Chapter 20
Maya
It was a coldhearted thing to do, and I loved every second of it.
I am not kissing that man until he explains. Everything. And then gives up his life of crime, obviously.
I lean against the opposite counter from Soren, still reveling in his discomfort as he downs a can of soda to dull the taste in his mouth.
He drops the aluminum can onto the counter with a clang. “I’m going to remember that little trick for the next time you try to kiss me.”
I cough. “The next time I try to kiss you?”
His lips twist in a comical and not at all appealing way as he pushes off his counter and stalks toward me. He halts mere inches away, then leans forward.
I instinctively lean back.
He doesn’t stop until his hands are on the edge of the counter beside my hips. “Admit it—you didn’t fulfill all your dreams with that kiss, and you’ll want more. You’ll be drawn back to me.” He picks up a lock of hair, twisting it around his finger. “You won’t be able to resist.”
I try my best to remain levelheaded, but his daring proximity and the whole dominant man vibe is dead sexy. I clear my throat. “I think you’re the one struggling.”
It feels like we are on the same page, fighting the same battle. Both of us want it, but neither of us dare to admit it. We are fanning the flames between us, just waiting to see who gets burned first. And who puts out the fire.
After the way he left me, he will have to be the one to lay it on the line. I won’t put myself out there only to be devastated.
He drops my hair, brushing his fingers down my neck. I fight everything in me not to shudder the way I did when he kissed that same spot earlier.
“Tell me you’re unaffected.”
I match his boldness. “Tell me you aren’t.”
His eyes meet mine. “I can’t do that.”
The intensity in his gaze sears into me, clamping around my heart, but I won’t let it make me weak. I place both hands on his chest and give him a shove. “Too bad I’ll never believe you.”
I spin on my heel and walk out of the room. He lets me.
I don’t know why I expected anything different. He always lets me go.
I don’t have long to sulk in my pity party when I find Arabella hiding tears on the living room couch.
Tears.
Of the alligator variety. Though what tears have to do with alligators, I’ve never quite understood.
“What’s wrong?” I ask gently. She’s like a timid animal; if I draw too much attention to her expression of normal human emotion, she’ll scurry away.
“Nothing.” She pouts, shoving her face into the cushions, like if I can’t see her tears, then they aren’t there. Sometimes I forget just how young she is. She’s learned to put up walls so things don’t hurt her, but underneath it all, she’s just a kid without her parents on Christmas.
I’ll have to distract her from that awful fact without making her angry. I’ve got to stay with her until her parents come back, and based on the text I received from her mom this morning, that’s two more days. Bella could kill me in that amount of time.
Four months ago, Bella came home from school bound and determined to play on her school baseball team. Her mom said no, effectively breaking her little heart, and no amount of pleading changed the verdict. Now feels like the perfect time to fulfill that dream.
“Good, because there’s no crying in baseball,” I say.
“If a Nerf war was dangerous, I think baseball is far worse,” Soren says, sitting on the edge of the sofa, a smirk on his face like he knows what I’m doing. “What about your beloved Elf?”
“Will Ferrell will wait for me.”
“Baseball?” Bella asks, timidly poking her head up from the throw pillows like a groundhog trying to see if it’s just a trick of the light. “How?”
“Snowballs and this.” I walk over to the toy chest and pull out her witch’s broomstick. “Whoever hits the building with Mrs. Morrison wins.”
Sparks light up her eyes.
Soren also looks intrigued by the idea. “Who is Mrs. Morrison?”
“A snobby old lady,” Bella explains. “She lives right there.” Bella points to the building directly to the east.
“So you’re in?” I ask Bella.
“Beat you there!” She jumps off the couch and grabs the makeshift bat.
Soren and I follow her outside where we scrape the snow off the ground and pat it into balls.
My fingers are frozen by the second one, and I cup my hands around my mouth and blow.
I need gloves or at least some socks if I’m going to make it through a gam—
Something hard pelts my back.
I gasp, whirling around to see Soren and Bella high-five.
I pick up one of my two snowballs and chuck it at Soren. It drops two feet in front of him. He watches it the whole way, chuckling when it misses so horrendously.
“She’s not on my team,” Soren says.
“I don’t want her either,” Bella retorts.
