I walked around for way longer than an hour. I held Clara in my arms while I stood in line for coffee, then I walked us around the block until I got to the park. I sat down on a bench underneath the shade of a massive magnolia, slowly drank my coffee, and let my mind swallow me whole.

Coming to live at Derek’s had been an emotional roller coaster: he had been cold, and then he had been hot. He had been fire, and then he had been ice. He could be a dick, and then he could be soft. He acted as if he knew what he wanted, and then he pulled back and practiced restraint.

And now Gracie was back, and of course she trumped it all. She was Clara’s mother! If she took Clara back, I had no job. If she stayed, there was no need for a nanny. Either way, I knew change was coming my way.

Change always came to me when I no longer wanted it.

I thought about how good it had felt to hear from him that morning. How the vibrating of my phone piqued my curiosity right before my heart fluttered at seeing his name. I couldn’t keep playing stupid about my own emotions any longer, like some childish schoolgirl who proclaimed to be stronger than she was.

My body had weakened for Derek Blake, and my heart was beginning to do the same.

He would stand tall and proud on most mornings in the rising sunlight within his own penthouse. His hair would be ruffled from sleep and his robe would always be just a little too loose. I’d catch a glimpse of the slope of his hip muscles, and the only thing I could think about was dragging my teeth across them. Whenever I showered, I wanted him to slip in behind me. Whenever I ate, I wanted him to be eating with me. Whenever I slept, I wanted to roll over and sling my leg over his body.

Whenever I trembled with want, I wanted to fall to my knees and beg for his touch.

Clara’s squealing giggle ripped my attention away from my thoughts; that’s when I realized how low the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon. My coffee was lukewarm and the chill of the shade was setting in, so I got up from the bench and tossed the coffee cup in the garbage.

I had to make my way back to Derek’s home and get Clara back to her mother.

I walked as fast as I could back to the complex that I had called home for the past three weeks, and Franz nodded his head and smiled. He opened the door while I clutched Clara close, and I couldn’t help but feel a mysterious rush of panic flow down the back of my spine. It clenched my lungs and made it hard to breathe, and when I finally stepped into the elevator I realized Franz had stepped in behind me.

“Going up?” he asked.

Tears rose to my eyes as Clara tried to turn around to see the dark-skinned man standing beside me, and just as they streamed down my cheek Franz’s voice wafted in the confines of the elevator.

“She that bad?”

I whipped my head over to him as my eyes grew wide, but before I could offer him an answer the elevator whipped open. I cleared my throat and gingerly stepped out into the hallway, but when I turned to begin walking to Derek’s front door a sight that made me sick caught my eye.

My suitcase was sitting outside of the opened door.

I felt my knees begin to knock together while I slowly approached the door, and had I been paying attention I would’ve realized the elevator didn’t shut behind me. My jaw began to tremble and my neck was being bathed in my tears. When my body finally got around the corner, I saw Derek standing at his full-length windows with his shoulders pulled back tautly.

And Gracie was dragging another zipped luggage bag with the rest of my belongings.

“Oh, there you are,” she breathed. She kicked the bag with my things in it towards me before ripping her daughter from my arms, and my soul cried out for an explanation.

It cried out for Derek to do something.

“Derrie and I did some talkin’,” she began, “and since I’m gonna be staying, there’s no need for a full-time live-in nanny now that Clara’s got her mother.”

She’s staying.

Gracie was… was staying with… with him.

With Derek.

With the man I’d fallen in love with.

I nodded lightly before I swallowed down the last of my sobs. I didn’t want to cause a scene. Derek’s life had already been upended enough in the past month, and I didn’t need to cause any more heartache.

Mr. Blake.

I suppose I needed to start calling him “Mr. Blake” again.

“I’m sure Clara will love to have you back,” I managed to breathe.

“I’ve missed her so much…” Gracie trailed off.

“We’ll still need you Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Derek’s voice rumbled into the room.

“Derrie, there really isn’t-”

“I will renegotiate her contract with the agency, Gracie,” Derek commanded.

I meant – Mr. Blake.

Gracie pursed her lips before she slowly turned her head towards me. She wasn’t anything like I imagined or anything like Mr. Blake had described. From what little he had told me of her, she was carefree and free-willed; spontaneous and strong; always smiling and always needed, her own needs forced on her lest she burn herself out taking care of everyone else.

