3. Casey
I unpack slowly, even though there isn’t much to unpack.
I left a lot of my clothes at home. I still have a month left on my lease, so it gives me a little time to decide what to do with my meagre belongings.
In hindsight, I wonder why I didn’t question the fact that Jasper never wanted us to live together, but now it makes sense.
He needed the space for his other family.
A sigh escapes me, easing the gnawing feeling in my chest for a second, and I focus on the moment.
Folding the four sweaters and two pairs of jeans, and putting them away.
I hang the good trousers I wear when I need people to take me seriously in the closet.
Toiletries are lined up beside the sink in a neat row that looks more confident than I feel, the pastel pink bottles giving me a touch of joy.
My romance books go on the small shelf beside the bed, spines facing out, because there’s something comforting about seeing familiar titles in an unfamiliar room.
The annex is quiet, but not in the same way the hotel room was.
The hotel had been silent in a way that pressed down on me, too sealed, too temporary, too full of space for thoughts I didn’t want.
This is different. There’s sound here, softened by walls and distance.
A cupboard closing somewhere in the main house.
Letty’s voice rising and falling, too quick to follow.
The lower murmur of Adriano answering her.
I don’t mean to pause when I hear him. His voice doesn’t carry in the way loud men’s voices do.
It doesn’t need to. It has weight without volume, the kind of quiet that makes you listen before you decide to.
I hate that I notice it. I hate even more that my body notices it before I can tell it not to.
Ridiculous.
I fold a cardigan that is already folded and place it in the drawer.
This is a job. A good job. A stable job. Room, board, salary, routine. A chance to stand still for longer than five minutes without feeling like the floor is going to vanish beneath me. A place where they don’t know about humiliation. Where people aren’t whispering and giving me pitying looks.
It’s a place to not feel anything.
A knock comes at the door before I can ruin that thought by examining it too closely.
I smooth my hands over my trousers and open it.
Elena stands on the other side with her handbag over one arm and a dish towel still tucked into the waistband of her skirt, like she started leaving and remembered one last thing halfway through.
“There you are,” she says, smiling as if I haven’t been hiding in here reorganizing socks to avoid feeling unsettled. “Dinner is ready, and I’m abandoning you.”
I blink. “Abandoning me?”
“My neighbor called. Very dramatic. She says she needs me immediately, which usually means she’s either lost her glasses on her own head or insulted someone and wants me to agree she was right.”
A laugh slips out before I can stop it.
Elena’s smile warms. “Good. You can laugh. I was beginning to wonder.”
I feel my mouth soften, then catch myself. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not exactly sparkling company today.”
“You don’t need to sparkle, Tesoro. Sometimes it’s enough just to sit at the table.
” She reaches out like she might touch my cheek, then thinks better of it and pats my arm instead.
The restraint makes my throat tighten more than the touch would have.
“I made pasta. Simple. Letty likes it, Adriano pretends he doesn’t care, and everyone cleans their plate. ”
“Should I—” I glance past her toward the main house. “I mean, I don’t officially start until tomorrow.”
“You will eat,” Elena says, making it sound less like an invitation and more like a law. “Then you can observe. It will be good for you to see how they are in the evening.”
That word catches in my mind.
They.
Adriano and Letty. Father and daughter. The unit I’m entering but not part of. I know this role. I know the edges of it. Nannies live in the margins of family life, close enough to learn the rhythms, far enough to remember the music belongs to someone else.
“I don’t want to intrude,” I say.
Elena gives me a look that reminds me so sharply of Isabella that I almost smile again.
“You are not intruding if you are invited. Come.”
She turns before I can argue, and I follow because it’s easier than standing in the doorway pretending I have a choice.
The main house smells like garlic, basil, and something warm enough to make my stomach pull tight with hunger I hadn’t realized I was ignoring.
The kitchen is brighter now than it was earlier; the late afternoon sun stretches thin across the counters.
A pot sits on the stove with steam lifting lazily from beneath the lid, and a small bowl of grated parmesan cheese waits beside it.
Letty is already at the table, kneeling on her chair instead of sitting properly, one sock sliding halfway off her heel. She has a crayon in one hand and a piece of paper in front of her.
She looks up when I enter like she has been expecting me, a wide grin splitting her face. “You’re eating with us,” she announces.
“I’ve been told.”
“Elena made pasta. Daddy says pasta is messy, but I’m careful.”