“Hey, I’m standing right here.” I pick up my other snowball and launch it into the air. This time it makes a satisfying thunk against Soren’s leg.
He sighs, but his eyes sparkle with playfulness. “Fine. I’ll keep her.”
Those words, so simple, so childish, cause a tingle to race up my spine. But then I get smacked in the arm by another snowball.
Bella cackles and runs off, hiding behind the hot tub.
“Let’s get her,” I say. We make snowball after snowball, throwing them far and wide around Bella and making sounds of disappointment with every miss.
She giggles harder each time she hits us.
Soren takes one to the stomach and makes a show of falling over, clutching his gut.
He’s a good actor. I have to remember that.
Ice smacks my face, and I reel around.
I look at Bella, but she’s pointing at Soren. Soren, who has a very guilty expression.
“My bad.”
The arrogant innocence is enough to move me. I charge at him. He doesn’t anticipate it, and stutter-steps away, only to slip. I can’t stop myself and fall into him, taking us both to the ground with a thud. My knee hits the hard concrete, but his body cushions the rest.
I’m pressed flat against his chest, our faces mere inches apart. Somewhere above us, Bella is laughing.
At least she’s no longer crying.
“I knew you’d try to kiss me again,” Soren says.
His smug smile has me grabbing a handful of snow and shoving it in his face. He laughs and rolls us both over, pinning me beneath him.
Delicate snowflakes glisten in the air as they lazily fall around us like glitter, and my gaze locates his lips.
I wait for him to get even, or to tease me more; instead, he pushes up. “Good thing I’m nice, huh?”
I stare at the cloudy sky, forcing deep breaths in and out of my lungs. I don’t want to kiss him. He’s trying to get in my head, but I won’t let him win.
“All right, let’s play ball. Look alive,” Soren hollers.
I stagger to my feet and position myself behind Soren so if Bella manages to hit an ice ball at me, his body will protect mine.
Bella brings the broom to her shoulder and steadies her feet. She concentrates, and when he lobs the snowball softly toward her, she swings so hard she spins on the slick concrete, missing the snowball entirely.
“Throw another one,” she insists, the determination on her face settling in as she rights herself.
She misses again.
“One more!”
Another miss.
“Again,” she yells, her voice strangled. This time when she swings, she makes contact. But the snowball smashes into a million pieces on her face.
She stomps her foot. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I grimace. To be fair, I’ve never batted a snowball. I didn’t know that would happen either.
“None of this was supposed to happen.” She kicks at the snow and then come the tears. Like Niagara Falls, they cascade down her cheeks. She chucks the broom into the snow and runs inside.
I follow her, but she’s fast and has already disappeared by the time I make it to the house, Soren on my heels.
“Where’d she go?” he asks as we pause at the door, waiting for our eyes to adjust.
“She’s hiding. I’ll take upstairs; you take downstairs.”
He nods once before taking off.
I search through all her regular spots. The laundry chute. The false compartment in the hall closet. Every secret room and passage I know about. Nothing.
The longer I search, the more my nerves skyrocket. Maybe this will be the time I have to call the police. Maybe she left. Maybe she’s hurt. But a quick replay of the front door security camera confirms she’s still inside.
I meet up with Soren in the kitchen.
“Anything?” I ask.
“No. You?”
I shake my head.
“It’s obviously somewhere she feels safe. Somewhere she planned to go. We were right on her heels, which means she went straight there.”
I sigh. “There’s only one room I haven’t checked.” The one room I’m not allowed to enter or access on the security feeds. It has its own security code. “Her parents’ suite.”
There are cameras everywhere else in the home, so I assume they will be alerted the second I step inside. If that’s the case, they would already know Soren isn’t supposed to be here and have called me. Which means… he still has control of the feeds. Which is both good and bad, I suppose.
Soren follows me up the stairs, and I feel like I’m walking to my doom.
I’ve avoided these rooms as if my life depends on it.
I was warned if I ever stepped foot in these rooms, I’d be fired.
But Bella means more to me than my job, which is ironic because she is my job.
I could wait for her to emerge, but it could be hours. She’s nothing if not determined.
The suite takes up nearly half of the second floor. Once inside, it splits into his-and-hers sides. Which makes sense now, considering their marital conflict.
