Page 10 of Love Me Not

“I even offered to take her to Adventureland,” she said with a shrug.

With a sigh, I looked out to the backyard.Bella was now on her iPad, acting as if she hadn’t just been throwing rocks at my office wall.

“The nanny’s coming soon,” I informed them, unable to take my eyes off the pouting eight-year-old.

I felt a pang of grief when I saw her.It was inevitable.When she was born, I thought she looked more like that useless piece of shit Lily married.It annoyed me that she went through nine months of pain, high blood pressure, and an emergency C-section for her to come out looking like him.

It was insulting.Just like their entire relationship had been.She loved him unconditionally.Didn’t matter that he didn’t have a job or provide for them.

She said he was a good dad.She overlooked it when he’d come home late.When he’d miss important events.I didn’t even go to family events anymore because of my vile mother, but I heard enough to know he wouldn’t go to them either, leaving both of them to fend for themselves.

But as she spent more time with me, the more I could see my beloved sister in her.

Especially in her temper.

My sister was sweet and took a lot of shit from everyone for the sake of love, but when you got her angry—oh boy.I distinctly remember hiding out in my closet one day after school when she got mad at me for tearing up her homework.

In my defense, I thought it was a love letter from the boy who bullied her.

I saw that same girl now in Bella.

“That’s good,” the chef said with a sigh.“I love that little girl to death, but I’m not cut out for babysitting.”

“Me neither,” the driver muttered.Her hair was in a mess, her bangs pushed up and to the side after running her hands through it one too many times.“The only experience I have is babysitting my baby cousins once in seventh grade.”

“At least you have experience.”

The truth was that I was allergic to kids.I had never wanted them.Never had a maternal bone in my body.I always wanted love.Yearned for it.But kids?They were a whole different ball game.

You had to carry the child for nine—if not ten—months, your bones literally shifting in place, gaining up to sixty pounds sometimes, only to go through the most traumatic experience of your life before having to take care of a living, breathing thing that literally can't do anything on their own.

Not to mention, relying on a partner becoming a good parent.

But then Bella came into my life.I definitely wasn't her first choice of guardian, but my sister had put it in her will that she would go to me.She even had all the paperwork drawn up.All I had to do was sign.

And I couldn't leave her.I might not have been close to her before, but there was no way I would leave her in the hands of my mother.

I wanted to be the aunt she needed, but I never wanted this.I never prepared for this.It had never crossed my mind.To me, my sister would live forever, and I would die way before her death even became a topic.

Bella deserved someone better than me.More prepared.More maternal.More structured.Someone who could go on a field trip and would know what to say at parent-teacher conferences.Someone who knew how to address her and do her hair in the morning instead of leaving her to do it herself.

Someone who was definitelynotme.

I watched how she tapped angrily on her iPad, her lips still in a pout.She had the same dark brown hair as my sister's husband, but her eyes were the beautiful hazel of my sister.She was still in the T-shirt and puffy tutu skirt she had picked out this morning, though now it was pretty dirty.Just more evidence that she was actually digging in the dirt for rocks to throw at my wall.

With a click of my tongue, I turned on my heels and headed back to my office.I sat down at my desk, my hands gripping the sides of my chair.

This one has to work.I don't have any other options.I'm running out of time?—

The thumping against my back wall started again.She started with just a single rock, then paused when I didn't immediately come back out before throwing another.And another.And another.

Tomorrow.Just wait till tomo?—

Then I heard a crash somewhere.It sounded like something shattering.

Again, my mind went back to the message I wanted to send the information broker.I could just do this one thing for myself.

Just like my trip to the club, I neededsomething.Anything to take my mind off the stress of the real world.It wasn’t what I should be spending my time on, but it was just some information, right?

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