Elena snorts softly behind me.
At the far side of the kitchen, Adriano stands by the counter.
The jacket is gone. The tie has been loosened, though not removed, and the cuffs of his white shirt are folded neatly over his drool-worthy forearms. It shouldn’t change him as much as it does.
It shouldn’t make him look less severe, because nothing about Adriano Mancini seems soft.
But somehow, with the professional armor partly stripped back, he looks more real.
Not softer exactly, but more human, more real.
He looks up from the glass he’s filling with water, and whatever ease I thought I saw vanishes behind that precise, unreadable expression.
“Miss Campbell.”
“Mr. Mancini.”
Letty looks between us and frowns. “Her name is Casey.”
“I’m aware of that, Jellybean,” he says.
Jellybean. He calls her jellybean, and my heart does this weird skitter. Especially as he says it with such affection.
“Then say Casey, silly.”
Elena turns away from the stove a little too quickly, but not before I see her smile.
Adriano looks down at his daughter. “Casey,” he corrects, without looking at me.
It should not feel like anything, but it does.
I take the seat Elena gestures to across from Letty and one chair down from Adriano. Not beside him. Not too far away. A safe placement, probably chosen by a woman who has spent her life reading rooms.
“Right, I’ll leave you all to your dinner.” Elena lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes gently. “Good luck and call me if you need anything.”
“You’re leaving?” Adriano frowns, looking put out by the thought.
“Yes. I have things to do, and you don’t need an old lady like me here when you have a very capable young woman to help you with whatever you need.”
I notice a hint of a pink stain on Adriano’s cheeks before he nods. “I’ll walk you out.”
He gets up and ushers Elena out, his hand behind her in a respectful, but caring way. She’s in his inner circle; she’s family to him, and I wonder what that must feel like.
He returns quickly and retakes his seat. “Let’s eat.”
Dinner begins with movement instead of ceremony.
Adriano fills bowls for us from the pot in the center of the table, and I take mine with a small smile, wondering how on earth I’m going to eat the huge pile of pasta in my bowl.
Letty talks through all of it, and Adriano cuts the pasta in Letty’s bowl into smaller pieces with the same focus he probably gives to contracts worth millions.
“I can do it,” Letty says, though she makes no move to take the fork.
“I know.”
He keeps cutting.
She lets him, her little body already drooping with that end-of-day tiredness children get. A wall is coming up, and he needs to get her fed before she hits it. That he’s aware of that makes me realize just how hands-on a father he is. I knew this from Isabella, but seeing it is different.
I look down at my own bowl because the small intimacy of it hits somewhere bruised. Not because it’s dramatic, but because it isn’t. Because he doesn’t perform affection. He just does the thing that needs doing and lets her accept it like she’s never had to question whether care will be there.
That kind of certainty is hard to look at right now.
“So, Casey,” Adriano says, not looking at me as he breaks Letty’s bread into smaller pieces, his tone measured, almost casual, “Isabella tells me you’ve worked with families all over.”
The question surprises me just enough that I take a second before answering. “A few,” I say, grateful for something neutral. “Mostly between New York and Los Angeles. Some travel. Some long-term placements.”
“She came from Los Angeles,” Letty says, like she’s contributing important intelligence.
“I did.”
“Is it far?”
“Far enough.”
Her eyes brighten. “Farther than the moon?”
Across the table, Adriano’s fork stills for half a second.
I glance at him, then back at Letty. “Not quite.”
She nods, satisfied. “Daddy said that too.”
“Then he was right.”
Adriano’s gaze lifts to mine.
Only briefly.
Still, I feel it.
“And you like children?” he asks, his attention returning to Letty’s plate as if the question doesn’t matter, even though something in the way he says it suggests it does.
I smile down at my bowl. “Most days.”
Letty gasps. “Only most?”
“Well, some days they make you be a princess when you’re clearly better suited to being a dragon.”
Letty giggles, delighted, and nearly drops pasta on her lap.
Adriano catches the edge of her bowl before it tips.
Not hurried. Not dramatic. His hand is simply there.
“Careful,” he says.
“I was laughing.”
“I noticed.”
Her grin only widens. “Casey was a bad princess.”
“I was an excellent princess,” I object.
“You growled.”
“That was emotional range. I was acting.”
For a fleeting second, something shifts at the corner of Adriano’s mouth as he reaches for his water.