Chapter 1 - The Guarded Heart
My voice echoed off the hand-painted walls of the nursery, sounding far colder than I intended. "What exactly is going on here?"
Elise stood frozen, holding the yellow rubber gloves against her chest like a shield. Her dark hair was pulled back into a messy bun, a few stray strands framing a face pale with sudden apprehension.
"Mr. Caruso," she stammered, pulling off the oversized headphones and tucking them under her arm. "I... I tried everything else. Swaddling, white noise, bottles, gentle rocking. Nothing was working. They were hyperventilating. I remembered a trick my grandmother taught me—sometimes you have to break the panic loop with absolute absurdity."
I didn't answer right away. I looked at Maisie and Rosie. For the past two months, since my wife, Clara, died in a sudden car accident, those little girls had worn expressions of perpetual sorrow. They were only four months old, yet grief had settled into their big brown eyes like a dark cloud.
Right now, their faces were flushed, but they weren't crying. Maisie let out a soft hiccup and reached her tiny arms toward Elise, making a small gurgling sound.
A wave of bitter envy and intense shame surged through my chest. I was their father. I owned vast shipping fleets, controlled multi-million-dollar boardrooms, and commanded hundreds of employees. Yet I couldn't make my own daughters laugh. This twenty-four-year-old woman, whom I had judged from the moment she walked into my home wearing faded sneakers and a secondhand coat, had accomplished in twenty minutes what I hadn't been able to do in sixty days.
"They should be sleeping, Miss Navarro," I said, my tone flat, masking the storm of emotions inside me. "Not playing games at two in the morning."
Elise’s shoulders straightened slightly. The anxiety in her expression gave way to something fierce and defensive. "They were sleeping, sir. Until a nightmare woke them. They were terrified. I didn't turn this into a game because I wanted to entertain myself—I did it to show them they were safe."
I stepped closer, my tall frame casting a shadow over her. "I pay you to maintain order, not to put on theatrical performances."
"You pay me to care for your daughters, Mr. Caruso," she retorted quietly, her brown eyes meeting mine with surprising firmness. "Order doesn't cure heartbreak. Neither does marble flooring or expensive nursery furniture. If you want a robot, hire one. But if you want a human being who actually cares whether your children survive this trauma, then let me do my job."
I opened my mouth to fire her on the spot. The speech was right on the tip of my tongue—the generous severance, the driver waiting outside, the agency phone call. But as I looked over her shoulder, I saw Rosie yawning, her little eyelids growing heavy, her thumb slipping contentedly into her mouth.
I swallowed the sharp words.
May you like
"Five minutes," I said coldly. "Then they need to be back in their cribs."
I turned on my heel and walked back into the dark hallway, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird.
