Ethan gets up to answer the door while I let go of the breath I’m holding.

We were about to have a moment, weren’t we? Because it sure felt like it. Even Lilly Belle seems to agree with her questioning eyebrows and pucker. It’s late, and I should escape upstairs, but I’m dying to know who’s at the door. I’m nosy that way. If it’s a woman here to see Ethan, I have to admit, I’m going to hate it.

It’s not like Ethan is anything to me but my employer, but I can’t help but feel that there’s more there. Varnish has hardened over his inner self, and it just needs cracking open. But should I be the one to crack it? I don’t see how things between us could ever work. Yes, it was nice, even for just two minutes, to feel like we were almost a family, but that doesn’t mean I should allow myself to fall for him.

Scooping Lilly Belle into one arm and the bouncy seat into the other, I start heading upstairs while Ethan opens the front door with a scoff. I make my way up the stairs slowly, so I can eavesdrop on whoever is there.

Sounds like a woman alright, talking right after Ethan mumbles something, but he’s not happy to see her. “Ethan, darling, if I don’t visit you at this hour, I’ll never find you, that’s why. Please let me in.”

My stomach is in knots. He wouldn’t be dating an older woman, would he? Like, way older? Suddenly, I realize how little I know about him, except what I’ve read in the tabloids, heard from Wilson, or experienced myself in the bedroom.

“Mother, get in your town car and leave. Just go.”

His mother. And that’s the way he talks to her? Terrible!

“You can’t keep her away from me,” the woman says, “It’s not right. She’s our granddaughter. Let me in this instant.”

“It’s that easy, huh? Just demand it and it becomes so? Doesn’t work that way. You had your chance, now leave.” Ethan’s voice is icier than ever. A thousand times worse than he is with me. If this is Ethan when he’s upset, then the way he speaks to me is pretty civil.

If he doesn’t want to let her, there must be a reason. Though I think it’s awful—just awful that he won’t let her.

“You are ridiculously stubborn, you know that?” Mother Townsend hisses angrily. “I’m prepared to adopt her. You know you’re too busy for a child. You don’t even have a wife, for Pete’s sake. Now, move before I break down this door.”

“Like hell you will. I can’t believe you showed up here at this time, and drunk, no less, but some things never change. Get this through your skull—you will never adopt Lilly Belle,” he grits his teeth. “A nice couple who will spend time with her, raise her right, will do all the things you never did.”

Wait, what? Ethan won’t raise her?

“I have the money, I have the home…”

“You have nothing she needs. Never show up at my house again, you hear me? Now, go.” He shuts the door on the begging woman while I stand on the stairs feeling like I got punched in the lower intestines.

A nice couple will raise her? Did he mean himself with possibly someone else in the future? The whole conversation has left a metallic taste in my mouth, and that’s when I realize I was clenching my jaw so hard, biting through my lip, that I’ve drawn blood.

Ethan spins around in a huff, the face of a haunted man in place of the gentler one who spoke to me in the kitchen.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

He stops cold in his tracks and cranes his neck down to look up at me near the top of the stairs. “Were you listening the whole time? That’s unprofessional, not to mention insensitive, Miss Wallach.”

“I’m sorry. I was leaving, actually, but your voices were rather loud. Don’t you have custody of Lilly Belle?” I ask, totally outside of my business.

“Time for you to go upstairs,” he deadpans.

He’s not going to answer my question, that much is clear. He’s fuming and rattled from the encounter, and he’s not the type to open up and share his thoughts to feel better. It was stupid of me to ask in the first place, but at least my question is out there.

The man has ice water running through his veins to treat his own flesh and blood this way, yet I’m still checking on him. He should be grateful that someone cares. I want to tell him all this, tell him that family is the most important thing in this world, and he should be more respectful of his mother, but then I remember my own mother, and the mortgage and bills needing to be paid, and I keep my fat mouth shut.

Ethan points at me, or Lilly Belle, rather. “Keep her away from me. I won’t tell you again.”

I don’t agree, I don’t nod, nothing. I just storm upstairs and into Lilly Belle’s room, feed her the bottle, and rock my anger away. Within minutes, the baby is asleep. I lay her down, cover her with her light blanket, and hope to God that this poor creature gets raised better than Ethan did.

* * *

At night, I can’t sleep.

I lie in bed worrying over the things Ethan and his mother said to each other. Did he mean that he would be putting Lilly Belle up for adoption? Is my job as nanny a temporary one, not because Ethan will soon take care of the baby himself or because he has a girlfriend who’ll soon move in to raise her, but because he’s going to be getting rid of her, like an abandoned puppy at a homeless shelter?

I need answers.

The thought of that happening to Lilly Belle forces a wave of tears into my eyes. As much as I feel that Mother Townsend has a right to see her granddaughter, I also got a sense of the kind of woman she was. Something about her demeanor was strange and makes me believe that perhaps Ethan has good reason not to want to be around her.

He mentioned she’d been drinking. Perhaps she is an alcoholic—whatever it is, the situation is terribly sad.

Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe putting Lilly Belle for adoption is the right thing to do, and a nice couple will take her in. It’s just so unfair. My siblings and I were blessed with a wonderful mother and father who are still around, yet the little creature in the room next to mine, sleeping while moons and stars dance over her head to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star gets a beautiful big house filled with icy air.

Why is Ethan so cruel to everyone? I thought he had a softer, gentler, nicer side, but if the man can’t even bring himself to speak nicely to the woman who brought him into this world, then I shudder to think how he’ll speak to a wife, a girlfriend, any woman who loves him.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had a job like this where I’ve become emotionally invested. I’ve never had a problem leaving a home when the job is done, but this case is special. We have a baby here who needs a home, needs a loving heart, but it hurts too much to stay. Even with the pay increase, I am not getting paid enough to deal with this torment. Even if he quadrupled my salary tonight, it still wouldn’t be enough.

That’s when it hits me that I’m not still here for the money.

I’m here because I care for that sleeping angel. I care about what happens to her. I worry that if I leave, everything will go to shit for her. I’m the only good thing going on in her life right now, and this is a quandary I’ve never been in before.

Then, there’s Ethan. I find myself caring for him, too. But why, though? He’s callous, he turns warm and cold like a faucet, and he’s clearly a dick. Take that back. Scratch that. It doesn’t feel right to say that about the man who smiled at Lilly Belle and me in the kitchen, who held me tightly the night that we slept together. He didn’t have to do that. He could’ve walked right out, but he stayed a while. Made sure I fell asleep then helped the baby fall back asleep, in order to not wake me.

There is a softer side.

He must be in pain, then.

There’s only one reason a man would speak to his mother that way, and it has to be because of his past, his upbringing. Again, the benefit of the doubt. I’ll stay. I’ll stay only because I care to see how this ends up. I don’t like all the rules, or the restrictions on where I can walk in the house, or the absence of a social life, but I’ve already got both my feet in the pool, so I may as well go for a swim.

Besides, I need the money.

If it becomes too much, then I’ll tell Le Nanny I can’t anymore. And that’ll be it.

I check my phone in the darkness of my room for the time, noting it’s three in the morning. From somewhere downstairs, I hear a clanking sound, petrifying my body. Is someone breaking in, or is that just Ethan walking around? I’m scared to go look, but I can’t risk staying upstairs if someone were in the house. I would want to alert Ethan as quickly as possible.

Grabbing my robe off the hook in the bathroom, I wrap it around my body and head out slowly. Not only is there clanking, but there’s music, too. A light aria coming from somewhere. Maybe the burglar loves opera? Pfft, crazy. I’m not usually awake at three in the morning, so it’s most likely I’m just hearing noises from the buildings next door or something. I creep downstairs, through the kitchen, following the source of the sound, which leads me all the way to dark hallway at the back of the house. I’ve never ventured this far before into Ethan’s home, and now I’m nervous as all hell.

I hug myself in the cold hallway, padding my bare feet on the wooden floor, slowly approaching a mostly closed door left ajar. The light glows around it like in some horror movie but instead of hearing screams or ghostly moans, I hear what sounds like gym equipment, clinking, clanking and being thrown down in bursts of frustration.

When I reach the door, I push it open ever so slowly, peeking through. Finally, I see him. He doesn’t see me, but it’s him, and I’m somewhat relieved. But seeing Ethan Townsend wearing only workout pants, no shirt, his chest rippled with shiny muscles, and his brow line covered with sweat might actually be worse than encountering a burglar.

Because now I’m mesmerized by his aura. I want him again.

He lifts the barbell, struggles to raise it above his head, forcing the veins to protrude from his biceps, triceps, and every kind of cep known to mankind, and seeing his frustrations vent with every breath, shake of his head, and pacing around the room, I know I’m in trouble.

This man is tormented. Haunted by his past. I see it in his face, hear it in his heavy breath. Know it with my heart, because why else would he be awake at this time, working out like a madman?

My footstep causes the floor to creak, calling attention to my presence. Before he can call me on it and get mad about it, I step through the open doorway into the full light of the fancy home gym. “Ethan…” Not Mr. Townsend. We’re not at work right now.

His striking face whips around, his mouth slightly open with exhaustion, both the physical and mental kind. “Miss Wallach, what are you doing here?”

Doesn’t matter what I call him, because standing here, feeling the static electricity in the space between us, potential or stored energy waiting to be released, the exchange of empathy plus need and desire and longing, all amplified in the middle of the night from emotional exhaustion, our boundaries mean nothing.

My status as employee means nothing. Right now, he’s a man going through turmoil, and I’m a woman unsure of what to do, how to comfort him, and all I know is that I want to take him in my arms and tell him it’s going to be okay, that things will sort themselves out, and in the meantime, I can take care of him.

I don’t have to say a word. He understands, and he’s all for it. Ethan rushes toward the door, a man on a mission, pulls me harshly away from the door, and then he’s slamming me against the gym mirror, pushing my arms over my head, and kissing me.