”

I turned and walked back to my office, closed the door, sat down and unmuted the call.

“Sorry about that,” I said to the six people who waited on my screen. “Where were we?”

Even though the singing had stopped, I could still hear the echo of it. Sophie’s voice, high and completely off-key, sounded so happy it made my head hurt.

Rebecca used to sing that song. Every October, starting the first day of fall, she’d sing it while she decorated, baked, and carved pumpkins in the living room with Sophie on her lap. Sophie had been too little to do anything but grab handfuls of pumpkin guts and laugh. Rebecca’s voice was terrible, and she knew it, but that made her sing louder on purpose, making a fool of herself to make Sophie laugh.

The call ended at nine, and by the time I’d finished up my notes, sent a follow-up email to the legal division, and emerged from the office, the house was dark and quiet, just the way it was supposed to be.

I stood in the kitchen and poured two fingers of scotch over a large, round ball of ice. Then I walked through the first floor, checking the locks. It was a habit that Rebecca used to tease me about all the time. She’d probably make fun of me now more than ever that I was still doing this in such a small town.

I stopped outside the living room. Ember had left a lamp on. I stepped in to shut it off and there on the couch, curled up, was Ember.

She was fast asleep.

Her shoes were tucked neatly under the coffee table, and her laptop was open on the ottoman in front of her, the screen dark.

It was almost eleven, and I’d of figured she would have retired to her room hours ago.

On the coffee table, a folder lay open, labeled Craft Day Ideas. Inside there was a sheet of paper with the header MY FAMILY TRADITIONSwritten in pink marker. Below it, in Sophie’s handwriting, were a few lines about coding a dinosaur game with Daddy on Saturday and going to the Pistachio Sweet Shop for some chocolate on the first day of every month. That was a tradition Rebecca had started, and the only one Sophie still insisted that I keep.

The rest of the poster was blank.

Just as I was about to stand up, I noticed in faint pencil Ember had written some suggestions. Ask Daddy about Grandma’s and Mommy’s special recipes. What about dinosaur museum trips? Songs you sing together? Holiday traditions? Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day?

Was she really going to waste her time by doing some silly craft on family traditions?

I should have woken her up and told her to go to bed. I should have reminded her of her hours and warned her that working late without approval was completely unprofessional and wouldn’t be paid, but I really wasn’t in the mood to talk. Besides, each time I spoke to her, she looked up at me with those large brown eyes, and I completely forgot what point I was trying to make. Instead, I grabbed the blanket from the back of the armchair and draped it over her legs. I was about to turn and leave, but the screen of her laptop lit up.

The blanket must have hit the keyboard when I covered her with it. I was going to shut the light off, I hadn’t been trying to read what was on her screen, but I caught a few lines before I could stop.

Ethan Blackwood stood at the window of his corner office, forty-two floors above the city, and watched the rain fall on people. People who still believed in things. His hands were in his pockets, his jaw tight.

“Mr. Blackwood?” His assistant hovered in the doorway. “Your daughter’s nanny is here.”

He didn’t turn around. “Send her in.”

What he wanted to say was, send her away. Send all of them away. Every single smiling, competent, well-meaning woman who walked into his child’s life and into his, each one of them trying to fill the space that Sarah left the day she died. Send them all away before my daughter gets too attached. Before I get too attached and have to watch someone else leave, carving a jagged line deep into my soul that won’t ever heal.

I glanced at the top of the document. The document’s title was Moonlit Mistakes - D.E. Jones.

I stared at the screen.

Then I looked down at Ember Wilde as she slept. Her mouth was slightly open, one hand curled beneath her chin. She looked younger asleep. I turned off the lamp and stood there watching her in the dark living room as the laptop screen timed out, plunging the room into darkness.

I made my way upstairs and checked in on Sophie. She was asleep, her arm around one of her stuffed dinosaurs. There was a paper bat taped to her headboard.

I pulled her door closed and moved to my room, sitting down on the edge of the bed, emptying my glass of scotch in one gulp. I grabbed my phone and typed D.E. Jones into my browser, and within a minute I was staring at a picture of Ember Wilde. Underneath her photograph, it read Coming soon, a brand new, highly anticipated romance release by D.E. Jones, Moonlit Mistakes, releasing next year.

Fuck me. Was it possible she was writing about me, basing her male main character, Ethan, on me? I shook my head; there was no way; we’d just met. Then I thought back to what I’d read. She was writing about me. My new nanny was writing a fucking romance novel about me.