Page 37 of Broken Discipline
Bunny’s jaw dropped. “Your ‘Compound’?”
“Go out for a drink,” Finn said. “Between the nanny and me, we can handle the kids.”
Bunny swirled around, finding the nanny, standing sheepishly to the side.
“Or I can go,” the nanny said, bowing her head at me. “It’s up to you, Mrs. Carter.”
I forced myself to relax my shoulders. It was hard to let go, especially when it came to my kids. But something inside of me knew I could trust them. I needed to give them a chance.
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll be back in an hour.”
Bunny squealed like a hyena. “Where’s the nearest watering hole?”
We drove two blocks down to a little bar in downtown Fairview. The interior was designed like a steampunk warehouse, and the artisanal cocktails were more decorative than practical: the complete opposite of the drinks Bunny served at her bar.
Bunny lifted a martini glass with smoke coming off of the rim. “Can you imagine doing something like this in The Raw?” she asked. “The whole place would be up in flames within seconds.”
I laughed, and Bunny tossed back her drink. “How’ve you been?” I asked. “Still slinging drinks at The Raw?”
“It’s my grave. You know that.” Her shoulders shifted as she scanned the place. “So this is what you ghosted us for?” She swung her finger in the air. “A nanny. Overpriced drinks. And your husband. The man with the beard, right?”
I nodded. “Kind of hot, huh?”
“Nice body, but the blue eyes are weird. Too opaque. They’re contacts, right?”
I furrowed my brows. Contacts would make sense, since sometimes, there were flashes of gray in his eyes, but I couldn’t tell.
“What is it?” Bunny asked, nudging my shoulder. “Spit it out.”
I couldn’t tell if she was used to that kind of communication since she had owned a bar for decades, or if she was still familiar with my body language. I shrugged.
“What do you do when you know you shouldn’t trust someone, but you trust them anyway?”
Bunny huffed through her nose and crossed her arms. “Okay. Stop being coy. Why shouldn’t you trust your husband?”
It’s not like I could tell her about Carter Care. I shrunk down in my seat. “He does bad things?”
“Like, sell drugs to kids, bad? Manipulate the stock market, bad? Oh! Is he a politician? An abuser? What kind of bad are we talking about here?”
I blinked my eyes, trying to figure out if I could tell her the truth. My stomach twisted, and she waved a hand at me.
“Fine, fine, fine,” she muttered. “Don’t tell me. But let me ask you this: is he good with the kids?”
I pulled out my phone, tapping the screen until the video monitor popped up from the nursery. Finn was on his hands and knees, pretending to be a horse, while Leon rode on top of him and Larkin shouted from the top of her bed. The nanny was in the corner, organizing a pile of books.
I showed it to Bunny, and she shook her head. “Doesn’t that make your ovaries drop?” she asked.
My whole body flushed with guilt. The twins had been removed from school for the next twenty-four hours; they probably shouldn’t have been playing like nothing had happened. But part of me was glad that Finn was so soft when it came to them. It’s like he knew that there was a time forthoseconversations; maybe he was even leaving it up to me. And right then, he was more worried about making the twins smile again.
There were so many things about Finn that made me feel conflicted, but no matter how much I tried to deny it, I knew I trusted him.
“I guess,” I said. Bunny rolled her eyes, knowing that I was downplaying it.
“I don’t know, girl,” she said, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “If he’s keeping you and the kiddos safe and happy, what more could you want?”
Warmth filled me. As time went on, he kept pulling those strings of worry loose, until they were gone, and Ihadto trust him. Sometimes, it even felt like he was too good to be true.
And that was what scared me.
