บททั้งหมดของ Babysitting The CEO's Daughter : บทที่ 81 - บทที่ 90

He called me into his office on a Thursday.That was not unusual in itself. He called me in regularly — for schedules, for documents, for the particular brand of instruction that he delivered in as few words as possible and expected to be understood completely. I had gotten good at understanding him. It was, I had decided early on, the actual job. The filing and the phone calls were just the packaging.What was unusual was that when I walked in, he wasn't looking at his screen.He was standing at the window with his back to me and his hands in his pockets, and he let me stand there for a moment before he turned around. I had my notepad

CHAPTER SIX: ON THEIR KNEESI had been in the car for maybe ten minutes when Mr. Newton's phone rang through the speakers."Yes, sir." A pause. "We are currently en route. Miss Nicole has her belongings." Another pause. "One bag, sir."The call ended.I stared at the back of his headrest.He took the next left instead of continuing straight, which was not the way back to the house, and I opened my mouth and then closed it again because something in the careful neutrality of his posture told me that asking questions right now was not going to produce answers I was ready for.We pulled up outside my building seven minutes later.Fletcher was already there.He was standing on the pavement in front of the entrance with his hands in his coat pockets and his phone at his side and the particular quality of stillness that meant he had been there long enough to be done waiting but had decided to wait anyway. He glanced at the car when it stopped. Then at me when I got out. Then at the single b

CHAPTER EIGHT: HOMEShe took my hand somewhere between the studio and the car.I didn't see it coming. One moment I was juggling two bags and my coat and trying to hold the door open with my shoulder, and then there was a small warm hand sliding into my free one with the matter-of-fact confidence of someone who had decided this was happening and saw no reason to announce it.I looked down at Loise.She was looking straight ahead.I looked back up and

CHAPTER TEN: THE NIGHT IT STARTEDThe lights went out at nine forty-seven.I know the exact time because I had just checked my phone — a habit I had developed in the first week, the last thing I did before settling in for the night, a final check that Loise was asleep and the house was in order and everything that needed doing was done. Nine forty-seven, phone screen dark, and then the whole house followed it.Not a gradual dimming. Everything, all at once. The hallway nightlight, the kitchen downlights, the small lamp I kept on in the corner of my room because I had never entirely outgrown needing one. Gone.

Nicole's POV It became a thing without either of us deciding it would.The first night I read to her was an accident — she had been restless after dinner, moving from room to room with her drawing pad without settling, and I had found a book on the shelf in the living room and sat down on her bedroom floor with it and started reading out loud mostly because the restlessness was making me restless and I needed something to do with my hands.She had been in bed within four minutes.