8. Chapter 7
Liv Strauss
The next morning, the kitchen smelled like burnt toast and regret.
I scraped the blackened edge of the bread into the trash while Missy watched from her spot at the table, crayon paused mid-stroke.
Third week of this arrangement, and I still couldn't figure out Zoltan's toaster. The thing had more settings than my car's dashboard and apparently a personal vendetta against anyone who hadn't read its instruction manual.
"Liv." Missy's voice was careful, the way it got when she was about to say something she'd been thinking about for a while. "Why does bread turn black?"
"Because your dad's toaster is possessed by demons." I dropped two fresh slices in and set the dial to something that looked reasonable. Probably wasn't. "Also because I got distracted."
"By what?"
By the fact that your father grabbed my wrist and I can still feel it. By the way he smelled like cedar and coffee and something that made my chest tight. By the three seconds we stood there not moving, not breathing, the conduct agreement I signed sitting between us like a wall I'd helped build.
"Adult stuff," I said. "Boring."
Missy accepted this with the gravity of a six-year-old who understood that adults were fundamentally strange creatures. She went back to her drawing, tongue poking out in concentration. I watched the toaster like it might explode.
The afternoon light through the kitchen window caught the edge of Missy's hair, turning it copper.
She'd asked me to braid it this morning, which I'd done while she held perfectly still, barely breathing, as if any movement might make me stop.
Kids who'd lost someone did that. Held onto small moments like they might disappear.
I knew the feeling.
The toast popped up golden brown, which felt like a personal victory. I buttered it and cut it into triangles because Missy had once mentioned triangles tasted better, and I'd filed that information away without examining why.
"Here." I set the plate beside her drawing. "Demon-free."
"Thank you." She picked up a triangle and bit into it, still coloring with her other hand. The drawing was taking shape: a house with too many windows, grass that was more green scribble than lawn, and three figures standing in front. Two tall, one small.
I looked away before I could see the labels.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I pulled it out, expecting Piper with another crisis about our mother and Thanksgiving, but it was a number I didn't recognize. I let it go to voicemail.
"Who's that?" Missy asked.
"Nobody important."
"That's what Papa says when it's someone important."
I snorted. Kid was too smart for her own good. "Finish your toast."
She did, then pushed the empty plate toward me and held up her drawing. "Do you like it?"
The house had a chimney with curling smoke. The grass had flowers now, little red dots scattered through the green. The three figures were labeled in careful, wobbly letters: PAPA. LIV. ME.
Something cracked open in my chest.
"It's beautiful," I said, and my voice came out wrong, too thick. I cleared my throat. "Really beautiful, Missy."
She beamed. "I'm going to give it to Papa when he comes home."
"He'll love it."
She went back to adding details, a sun in the corner with a smiley face, a bird that looked more like a lopsided letter V. I carried her plate to the sink and stood there longer than necessary, running water over ceramic that was already clean.
The conduct agreement I'd signed on day one hadn't mentioned this. Hadn't mentioned the way a six-year-old's trust could feel like something precious and dangerous at the same time. Hadn't mentioned that staying twenty minutes late every night would become a habit I didn't want to break.
My phone buzzed again. Same unknown number. I rejected it and shoved the phone back in my pocket.
Missy's voice floated over from the table. "Liv? Can I tell you something?"
"Always."
"Sometimes I think you're sad."
I turned around. She wasn't looking at me, still focused on her drawing, but her shoulders were tight.
Kids noticed more than adults gave them credit for.
"Sometimes I am," I said carefully. "Everyone gets sad sometimes."
"Even Papa?"
"Even your papa."
She nodded, processing this. "He was really sad after Mama went to heaven. He didn't talk very much. Just worked on his phone a lot."
I came back to the table and sat down across from her. The kitchen was warm with late afternoon sun, dust motes floating in the light. Outside, I could hear traffic from the street below, muffled by expensive high-tech windows.
"Do you remember her?" I asked. "Your mama?"
Missy's crayon stilled. "Kind of. She smelled nice. Like flowers." A pause. "Papa doesn't talk about her very much."
"Maybe it's hard for him."
"Maybe." She started coloring again, adding a tree beside the house. "But I think he's less sad now. Since you started coming."
The crack in my chest widened. I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing, just watched her draw. Her hand was steady, her face peaceful. She hummed something tuneless under her breath.
This was what I'd been staying late for. Not the cedar-and-coffee smell of her father passing too close in this kitchen. Not the way his voice dropped when he said my name. Not the three seconds of absolute stillness last night, his fingers around my wrist, both of us barely breathing.
This. A kid who needed someone to notice her. To braid her hair and cut her toast into triangles and tell her that her drawings were beautiful.
My phone buzzed a third time. I pulled it out, ready to reject the call again, but this time there was a text from the same number.
Miss Strauss. This is Marcus Webb. We should speak privately. The situation has become more complex. I can meet you at your workplace next week.
My stomach dropped.
Marcus Webb. The COO with the expensive suit and the cold smile who'd handed me a conduct agreement on my first day and watched me sign it like he was cataloging evidence.
