Chapter 3

Brooklyn's pov

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Weston. I can't work for you."

The words came out before I could stop them. Patrick turned from the hallway and looked at me slowly, the way someone does when they're deciding how serious you are.

"Brooklyn." His voice was calm. "You are contracted through the nannying agency. They place you where they see fit. You don't get to choose."

"Sir, I understand that, but — "

"If you walk out of this house right now, I will make one phone call." He straightened his cufflinks without breaking eye contact. "And you will never be placed with another family again."

My mouth closed.

Across the room, Emerson dropped his backpack on the floor and stepped forward. "Dad. I know I was late picking Daisy up a couple of times, but we don't need a nanny. I can handle things."

"Emerson." Patrick's tone shifted in a way that made even me go still. "Don't."

"We're fine — "

"You have a bad attitude. You're sleeping through your morning classes. Your grades are slipping." Patrick's voice didn't rise, which somehow made it worse. "Your mother isn't here to keep you in line anymore. So I've found the next best thing."

Emerson's jaw tightened. He looked away.

"Daisy is adjusting well," Patrick continued. "Are you going to get yourself together, or do I need to take back the keys to your car?"

A long silence.

"Fine," Emerson said through his teeth. "But don't blame me when she quits."

I looked straight at him. "You already know I'm not a quitter, Emerson."

He said nothing.

Patrick gestured toward the stairs. "Show Brooklyn the guest room. The agency already dropped her belongings off this afternoon."

Emerson stared at his father for one more second. Then he picked up his backpack and walked past me toward the staircase without a word. I followed, keeping a full step behind him.

Daisy appeared at the top of the stairs, watching us both come up. She looked between me and her brother the way children do when they can sense something is wrong but don't know what. I gave her a small smile. She gave me one back.

Emerson pushed open a door at the end of the hall. Plain room, clean, with my two bags sitting neatly beside the bed.

"There." He turned to leave.

"Emerson — "

He stopped but didn't turn around.

"I know this situation is strange for both of us," I said. "I'll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine. We can make this work without making each other miserable."

He turned around then. Slowly.

He crossed the space between us in three steps and pressed his hand flat against the wall beside my head the exact same thing he'd done in homeroom that morning.

"Let me be very clear," he said quietly. "I want you out of my school. Out of my house. Out of my life. And I am going to make every single day so unbearable that you'll pack those bags yourself and walk out that door."

"Go ahead," I said. "But I'll make your life ten times worse right back. Your father gave me full authority to discipline you. That's in writing, Emerson. So every time you try something, I will come back harder."

He stared at me.

"I need this job," I said. "Which means you cannot scare me out of it. I've already decided."

A beat of silence stretched between us.

His mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Bring it on, Brooklyn."

--------------------

"Wakey wakey!!!"

I tipped the bucket.

The water hit Emerson like a cold wave — sheets, pillow, hair, everything. He shot upright with a gasp that turned immediately into something much less polite.

"What the — Brooklyn, what the actual — "

"Language." I set the empty bucket down on his floor. "You really don't want your first punishment before eight in the morning, do you?"

He stared at me, soaking wet, chest heaving, hair plastered flat against his forehead. Then he reached for the hem of his soaked shirt and pulled it over his head in one move.

I looked away fast.

My heart did something completely unnecessary and I told it to stop immediately.

I held his towel out toward him without looking directly at him. He took it. I heard him stand up from the bed, and then his hand wrapped around my wrist.

"You know," he said, voice low and unbothered, "if you wanted to get me wet, there are better ways to go about it."

I pulled my hand back. "Dry off. You have homework to finish before school."

"I'm going to the beach."

"You are not."

He threw the towel back at me. I caught it.

"Emerson." I stepped in front of the door before he could reach it. He walked right up to me and stopped, close enough that we were practically eye to eye. I refused to step back even though every nerve in my body was telling me to.

"Move," he said.

"Homework first. Beach after. That's the deal."

We stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment. His jaw was tight. Mine was tighter.

Then he exhaled through his nose and turned back toward his desk.

I counted that as a win.

---

Twenty minutes later we were in the living room. Daisy sat beside me at the coffee table, her workbook open, pencil moving carefully across the page. I checked her answers while Emerson slouched in the armchair across from us, scribbling through his own assignment like it had personally offended him.

"Daisy." I tapped one of her answers. "This one and this one — check them again. The rest are perfect."

She looked at the two questions, erased quietly, and tried again. I smiled at her.

"Finished." Emerson dropped his notebook onto the table in front of me. It landed with a slap.

I picked it up and started reading through it. Then I picked up my red pen.

"What are you doing?" he said.

I kept marking. Corrections in the margin, circled errors, notes beside the questions he'd clearly rushed.

"I am marking it." I turned the page. "Same as any teacher would."

He leaned forward. "You're marking it up more than any teacher would."

"Because your dad expects your grades to go up while I'm here." I finished the last page and held it out to him. "No half-done work. Not in this house."

He snatched the notebook out of my hand, looked at the corrections, and then threw it across the room.

"Emerson — "

"I don't take notes from a — " he used a word I was not going to repeat — "who sleeps her way into jobs."

The room went quiet.

I stood up slowly. Walked over to where the notebook had landed. Picked it up. Walked back to him and held it out.

He didn't take it.

"Pick a word like that again," I said calmly, "and your father will hear about it before dinner."

"Ooh." He leaned back in his chair, arms folded, smirking up at me. "Does the little nanny need to punish me?"

"Emerson."

"What are you going to do, Brooklyn?" His eyes were bright with amusement. "Ground me? Spank me?" He tilted his head. "I'd really like to see you try."

I looked at him for a moment. Then I smiled.

"I already have something in mind."