But the woman standing before me was none of those things. I looked into her sea foam eyes and she seemed … secretive… and … conniving.

As if she knew there was another ace stashed in the card deck, waiting, just for her.

“You’ll start next week,” Gracie nodded.

I analyzed Mr. Blake from where I was standing. His body was pulled tightly upright and his shoulders were rolled back, but he didn’t seem to be standing very tall. His head was slightly cocked and his hair was more disheveled than it usually was during the day, and I could’ve sworn I saw his hands trembling as they clasped behind his back.

“I’m sure someone from the agency will call,” she breathed before she reached out for the door and slowly began to close it on me.

The thump of the door shutting in my face jolted me from my trance, and suddenly I was alone again. The girl who dropped out of graduate school and took a job at a grocery store was slowly beginning to claw her way to the top, and the only thing I could think about was where I was going to sleep that night. Mr. Blake’s penthouse for the past three weeks held my bed, my bathroom, and my company. It held my food, my water, my safety, and my emotions for what seemed like ages.

And yet, it had only been three weeks.

“Idiot,” I cursed myself as I bent down to get my things.

But a dark, wrinkled hand came into my vision and clasped onto the handle of my rolling bag.

“Lemme help ya with that,” Franz said lowly.

I turned my gaze towards him but I didn’t have the energy to be stunned. His eyes were kind and worried, and they reminded me of a father’s eyes. Eyes a daughter should have during a time when she felt betrayed and abandoned.

I felt betrayed and abandoned by a man I had started to learn to trust.

I watched as he rolled my suitcase behind him, and just before I went to go grab the other bag I could’ve sworn I heard the doorknob rattle. My entire body paused and I held my breath, secretly hoping Derek would open that door and tell me I was staying.

Tell me I was wanted…

Tell me I was loved…

But when the door didn’t open and Dere– I mean, Mr. Blake didn’t step out and proclaim his nonexistent undying love for me, I let loose the breath I was holding before a sob released itself from my chest.

I was crumbling, and I didn’t know how to stop it. I mean, how many times can you break a vase before the shattered pieces are too small to pick up? Sure, the first time you smash it, it has some bigger pieces, but the fracture lines get smaller and smaller, and soon those big pieces turn to dust and get swept up into a dustpan and tossed into the trash.

I felt myself wafting down the hallway like dust.

I shuffled slowly into the elevator as sobs poured from my body, and when the elevator closed Franz dropped my suitcase and enveloped me with his arms. I laid my head on the old man’s shoulder and soaked his work uniform, and the only words I could manage only served to make me cry harder.

“Where am-... I gon-... -na sleep?”

His hands rubbed with the strength of a worn-down father, up and down my back, and I felt my legs giving way as he held me close to him. What I wouldn’t have given for my own father to comfort me like this: to have my mother tell me what I did wrong; to have my father explain to me what Mr. Blake might have needed in order for him to let me stay.

If only I had a family like he now did…

“You ain’t got nowhere to go?” Franz asked lowly.

“Not... anymore,” I whispered.

“Then, you will come and stay with me.”

I pulled away in shock as I tried to steady myself in the elevator.

“No, no, no, I-I-I can’t do that,” I shook my head.

“I ain’t got much. But I do have an extra room if you don’t mind sharin’ a bathroom with an’ old man.”

“You’re not old,” I snickered.

“And you’re not weak,” he said lowly.

I sniffled hard before I brought my hands up to my eyes to dry my tears. He was right; I wasn’t technically out of a job. Tuesdays and Thursdays would still bring in a little something, and I could get a part-time job working at another grocery store or a gas station somewhere to make ends meet. I’d saved up most of the money I had already made, and while it was only a paycheck and a half, it was better than nothing.

“I couldn’t pay you much for rent,” I shook my head.

“Can ya cook?” Franz asked.

“I think I’m decent at it.”

“Then I’ll buy the food if you cook,” he smiled.

“I think she is,” I said lightly.

“You think who is?” Franz asked.

“In the elevator coming up here, you asked me if she was that bad.”

I watched Franz’s eyes turn down with a saddened expression just as the elevator doors parted on the main floor of a building I would no longer call home.

“And I think she is, Franz,” I breathed.