All Chapters of When Winter Blooms: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

He gave me a laminated card.Which told me everything I needed to know about the kind of man I was now working for.It was the morning after I moved in. I'd spent my first night in a bedroom that was nicer than any place I'd ever lived, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of a city I still wasn't used to. I'd woken up early, gotten dressed, and come to the kitchen to figure out the coffee situation. I was mid-search through the third cabinet when I heard him behind me."Good morning."I spun around. He was already in a suit. It was 6:47 in the morning and the man was in a full suit, jacket and everything, holding a laminated card in one hand and a travel mug in the other."Good morning," I said. "Do you, where do you keep the coffee?"He opened the cabinet directly to my left. "Thank you." I reached past him. He stepped back immediately, like he'd calculated the exact amount of space required between us and wasn't willing to negotiate it. He set the laminated card

I broke rule seven on a Wednesday.In my defense, I didn't mean to. Lily had found a book, a small hardcover with a blue spine that she'd pulled from somewhere and was very proudly showing me, except she'd clearly gotten it from somewhere she wasn't supposed to, because when I asked her where she found it she suddenly became very interested in Gerald's ear and stopped making eye contact."Lily.""Hmm?""Where did you get the book?""...Daddy's room."Not his room, as it turned out, His study. Which was, per Rule Seven, off-limits at all times, a rule that Lily was apparently aware of and had decided did not apply to her, which fair enough, she was four, but still.I should have just left the book on the kitchen counter and sent Ms. Park an email, I know that. But Lily was at her afternoon play session downstairs with the neighbour's kid, the study door was slightly open, and I told myself I was just going to set it inside the door and leave. Ten seconds. In and out.I pushed the door

The thing about living with someone is that you can't avoid them.I know that sounds obvious. But when you live alone, or even with a flatmate, there's always an out. you can go to your room, you can time your kitchen visits, you can exist on different schedules and let the apartment absorb the awkwardness. You have options.I had no options.By Friday I had mostly talked myself down.Mostly. Friday had been fine, I'd been busy, Lily had been demanding.And busy and demanding are genuinely useful things when your brain keeps returning to a hallway and a voice saying your name in the dark. I got through Friday, Friday was handled.Saturday morning was a different problem.Saturday meant he was home. No office, no early suit, no elevator taking him away before I'd finished my first coffee. Just him, in the apartment, all day and a four-year-old who woke up at 6:30 wanting oatmeal, which meant I was at the stove by 6:35, which was exactly when Ethan Cole came out of his room and walked d

I want to be upfront about the fact that I was being perfectly sensible.The bulb in Lily's room had been flickering for three days. I'd mentioned it to Ms. Park on Tuesday politely, through the approved channel, like a person who follows rules, and Ms. Park had said she'd have someone look at it, and then Thursday arrived and the bulb was still flickering and Lily had told me at breakfast that the light was doing "a scary thing" and that Gerald didn't like it, and that was that as far as I was concerned.I found a replacement bulb under the kitchen sink, which told me whoever stocked this apartment at least understood that bulbs burned out even on the forty-second floor. I found a chair in the corner of Lily's room: solid, wooden, four good legs, and I pulled it to the centre of the room and climbed up.This was sensible, this was just getting something done."What are you doing?"I didn't startle, I'd heard the elevator, I'd just assumed it was too early for him, he was never back b

I found it on a Tuesday.I was on the household tablet looking up the address of Lily's dentist appointment because Ms. Park had sent it through and I'd forgotten to write it down, and the browser had a tab open that I hadn't opened, and I wasn't going to look at it except that the words “Nanny -Full Time -Live In” were right there in the tab title and my finger was already on the screen before my brain had caught up with what I was doing.I looked at it.It was a listing. Proper, detailed, professionally written, the kind Ms. Park would have drafted, not him, because he didn't write things like this himself, he had people. One child, age four. Manhattan. Competitive compensation. Must be comfortable with a structured household environment and a demanding schedule. Applications open immediately.Applications open immediately.I read it twice. Then I set the tablet down on the kitchen counter very carefully, and I stood there for a moment looking at the skyline through the window.It