Lahat ng Kabanata ng Lawfully Wedded Nanny (BWWM): Kabanata 211 - Kabanata 220

The ocean was quieter the morning they were meant to leave. Not calm—never calm—but hushed, as if the water itself had decided to lower its voice. The tide breathed in slow pulls against the sand, retreating, returning, retreating again. Monet stood barefoot at the edge of the balcony, a thin robe wrapped around her, watching the horizon pale from indigo to gray. She had not slept. Or maybe she had slept too much. Those strange, heavy hours where the body rests but the mind keeps walking, keeps knocking on doors it once promised never to open. Behind her, the room bore the gentle wreckage of a life briefly lived. Half-packed suitcases lay open like confessions interrupted. Richard’s shirts folded neatly on one side, hers less so. A faint trace of his cologne lingered in the air, mingled with salt and jasmine and the distant smell of brewed coffee from somewhere below. This island had given them something. She wasn’t sure yet whether it was mercy or truth. Richard moved qui

Elara’s hands tightened around her bag strap, the sun glaring harshly off a café’s awning, casting uneven shadows across the cobblestones. Gabriel’s grin was still in place, but she could see it had faltered slightly under her gaze. “You’re persistent,” she said, keeping her voice steady, though her stomach coiled. He raised a hand, almost innocently. “I prefer ‘observant.’ You notice things. Good. That matters.” “You know a lot,” she said, eyes narrowing. “About Monet. About my mother. How do you know so much?” Gabriel’s grin softened into something sharper, more deliberate. “You could say… she’s from our world. An elite young lady. Raised in circles where everyone notices, everyone remembers. Some people never forget the ones who vanish.” Elara’s chest tightened. A cut ran through the words like a quiet knife. The intensity in his tone wasn’t for her—it was something older, something fierce and unspoken, aimed somewhere far out of reach. “So you’re just here to stir the wat

The walk home felt longer than it should have. The sun had dipped low, scattering gold over the narrow streets, but Elara barely noticed. Each step pressed against her chest, the quiet hum of the city fading beneath the roar of her thoughts. Monet had left. Not a message, not a glance, not a word of goodbye. Just gone, like the tide pulling back, leaving only sand and echoes. And yet she hadn’t run. She hadn’t fled entirely. She’d been here, in her life, just out of reach, untouchable in a way that made Elara ache. Anger curled around her like a living thing. Angry at Monet, yes, but more than that—angry at the woman who had abandoned her first. Stephanie Jacobs. Beautiful, brilliant, devastatingly selfish in the way only someone drowning in grief could be. She had left Monet at a convent, and then herself, spiraling, disappearing into a life Elara would never have known. And now Monet, Monet dared to live, to love, to exist without explanation or apology. Ela

Florence Abbott did not summon people impulsively. When she asked Richard to walk with her three days after their return to Elmsworth, it was done with the same measured tone she used when discussing trust deeds, school placements, or funerals. Nothing in her voice suggested urgency. That, more than anything, unsettled him. They were in the garden of her property—glass-paneled, muted with pale light, ivy tracing the ironwork like a patient witness. Florence moved slowly, a wool shawl folded precisely over her forearm, her posture unchanged by age. She had lived too long in rooms where secrets were currency to betray herself with haste. Richard followed, already braced. “She’s settling,” Florence said at last, as if they had been discussing Monet all along. “The children missed her terribly. Delores says she's been forgotten since Monet returned, and I can'tt help but agree.” Richard said nothing. Florence stopped beside a camellia bush, white blooms just beginning to ope

Juliet Pendleton heard about Monet Abbott’s return the way she heard about most things worth knowing—not directly, not officially, and never from anyone who thought they were being useful. It came in fragments. A pause that lasted half a second too long at a charity luncheon. A name repeated with a slight change in tone. A woman lowered her voice when Juliet passed, then raised it again once she was sure Juliet had moved on. “She’s back,” someone said. Not that they’re back. Not Richard returned. She’s back. Juliet smiled when she heard it, the polite curve of her mouth practiced over decades. She didn’t ask questions. Asking was amateurish. Asking suggested interest. Instead, she listened. Elmsworth had not seen Monet Abbott in weeks. That alone was noteworthy. Women like Monet—women who wanted permanence, security, legitimacy—did not leave their homes without explanation. They did not disappear into tropical anonymity unless something had shifted beneath their feet.