Nanny To My highschool Nemesis 의 모든 챕터: 챕터 21 - 챕터 30

Brooklyn's POVI stayed in the kitchen longer than I needed to.I told myself I was cleaning up. Rinsing the pot, wiping the counter, putting the milk away. Normal things that had nothing to do with the fact that my hand was still warm where his fingers had touched mine and I was very deliberately not thinking about it.When I finally moved into the hallway I could see Daisy's bedroom door from where I stood. Emerson had knocked before going in — one quiet knock, waiting until something moved on the other side before he turned the handle. He left the door slightly open behind him.I should have gone straight to my room.I didn't.I stood near the staircase and listened. Not to words — there weren't many. Mostly just the low sound of his voice, steady and unhurried, the way it was only ever with Daisy. I heard her shift in her bed. I heard him pull the chair close, the small scrape of it against the floor. Then quiet, and the faint sound of him talking to her about something small and

Brooklyn's POV"Did you see the post?" Sawyer set her tray down across from me and slid into her seat."I saw it.""And?""And nothing." I picked up my fork. "It has nothing to do with me."Sawyer looked at me with the expression she used when she thought I was lying to myself but had decided not to push it. She opened her water bottle instead and we ate in the comfortable quiet we had built between us over the last few weeks.The cafeteria was loud around us. The usual lunchtime noise — trays scraping, chairs dragging, a hundred conversations happening at once. I was halfway through my sandwich when a tray landed on the table directly in front of me.I looked up.Savannah Hayes stood on the other side of the table with her hand still on the tray, red nails perfectly shaped, expression bright and easy the way it always was before she did something that wasn't either of those things."Eat that," she said.I looked at the tray. Creamy pasta, heavily sauced, completely untouched. Then I

Brooklyn's POV**"Jordan," I repeated slowly. "You drove past me and left me standing at the gate — because of Jordan?""Answer the question.""No." I crossed my arms. "You first. Explain what you did.""There's nothing to explain." His voice was flat. "I'm not your driver, Brooklyn. I never agreed to be. You want a ride home, call a taxi.""We have an arrangement — ""Our arrangement is about this house and about school. It does not include me waiting outside gates for you." He held my gaze without flinching. "And don't forget your place. You work here. You're the nanny. That's all this is."The words landed exactly the way he intended them to.I opened my mouth."Brooklyn?"We both turned.Daisy was standing at the top of the stairs in her socks, school bag still on her back, looking between the two of us with careful eyes. She had come in so quietly neither of us had heard her.Everything about Emerson changed in less than a second.The tension in his jaw dissolved. His arms droppe

Brooklyn's POV"I'll take her."I moved toward Emerson and reached for Daisy at the same moment Patrick's voice settled into the silence downstairs like a full stop.Emerson's arm tightened around his sister. His free hand came up and pushed mine away — firm, quiet, final.He stood up from the step without a word, Daisy still completely out against his chest, her head lolling softly against his shoulder. He stepped past me and walked down the hallway to her bedroom door.I followed.He pushed Daisy's door open with his foot and carried her in. I stayed in the doorway and watched him cross to her bed, lower himself onto the edge of it, and ease her down against the pillow with a slowness that had nothing rushed in it. He pulled the blanket up around her shoulders. Tucked it at the side. Checked her face once to make sure she hadn't stirred.She hadn't. She slept through all of it.He straightened up.I thought he was heading for the door.His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist — again

Emerson's POVI pulled up outside the school fence and cut the engine.It was the first time I had done this. Waited for her. Deliberately, on purpose, without pretending it was something else. I told myself it was practical — she needed a ride, I was going the same direction, it made sense. I told myself that right up until I saw Sawyer's car pull out of the car park with Brooklyn in the passenger seat, not even glancing in my direction as they drove past.She didn't see me.Or she did and chose not to.I sat there for a second after their car disappeared around the corner. Then I started the engine and drove home.---The house was quiet when I got in.Too quiet.I dropped my bag at the foot of the stairs and stood in the hallway listening. No sound from the kitchen. No movement upstairs. No running water, no pencil scratching across a workbook, none of the small sounds that had become background noise in this house over the last few weeks without me noticing when that happened.I w