Chapter 26
Chapter 26: Confessions of a Nanny
Moana
“Good morning.”
I jumped, sping my hand over my heart and taking in a sharp breath as I slipped out of Edrick’s
room, only to be immediately met with a familiar voice.
Ethan’s smiling face stared back at me. From one look at him, I knew that he knew that something was
going on.
“Uh– I-It’s not how it looks like,” I stammered, looking around frantically with my back against the
bedroom door in the hopes that no one else was watching.
Ethan merely chuckled. “Are you really an au pair?” he asked. I could sense a hint of humor behind his
voice and it helped me rx just a tiny bit, but I still feared that I had ruined Ethan’s impression of me. I
liked him as a person and desperately did not want him to think that I was just after his brother for
money or s*x.
“I am, I swear,” I replied, grabbing Ethan’s arm without thinking and pulling him away from the door in
case Edrick was awake and listening. “I’m not a mistress, or anything like that.”
“Well, not that it’s any of my business, but it does sort of appear as though you might be,” he replied.
I shook my head vehemently. “No, really,” I said, lowering my voice so that no one else could hear.
“Edrick and I have a sleeping arrangement.”
Ethan chuckled again. “A sleeping arrangement?”
“Not like that,” I insisted. “An actual sleeping arrangement. For some reason, my presence helps him
sleep better than the pills and the alcohol, so he asked me to sign a contract to sleep with him until his
insomnia improves.”
“Really?” Ethan asked, sounding a bit surprised. “Edrick has had sleeping problems since before E
was born.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know why, but for some reason, it just works. He usually falls asleep as soon as I
do and wakes up as soon as I do.”
Ethan furrowed his brow. “How did you bothe to realize this?”
I felt my heart sk*p; I couldn’t possibly admit to Ethan that I had already had a one night stand with his
brother, so I merely shrugged. “We both nodded off in the living room one night,” I lied. Ethan still
seemed a bit suspicious, but didn’t say anything more.
“Come on,” he said, changing the subject and turning to walk down the stairs. “Breakfast is ready.”
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I stayed firmly nted in my spot as he walked away, my eyes still wide. Ethan, noticing my absence
by his side as he took the first step down, turned back to face me. “Don’t worry,” he said with a smile.
“We’re friends. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Ethan’s kind words helped to ay my fears for the moment, although the lingering possibility of
Edrick’s and my secret being discovered still loomed heavily above my head. What made it even worse
was knowing that, should we be caught, it would ultimately somehow wind up being entirely my fault. I
couldn’t be entirely sure that anyone, including Ethan or E, wouldn’t still take the Alpha CEO’s side of
the story over the poor human nanny’s side of the story, and I especially couldn’t be entirely sure that
Edrick wouldn’t throw me under the bus if our arrangement came to light.
Still, I decided that I needed to continue with my duties and go downstairs to wake E up and give her
breakfast. When I arrived downstairs, however, she wasn’t in her room. I heard the sound of voices and
silverware ttering, so I went to look for her there.
When I entered the dining room, E, Ethan, and Verona were already seated at the table. This dining
room was much smaller and more intimate than the massive banquet hall that we dined in the night
before, with a quaint and round family-sized table in the center that was covered by ace tablecloth
andden with a beautiful array of breakfast foods. E, who was sitting next to her grandmother,
jumped up when she saw me and skittered across the room to throw her arms around me excitedly.
She was still in her pajamas and had a bit of whipped cream on the side of her mouth, and obviously
appeared to be currently experiencing a sugar high.
“Good morning, Moana!” E eximed as she clung to my legs. “Breakfast today is Bell-jam waffles
and… om–” She paused, chewing on the sybles on her tongue, before giving up and turning to look
at her grandmother for help.
“Omelette du fromage,” Verona said with a chuckle. “And it’s Belgian waffles. Not bell-jam.”
“Right,” E said, turning back to face me. “Will you eat with us?”
I nced up at Verona, who cast me a warmly approving look, then looked back down at E. She still
had whipped cream on the side of her mouth, so I wiped it away with my thumb before it got smeared
all over my silk pajamas and nodded. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll eat with you.”
Once E was back in her seat and happily shoving even more copious amounts of waffle and syrup
into her mouth, I pulled out the chair beside her. I went to lift the silver dome that was covering my
te, but before I could, a servant scurried over and did it for me, revealing a steaming hot waffle with
fruit on top and an equally steaming omelet on the side.
“Thank you,” I said. “This looks delicious.”
“Our chef is simply the best,” Verona said before popping a strawberry into her mouth, letting it sit on
the inside of her cheek as she stirred cream and sugar into her coffee. I took a sip of my own coffee,
feeling my worries slip away as the warm, sweet liquid filled my mouth. Even the coffee tasted as
though it was made from the most expensive beans.
“Do you cook, Moana?” Ethan asked, cutting his omelet with a fork and a knife.
“Oh, I mean… I help the ser vants at the penthouse,” I replied. “I wouldn’t say I do so much cooking as
I do peeling potatoes.”
“Moana makes me sandwiches for lunch sometimes,” E chimed in, sitting up on her knees to reach
across the table for more syrup. Verona gently pped the back of the little girl’s hand, growling at her
under her breath to sit back down on her butt and not her knees, and poured the syrup for her. “Her
sandwiches are the best.”
“Oh?” Ethan asked, raising his eyebrows. “I’m a bit of a sandwich connoisseur myself. I’ll have to try
one of these sandwiches sometime.”
I felt my cheeks blush a bit, but it quickly turned toughter as E practically shouted with her mouth
full, spitting waffle everywhere: “What’seheresir mean?”
While we wereughing, Verona nced up, wiping the tears from her eyes with her napkin. “Good
morning, darling,” she said. Ethan and I both looked up as well to see Edrick standing in the doorway;
he was fully dressed, not in his pajamas like the rest of us, and had a sour look on his face.
“It’s time to go home. The car is waiting out front.”
Verona was taken aback by Edrick’s overreaction, but I instantly felt a pit in my stomach as I saw
Edrick’s eyes flicker between Ethan and I for a brief moment.
If Edrick wasn’t going to answer my questions about his poor rtionship with his brother, then I was
determined to find out in other ways. As soon as I had a chance, I would have to ask Ethan.