Page 91 of Stolen Fate

Thank God he was here. I didn’t know what I would have done if he wasn’t, and yes, a small part of me did think Camila had somehow made bail and came back to kidnap my son without me knowing. I wouldn’t have put it past her to do something like that.

I closed the door behind me so as not to let in the hallway light and wake them up.

They both had a pretty hectic day and needed their sleep.

I walked closer to the bed and adjusted the blanket over Evelyn’s delicate and pale shoulder, gently removing some of the brown strands of hair that had fallen over her face. She wrinkled her nose a bit but didn’t wake. Instead, she snuggled closer to Elliot, and I couldn’t help but smile.

She loved Elliot.

I knew it a few weeks into her employment that she had fallen heads over heels with him. I didn’t blame her. Elliot was easy to love.

Coming out to Boston and hiring Evelyn was one of the best decisions of my life.

I hadn’t been planning on hiring a nanny. Truth to be told, I didn’t think I was ready to put Elliot’s care in another woman’s hand so soon after what happened with the last one.

Between then and my hiring of Evelyn, most of Elliot’s time was either spent with me or his Uncle Jensen. Sometimes with Ms. Bennett, our cook, even though babysitting wasn’t in her job description.

I had help from my mom when she visited, and even that one time with my dad, but I didn’t want to leave Elliot in either of their care for more than a few hours a day. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them, I just didn’t want them to be their usual careless selves around a five-year-old boy who needed the adults in his life to focus solely on him.

But things were getting hard.

It wasn’t practical to run a business and take care of a child by myself. I had needed help. I knew that, but it didn’t mean I was happy about it.

Even still, I wasn’t sure what made me pick Evelyn, only that I had come all the way out to Boston to see her and, even from a distance, I could tell she was sad.

I didn’t like it.

I didn’t like the sight of her sadness, and I didn’t know why.

I had every intention of introducing myself, of telling her about Elliot, but I didn’t want to bring a strange woman into Elliot’s life without first knowing what kind of person she was.

She never said it, but the first time I kissed her scar and saw her reaction, I knew she was still messed up about all that had happened.

I decided then to bring her and Elliot together, but in an environment that I could control. Should things have gone wrong or had I been wrong about her, I could kick her out of Elliot’s life. But I wasn’t wrong. Evelyn was everything I believed her to be and so much more.

What I had been wrong about was my ability to control my attraction to her, to stay away from her.

I couldn’t—and, more importantly, I didn’t want to.

Evelyn got under my skin, but I would never want it any other way.

I rubbed my son’s head and watched as he wrinkled his nose, the same way Evelyn had done just moments before.

I wondered if they ever realized just how similar they were.

Everyone said Elliot looked like me. From our blue eyes to our mannerisms and the coloring of our skin and hair.

And that was true. I had looked almost exactly like Elliot when I was his age, except for our smiles and our noses. Those he got from his mother.

And what a beautiful smile it was.

He didn’t just smile with his lips, he smiled with his whole face. His blue eyes would wrinkle a bit around the corners, the blue irises lighting up, especially if he found something amusing, and his lips would curve up in a wide smile, showing off both rows of his teeth.

It was a sight to behold.

I was glad he at least got his smile from her, though I would have liked it if he had gotten more of her features.

I couldn’t make out the features very well in the dark of the room. Evelyn’s curtains were a sheer white, and they let in just enough lighting from the lamppost outside her window, so that I could make out the identical smiles they each wore in their sleep.

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