“Don’t touch anything, and stay right beside me,” I tell Soren.
He salutes me and does as told.
“Bella?” I call out.
Silence.
I try a few more times, hoping to put off entering the rooms, but still nothing.
“I didn’t think that would work.” I sigh.
I turn right, unsure of whose set of rooms I’m about to enter. The grand door opens into a room set with deep mahogany wood and dark green accents. Mr. Hartwell.
There’s a small sitting room around a faux fireplace, a dark wood coffee table, and an impressive video game setup with multiple screens on the wall and five different controllers.
We check the sitting room, then move through the doorway to the bedroom.
A pair of Rolexes sit on top of the armoire, and I catch Soren eyeing them.
“Don’t even think about it.”
He puts his palms in the air with mock offense. “I was simply observing.”
“Uh-huh.”
I check under the bed, then the walk-in closet and large spa bathroom. Still no Bella.
I lead the way across the small corridor to the next set of rooms.
Bright white and cream make up the interior of these rooms.
“They couldn’t be more different,” Soren muses.
I wouldn’t know. I’ve only met Mrs. Hartwell. I’ve caught glimpses of Mr. Hartwell, and he’s always engaged with his phone, completely unaware of the world around him. Which annoys me, because his daughter is in that world.
Mrs. Hartwell is strict but civil on the few occasions she deigns to communicate with me. As long as Bella made it to all her many lessons and classes and didn’t wind up in trouble, she was content with my services.
Services.
That makes my role in Bella’s life seem so insignificant. She needs more than just me. She needs her parents.
This sitting room is light and airy with bouquets of cream and white flowers on multiple surfaces. The couch looks comfortable—a place Mrs. Hartwell may actually relax.
But it’s empty of a teary-eyed nine-year-old.
The bedroom is another layer of cream and white. In the center of the giant bed is Bella.
Her big watery eyes meet mine, her cheeks red from crying. “They left me.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her she played a role in that, because that’s not how she sees it. She was testing them, looking for confirmation they loved her, and they let her down.
I sit beside her, and she cuddles into me, laying her head on my lap. “I’m sorry, baby,” I whisper, brushing the tear soaked hair off her forehead.
I don’t know what to tell her. I know they love her, but they do a terrible job of showing it.
Soren is standing suspiciously close to the jewelry box on the armoire until I look up at him for reinforcement.
He drops onto the end of the bed. “It’s messed up,” he says.
I try to shoot him a “not helping” look, but he avoids my eyes.
“Sometimes parents forget what’s most important is right in front of them,” he continues. “And I bet sometimes you wonder if they even see you, so you throw a fit or make a mess.”
Bella’s body grows stiff on my legs.
“But they just get mad at you, and that feels even worse.” He’s still talking to Bella, and I wonder where he’s going with this and how to get him to shut up. She already feels bad.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Soren whispers.
Bella thinks for a long moment before nodding.
“Grown-ups are kind of stupid.”
“Sor—Derek,” I hiss.
“It’s true. Humans can speak several languages but still suck at communicating.
Because we think we know best. But we don’t see how our choices can also hurt those we love.
” At this, he looks up at me, and my heart thuds so hard against my ribcage it’s physically painful.
“Even though it’s hard, and it might be painful, we need someone to love us enough to tell us to stop. Stop running away.”
I swallow the sudden lump in my throat.
“So…I should tell my parents they are mean,” Bella says.
Soren gives her a soft smile. “You should tell them how they hurt you. What it felt like, and what you hope they will do differently in the future.”
Bella seems to think about this. Then she pops up and looks at me. “Can I call them?”
“Uh…” My eyes widen, and the words get stuck in my lungs. Will she tell them what’s happening here? About Derek?
Does it matter?
“Of course, sweetie. I’ll find your phone. Maybe it will work now.” I raise an eyebrow at Soren.
“I’m sure it will.” He nods and stands from the bed.
Bella turns back to look at me. “I know you guys were missing me with the snowballs on purpose.”
I purse my lips, not sure what she wants to hear from me. Is she mad about that?
She surprises me with a hug. “Thank you for being my nanny.”
More tears. But this time, it’s from me.