I'd met him exactly twice: once in the hallway, once in passing when Zoltan was on a call.
Both times he'd looked at me like I was a problem to be solved.
What situation? I typed back.
The three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
It's better discussed in person. Tuesday, 8 PM at Clockwork Tavern?
I stared at the screen. Piper's voice echoed in my head, the advice she'd given me when I'd told her about taking this job: Don't let rich people make you feel small, Liv. You're doing them a favor, not the other way around.
Easy for her to say. She wasn't the one standing in an opulent smart-wired kitchen, watching a six-year-old draw their family portrait with her name in it.
Fine, I typed. 8 PM.
The front door opened at 4:47 PM.
I knew it was that time because I'd started tracking Zoltan's arrivals without meaning to.
The past three days, he'd come home at 5:30, 5:15, and 4:52.
Each time earlier than the last. I'd told myself it was about Missy, about the homework help she needed, about the dinner routine he was trying to establish.
I'd told myself a lot of things.
His footsteps were quiet on the hardwood, the particular rhythm I'd learned to recognize. Then he appeared in the kitchen doorway, jacket still on, phone in hand, and Missy's face lit up like someone had flipped a switch.
"Papa!" She scrambled down from her chair and ran to him, arms outstretched. He caught her, lifted her, held her against his chest with the kind of fierce tenderness that made something twist in my gut. His hand flattened against her back, fingers spread wide.
"Hey, kislány." His voice was different with her. Softer. The consonants rounder. "What did you do today?"
"Liv made toast and it was only a little burnt and I drew you a picture and we went to the park and I found a rock shaped like a heart, see?"
She wiggled down and ran back to the table, grabbing the heart-shaped rock from her pile of treasures. Zoltan watched her go, and for a moment I saw it again: that look. The one I'd caught in the hall mirror on day four. Relief, sharp and raw, like he was counting her breaths.
Then his eyes found mine, and the look changed.
"Liv."
"Zoltan."
"See?" Missy thrust the rock at him. "A heart. Liv said if you find a heart-shaped rock, it means someone loves you."
I had not said that. I'd said the rock was cool and shaped like a heart. Missy had invented the rest.
Zoltan took the rock and turned it over in his palm, studying it with the same intensity he probably gave quarterly reports. "It's perfect," he said finally. "Thank you."
Missy glowed. "I found one for Liv too, but it was more like a triangle, so maybe it means something different."
"Triangle love," I said. "Very exclusive."
Zoltan's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close. The closest I'd seen since the gala invite and since he'd explained the fake dating arrangement in three clinical sentences.
Missy was already back at her drawing. Zoltan caught my eye over her head and tilted his head almost imperceptibly toward the hallway.
I followed him out.
He stopped just outside the kitchen doorway and turned to face me, and there was a particular quality to his expression that I was starting to recognize. The controlled stillness of someone choosing every word before they said it.
“You said you’d think about it,” he said.
He waited. He was very good at waiting. It was possibly his most annoying quality.
“I have conditions,” I said.
Something shifted in his face. Not relief exactly. The absence of tension. “Name them.”
“Everything in writing before the gala. Terms, compensation, end date. After that, we’re back to whatever this is.” I gestured vaguely at the space between us, at the hallway, at all of it. “Whatever this actually is.”
“Agreed.”
Too fast. He’d agreed too fast, which meant he’d already thought through all of it and he’d been waiting for me to catch up. I hated that.
“Fine,” I said. “Then yes.”
He nodded once. Then he turned and walked back into the kitchen, and I stood there for exactly two seconds before I followed.
"Papa, look at my drawing." Missy tugged his hand toward the table. "It's us. See? That's our house and that's you and that's Liv and that's me."
I should have looked away. Should have invented a task, an excuse to leave the room. Instead I watched Zoltan take in the drawing, the three figures, the labels in Missy's careful handwriting. His expression didn't change, not exactly, but something behind his eyes shifted.
"It's wonderful," he said quietly. "Can I keep it?"
"It's for you." Missy climbed back into her chair, satisfied. "I'm going to make one for Liv too. With different colors."
I stood up before I could think about it too hard.
"Liv?" Zoltan's voice pulled me back. He was watching me now, brow furrowed. "Is everything all right?"
"Fine." I forced a smile. "Just tired. Long week."
"You've been staying late."
"I have tasks."
"Invented ones."
My face heated. He'd noticed. Of course he'd noticed. The man ran a company that dealt in information, surveillance, security. He probably noticed everything.
"The dishes don't wash themselves," I said.
"Maria does the dishes."
"Then I've been helping Maria."
Something flickered across his face. Frustration, maybe. Or something else, something that looked almost like hurt. But he just nodded, sliding his hands into his pockets in that controlled way he had.
"Tomorrow, then."
"Tomorrow." I bent down to Missy's level. "Bye, kiddo. Work hard on that second drawing."
She wrapped her arms around my neck in a quick, fierce hug. "Bye, Liv. I love you."
The words hit me like a punch. I hugged her back, tighter than I should have, and when I straightened up, Zoltan was watching us with an expression I couldn't read.
"Goodnight," I said, and left before either of them could say anything else.