Chapter 3

Kyra

At 6:45 p.m., I finished getting dressed.

Simple. Discreet. A plain black dress that didn’t draw too much attention but still outlined my waist with a certain elegance. I tied my hair into a low bun, as if that could make me look more professional and less… vulnerable. The clock on the wall read 6:58 when I left the room and walked toward the dining room.

The table was already set. Napkins perfectly folded. Cutlery aligned like something out of a catalog. The kind of organization that didn’t allow for mistakes. Or noise. And the kind of thing I wasn’t entirely used to dealing with.

Julie was already seated at one end. She wore a light dress, her hair brushed to perfection. But her expression was the same as in the morning: distant. Observant. Silent.

Liam appeared two minutes later. Calm, unhurried. As if time favored him and we were at his mercy.

“Punctual again,” he said, pulling out the chair at the head of the table. “You’re already doing better than the others.”

“The others?” I asked before censoring myself. My tone sounded too curious. “Sorry!”

“The other candidates,” he replied while pouring water for Julie. “None lasted more than a week in this house. Don’t ask me why, because I’d like to know as well.”

I sat in silence, trying to hide the knot forming in my stomach. Julie began to move her food around without much appetite. Liam, on the other hand, cut his meat with surgical precision, as if each piece had to be exactly the right size.

“How’s the food, Julie?” I asked, trying to build some kind of bond, then immediately realized I probably sounded foolish.

She looked at me without expression and replied in a nearly inaudible voice:

“Same as yesterday. There’s no difference.”

Liam smiled. But it wasn’t a sweet smile. It was the kind of smile from someone who understood the games played by silent words.

“She has a gustatory memory,” he explained. “And little patience for small niceties.”

I took a deep breath and returned to my plate. I could feel his eyes on me. Testing me. Measuring every gesture. As if I were a chess piece on his board.

“Did you read all the instructions?” he asked without looking away.

“Twice,” I replied. “As you told me.”

“And did you understand them all?”

I nodded.

“Some seemed more… personal than professional. But yes, I understood them perfectly, sir.”

He rested his elbows on the table. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing pale, strong skin. His presence was… immense. As if it took up all the air around us.

“Everything in this house is personal, Kyra. And if you haven’t understood that yet, you will with time.”

Tension ran down my spine like an involuntary shiver. Julie, curiously, didn’t react. She simply watched, her spoon paused in midair, as if she were watching a movie where adults say strange things.

“You said my role was to take care of Julie,” I replied carefully.

“And it is. But I take care of the one who takes care of her.” He leaned forward slightly. “If you’re not balanced… she feels it. And so do I.”

The air seemed trapped between the three of us. As if no one could even sigh without breaking the invisible order Liam created with his words.

He finished dinner before everyone else. Wiped his lips with the napkin and stood up with the precise elegance of someone who had never been contradicted.

“Kyra, come with me before you turn in.”

Julie didn’t even blink. I stood, confused, and followed him down the hallway. He stopped in front of the white door at the end—the same one that hadn’t been opened before.

“This is where the rules are kept. I thought you had read them.”

He unlocked the door.

Inside, there were no papers. There were… items. Far too personal.

Collars. Handcuffs. Masks. A small dark leather couch. A wardrobe with delicate fabrics and cuts far too daring to be considered uniforms.

“This… isn’t part of the job with Julie,” I whispered, shocked. “I’m sorry, Mr. Blackthorne, if I broke any rule so soon.”

“Not yet,” he replied, his voice lower, rougher. “But it can be part of the contract, if you accept, of course.”

I swallowed hard.

“I never… agreed to this. Forgive me for asking, but now I understand why they all left.”

“I never proposed this to anyone before, miss. But I can read people by their eyes, and yours seemed far too tempting not to ask.”

He slowly closed the door. He didn’t touch me. Didn’t step too close. But he stood there, right on the line between control and provocation.

“Anyway… don’t take this personally. Now you understand why this is a room no one enters.”

And then he left. Locking the door behind him. Leaving my heart racing far too loudly for the terrifying silence of the house.

After Liam disappeared down the hallway, my body took a long time to relax. I placed a hand on my chest. My heart still raced as if it wanted to run before I could. What was that room? What did he really want from me? And why had he shown me that? It doesn’t matter. None of that matters.

I took a deep breath and returned to the dining room, expecting to find Julie in the same place—but she wasn’t there. The table had already been cleared by someone I hadn’t even seen pass by.

Silence. Again, that strange silence of a house where even footsteps seem ashamed to echo.

I walked down the hallway and found Julie’s bedroom door slightly ajar. I knocked softly and opened it a little.

“Julie?” I called before stepping inside.

“Come in,” she said quietly, her voice muffled by the pillow. “It’s open.”

I entered slowly. She was lying on her side, hugging her stuffed animal. Her eyes shone in the dimness, with only the faint light of a lamp far from the bed.

“Are you okay? Do you like stories?”

She nodded.

“Can you tell me a story? A real one?”

The question caught me off guard. Not because of its simplicity, but because of the unexpected sweetness in her voice.

“Yes, I can. What kind of story would you like to hear? Do you have a favorite?”

Julie pulled the blanket up to her chin.

“A good story. Not about monsters. A story where someone feels safe. I don’t have a favorite. No one tells me stories. Only my dad.”

Safe. The word cut through me.

The daughter of a billionaire with all the money in the world asking a nanny for safety as if it were an impossible treasure.

“Alright…” I sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ll tell you about a girl named Lía, who lived in a forest where everything was silent. She could hear the birds, the wind, the branches, but no one spoke to her…”

As I spoke, I saw Julie’s eyes grow heavier. Her breathing calmed. At some point in the story, she stretched out her little hand and held mine.

We stayed like that. Me sitting. Her asleep.

Until I felt my own eyes grow heavy too. And without realizing it, I lay down beside her, still holding her hand.

Liam

The clock was past midnight when I decided to check if everything was in order. It was an old habit. A kind of obsessive compulsion disguised as responsibility.

Silently, I crossed the hallway. The light in Julie’s room was still on, faint. I knocked twice, as I always did. No response.

I opened the door and stopped at the scene before me.

Kyra was sleeping beside my daughter, her body curved toward hers. Their hands intertwined. Her expression… peaceful. Something Julie rarely showed.

For a moment, something tightened in my chest.

That… wasn’t part of the rules.

No employee had ever gotten that close. No one had touched Julie. No one had been allowed to.

But she… she did it without asking. And Julie allowed it without question.

I stood there for too long. Watching. Trying to understand why that image disturbed me more than it should.

Kyra is crossing boundaries.

But why does it seem so right… so inevitable?

I closed the door slowly. Without a sound. Without a reaction.

Without breaking the bond that, even in sleep, was beginning to form between my daughter and her gentle nanny.