Page 78 of Only Mine
“Ivy.”
“She smells like too much perfume, and she talks to me like I’m a baby.” She stabs her French toast. “And she looks at you weird.”
“What do you mean, weird?”
“Like how Madison’s mom looks at you during school pickup. All smiley and giggly.” Ivy makes a disgusted face. “It’s gross.”
Christ. I mean, I’d noticed. I just didn’t care enough to deal with it.
“Miss Erin is qualified.”
“Miss Wrenley sings songs and knows about art and doesn’t care when I get dirty.” Ivy’s eyes fill with tears. “Why can’t she stay?”
Because I’m an idiot. Because I hired someone else instead of dealing with the fact that Wrenley makes me feel things I swore I was done feeling. Because last night I had her beneathme, around me, and this morning, I let her walk away thinking it meant nothing.
“It’s complicated,mon trésor.”
“I hate complicated.” She pushes her plate away. “I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat.”
“No.” She slides off her stool. “I’m going to my room.”
“Ivy.”
“I want Miss Wrenley!”
I dump both plates in the trash, appetite gone. Through the kitchen window, the guesthouse sits quiet, morning light catching on its windows and preventing me from seeing inside.
Do I even want to? Is she still there? Packing her things into those mismatched suitcases she arrived with? Where will she go after she leaves here?
My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Erin confirming she’ll arrive at six tomorrow morning. Professional. Punctual. Qualified.
Everything Wrenley isn’t supposed to be for this job.
Except, Wrenley was never just the nanny, was she? Not from that first morning when she stumbled into my kitchen with that random pink streak in her hair and startled deer eyes, cracking something open inside me I thought was dead. Something I’d buried with Celine and promised myself I’d never risk again.
I pour coffee with hands that want to punch something, the familiar ritual doing nothing to bring calm. A burn on my palm from a few days ago when I was distracted—thinking about Wrenley—reminds me of what happens when I lose control in the kitchen.
When I let myself feel too much, care too much, want too much.
Upstairs, Ivy’s crying shifts from angry to heartbroken, the sound yanking my heart straight out of my chest.
Fuck.
I take the stairs two at a time, coffee abandoned on the counter. Ivy’s door is closed, her sobs muffled but steady. I knock softly.
“Go away!”
“Baby, please.”
“I said go away! You ruined everything!”
I lean my forehead against her door, listening to my daughter fall apart because of the choices I made.
The smart choices.
The safe choices.
