Page 132 of The Nanny Goal

I was hoping for offers of help. For once, I wanted them to worry aboutme.

Fingers shaking, I text Alexei.

Told my parents. They reminded me that I can’t leave you high and dry without a nanny, so I’m going to make some calls today.

Immediately, dots start to appear on the screen.

Then they disappear.

I wait a minute, but when he doesn’t actually send whatever he typed, I get up and try to busy myself by doing a load of laundry. I only get as far as taking the basket of clean clothes to Alexei’s bed—and then I promptly crawl onto his side and bury my face in his pillow.

“You’re ridiculous,” I tell myself.

I blow a big raspberry, then check my phone again.

Still no message.

I push myself off his bed and get back to the laundry. I’m not sure where any of his stuff goes, but the door to his closet is open, so I carry a folded stack of clothes in there—and whistle.

“Okay, well, your closet is bigger than my bedroom,” I mutter under my breath.

He only uses part of it, too. There’s a whole empty side to the room, so I put his stack of clean clothes on one of those shelves. There’s no way he’ll miss them.

Then I step back and take a look at myself in the floor to ceiling mirror on the wall.

“Nice lighting, too,” I murmur.

I step closer to the mirror to check on just how splotchy my face is—not bad—then check my phoneagain.

Still no message.

Whatever Alexei was going to say, he put it on delete instead of send.

I twist a few strands of hair back into place with my fingers, then put my hand on my hip and cock a leg out.

“It’s good to stand up for yourself,” I tell myself in the mirror.

And then I take a picture for posterity.

Maybe it’s the self-talk, maybe it’s the click of the shutter, maybe it’s the emotional overload, but for whatever reason, I don’t hear Alexei until he appears in the doorway to his closet and leans against the jam.

“There you are,” he says.

I shriek and jump two feet in the air, spinning around.

“Oh my God,” I mutter, pulse racing. “You scared me.”

His eyebrows lift. “You didn’t see me come in on the front door cam?”

I wave my phone in the air. “I have notifications turned off because Inessa has a habit of taking off with my phone and she clicks on all the banners on the screen. Wouldn’t want her to accidentally start talking to a delivery driver.”

He muffles a laugh as he nods. Then he gestures to the mirror. “Don’t let me interrupt the selfie.”

I flush. “It’s not a vanity thing.”

“You can be vain. You’re fucking gorgeous.”

I scrunch my nose.

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