Kaelen POV
I lean back in my leather chair and lazily flip through the pages of the file in front of me.
The paper is warm from my hands. The words blur together after a while—dates, addresses, names that mean nothing.
Henderson stands across from my desk, arms crossed, waiting. He knows better than to rush me.
Naomi Abbot. Twenty-six. No criminal record.
No debts that show up on paper. She went to community college for nursing but never finished.
Dropped out two years ago. Around the time her mother died.
I turn the page.
She has worked three nanny jobs in the last eighteen months. Fired from all of them.
The reasons are vague—"not a good fit," "personality conflict," "unsatisfactory performance." Nothing concrete.
Nothing that explains why a woman with no experience keeps getting hired and keeps getting let go.
That is suspicious.
I frown, tapping the folder with my finger. "She was fired from three jobs. Why?"
Henderson shifts his weight. "I spoke to the families. They said she was... quiet.
Too quiet. One mother thought she was too friendly with the husband."
My eyes lift from the page. "Too friendly."
"Nothing happened. The husband said she was professional.
But the wife was jealous. You know how those people are."
I do know. Wealthy wives with too much time, too many fears, too many shadows in their own marriages.
They see threats where there are none.
I go back to the file.
No close family. Her father passed when she was a teenager. Her mother died two years ago. No siblings. No husband. No children.
She lives alone in a studio apartment in Adams Morgan. Rent controlled. Barely standing, from the look of the address.
She lives alone.
Something about that sticks in my chest. A woman her age, no one to call, no one to come home to.
She works jobs she cannot keep, lives in a place she can barely afford, and she showed up this morning in a navy dress that looked like it had seen better days.
I close the file.
"Anything else?" I ask.
Henderson pauses. "She has two close friends. A woman named Mia and a woman named Tanya.
They've known her since high school. Both came up clean."
Two friends. Not one. Two. People who have stayed.
I toss the folder onto the desk. "She's unremarkable."
"She's kind," Henderson says. I look up. His face is neutral, but his voice is not. "Alex liked her. That's worth something."
I think of the garden. Naomi kneeling in the damp grass, taking that worn wolf like it was made of gold. Alex smiling. Actually smiling.
The first real smile I have seen on his face in months.
It should make me grateful. Instead, it makes my jaw tight.
She is nothing, I told her. And I meant it. But nothing does not make my son smile.
Nothing does not kneel in the grass without caring about her dress.
"She's a nanny," I say. "That's all she is."
Henderson nods slowly. "Of course."
I stand and walk to the window. The garden spreads below me, green and quiet.
The bench where they sat is empty now. Alex is inside, napping.
Naomi is somewhere in the house, learning the layout, memorizing the rules.
I will watch her. I will wait. If she slips, if she proves herself a threat, I will remove her. No second chances. No softness.
That is how I survive. That is how I protect what is mine.
But as I stand at the window, looking at the damp grass where a stranger knelt for my son, I feel something I do not expect.
Hope.
I crush it before it can grow.
---
Naomi POV
I am currently on my knees in my tiny apartment, packing my clothes into a duffel bag that has seen better days.
The zipper sticks halfway. I yank it, and it gives, groaning like it is as tired as I am.
My room looks smaller than usual. The walls feel closer.
Maybe it is because I am leaving. Maybe it is because I know I might not come back.
Mr. Aaron said he needs me there twenty-four-seven. All the time. Live-in. No days off.
I fold my one good sweater and press it flat. "He must really love his baby," I whisper to myself. The words hang in the quiet air.
My phone buzzes on the mattress. I glance at the screen. Mia.
I pick up. "Hey."
"Hey? That's all I get?" Mia's voice is loud, warm, the kind of voice that fills empty rooms. "You're moving into a billionaire's mansion and all I get is 'hey'?"
I laugh despite myself. "I'm not moving in. I'm just... staying there. For work."
"Girl. Staying there is moving in." I hear her moving around her kitchen, pots clanging. "Tell me everything.
What does he look like? Is he hot? Wait, scratch that. Of course he's hot. All billionaires are hot. It's like a requirement."
I fold a pair of socks and stuff them into a side pocket. "He's... intense."
"Intense how?"
I think of Kaelen's gray eyes, cold as winter, looking at me like I was a bug on his marble floor.
I think of his voice, low and flat, telling me I am nothing.
"He told me I'm nothing," I say.
Silence on Mia's end. Then: "He said what now?"
"He said the boy is everything and I am nothing. His exact words."
"Naomi." Mia's voice sharpens. "That's not okay. That's not—you don't deserve that. You know that, right?"
I pull my knees to my chest and rest my chin on them. "I need this job, Mia."
"I know. But—"
"I need it." My voice cracks. I clear my throat. "I can't lose another one. I can't. I have nothing left."
The silence stretches. I hear Mia breathing.
She is the only one who knows how deep the hole goes. The debt. The eviction notice.
The days I went without eating so I could keep the lights on.
"Okay," Mia says softly. "Okay. But if he gets worse—if he hurts you—you call me. You hear me? I don't care what time it is. I will come get you."
"He won't hurt me," I say. I am not sure I believe it.
"He better not." There is steel in her voice. Mia is small, but she is fierce. She has always been fierce for me.
I smile, small but real. "I know. You'll beat him up with your yoga mat."
"Damn right I will. Warrior pose to the face. He won't know what hit him."
I laugh. It feels good. Like letting out a breath I did not know I was holding.
Mia gets serious again. "The boy. Alex. How is he?"
I think of his gray eyes, soft where his father's are hard. His too-big Superman shirt. His wolf, worn thin from years of holding.
"He's scared," I say. "He's so scared, Mia. But he smiled at me. Just a little. But it was real."
"That's you," Mia says. "You always do that. You make people feel safe. Even when you're falling apart yourself."
I blink. My eyes sting. "I don't know about that."
"I do." Her voice is firm. "That's why you got this job. That's why you'll keep it. Not because of him or his money or his cold-eyed face.
Because you're you. And that boy needs someone like you."
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. "When did you get so wise?"
"Always been wise. You were just too busy being pretty to notice."
I laugh again. It is smaller this time, but it lasts longer.
We talk for a few more minutes—about my apartment, about the rent I will still owe, about when I can come back to see her. She promises to visit. I promise to call every day.
When I hang up, my apartment feels less empty.
I finish packing. The duffel bag bulges at the seams. I carry it to the door and set it down, then take one last look around.
The water stain on the ceiling. The stove that only lights on the third try.
The window where I watched the storm two nights ago, curled in the corner, crying until I had nothing left.
I am leaving all of it behind. Maybe for good. Maybe just for a while.
I do not know what waits for me in that mansion. A cold man. A scared boy. A room that is not mine, in a house that does not want me.
But I made a promise. To myself. To Alex. To the tiny spark of hope that survived every storm.
I will keep it.
I pick up my bag, open the door, and do not look back.