Page 79 of The Billionaire's One-Night Stand Nanny
I added this last note to the collection, then closed the box.
I didn’t need to wait any longer.
* * *
“Hi, Miss Connelly.” Maddie was waiting in the doorway to my classroom, an excited summer vacation smile on her familiar, and yet not so familiar face: she’d grown up a lot this year, some of the childish softness melting from her cheeks. She’d started doing her hair in a different way, and when she spoke, it was with more confidence. “My dad told me you were going to take me home from school today.”
“Hey, Maddie,” I said. “Let me just pack up here a little bit.”
She nodded, coming in and sitting in a desk in the front row, her backpack on the floor beside her.
“It feels weird to know I’m not coming back,” she said after a moment where the only sound was the shuffling of her feet against the terrazzo floor. “I’ll be amiddle schoolernext year.”
I put down my papers and came around my desk to sit next to her. “You’re growing up.”
“Yeah,” she said listlessly. “It feels… like, I’m happy I’m not a fifth grader anymore. But it’s a little uncomfortable to know I’ll never be a fifth grader again. What if I’m really bad at being a middle schooler?” she asked, looking up at me with a strained expression.
“Oh, Maddie,” I said. I held out my hand to her and she took it. I squeezed gently before letting her pull away. “You’ll be just as amazing a sixth grader as you were a fifth grader this year. And that’s really,superamazing.” She scrunched up her nose and I laughed softly. “And,” I added. “You’ll have your dad there whenever it gets hard and confusing. Your mom. Michael, who will be yourstepdadsoon.”
“And you?” she said, bringing a smile to my lips and an anxious flutter to my stomach.Would she approve of my relationship with her dad?
“Yeah, of course,” I said. “I won’t be your nanny, or a teacher at your school, but I’ll always be your friend. You know I’ll always be here for you.”
She nodded, staring over at my desk.
“And for my dad,” she said, and I blinked. She looked over at me, her lips curving up slightly even as she tried to repress a smile. “I saw the receipt in the dish in the hall.Oneflower? Who buysone flower?”
“Lots of people, probably,” I said, knowing even as I did so that it wasnota convincing argument.
Maddie wasn’t buying it, either. She raised her eyebrows, the image of her dad. “Sure. That’s why you’re walking me home for no reason today, when I’ve walked home a hundred times this year by myself.”
I opened my mouth for a rebuttal, realized I didn’t have one, and sighed instead. “Okay.”
Her smile widened. “I knew it.I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want Serena to tell me I wasdaydreamingagain,” she said, rolling her eyes, “but Iknewit was you. He was so happy last summer, and then he was sosadthis fall.”
Her simple words stuck in my chest, making my throat feel thick. In Maddie’s eyes, it was that simple. He was happy, then he was sad. I was happy, then I was sad.
“And then… you started getting flowers,” she said. “And he wasn’t so sad anymore.” She shrugged, and then her grin was back. “Helikesyou.”
“You think so?” I asked, smiling, and she nodded seriously.
“Iknowso.”
“Well,” I said, standing up from the cramped fifth-grader-sized desk. Maddie did the same, slinging her backpack over one shoulder. I dragged the other strap up onto her as well, my arms on her shoulders. She’d grown taller this year by several inches; her head came up to my chin now. “Shall we go see if you’re right?”
CHAPTER39
Ryan
I shouldn’t have takenthe day off,I thought, pacing back into the foyer. I could have worked from home, even knocked off early–Charlie wouldn’t mind–and still had something to occupy myself until… I checked my watch: it was three fifty-five. They should be here by now. Maybe Flora had to clear out some stuff from her classroom?Or maybe she was explaining to Maddie how she was sorry, but she was moving to Alaska and would never see her–us–again?whispered the knot of anxiety in my stomach. I was being irrational. That was what happened when I had too much time on my hands. That, and… I looked around at the state of the foyer. What had I been thinking? Was it too much? Of course, itwastoo much, but was it too,toomuch?
There was a jingle of keys in the lock. Maddie had graduated to walking the block from school to home by herself since she turned eleven, and was feeling extraordinarily grown up about her little freedom, the key I’d had cut for her at the hardware store. I’d thought about giving her the set of keys we’d always given the nanny, but I couldn’t look at them without thinking of Flora up against the kitchen counter, and so she’d gotten a new one. It had an initial keyring on it that had cost a small fortune–a little accessory from a designer the girls at school were wild over and her mother approved of–and the silverMreminded me of how my sweet daughter was growing up.
The door creaked open, a small giggle announcing Maddie’s arrival, then a gasp as she stepped into the foyer.
“Dad!”
“Hey, bug,” I said. “Welcome home.”
