Alright, little one. It’s bedtime. I reach down and stroke his soft hair aside, feeling a rush of emotion as I stare into his innocent eyes. Over the last five years, I have worked with several children, and I have cared for them all. Nino, however, is unique and special. I only hope he can feel it too.
“Miss Cabrera?” He peeks up at me as I stand up.
I nod to indicate I’m listening, and he snuggles deeper into the bed.
“Thank you for coming to live with us. I hope you can teach me all the sign words.”
My heart melts as I consider how fast he’s warming to me. Me too, Nino. Goodnight, little prince.
6
Alessio
After a long day of driving, I meet Manuel in my office for a debriefing, where he goes over the day’s events, giving me a rundown of his observations. He tells me about Nino’s day. The hand-holding. The granola bar incident. Then he leans back with an expression I know all too well.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He rubs his jaw. “There’s just something about her. She seems guarded, yet skittish at the same time. She flinches when a door shuts, and she’s hyper-aware of her surroundings. I think maybe she observes … too much.”
I can’t say that I disagree with him, but I won’t admit my suspicions about her are the same. I don’t need to add him to the growing pile of people who dislike this situation. Particularly when Gwen has been breathing down my neck all day to visit Nino when I know all she really wants to do is see Natalia for herself.
“Just watch her,” I tell Manuel. “And keep me updated.”
“Will do.” He rises, understanding that he’s dismissed for the evening. When he’s gone, I glance at my watch. It’s late, after midnight, and I still need to take a shower to wash the gasoline fumes from my hair. Instead, curiosity has me turning to my computer monitor to pull up the security system. Without logic or reason, I watch Natalia’s movements throughout the day, replaying the scene from breakfast. I study the video of her and Nino walking down the stairs together, hand in hand, and my shoulders stiffen at the confirmation of his affection for her. It doesn’t make sense. Not when he only ever looks at me with fear and uncertainty. She’s been here one day, and already, she has won him over.
I pull up the cameras from her room. The ones she looked for but couldn’t find. They are discreet and unobservable to even a well-trained eye. She wouldn’t have any idea that almost every inch of this house is under surveillance except for the third floor and the bathrooms.
It’s dark in her room, but she sleeps with the curtains open, and I don’t have to adjust the light to see she’s wearing her shoes again. I find it unsettling for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I want to know why. I want to know a lot of things about her that I shouldn’t. Since we met in New York, she has been occupying space in my mind far too often. I have questions about her. Now, I want answers.
I go over the footage of her day, watching her emerge from the bathroom and wiping away what appears to be moisture on her face this morning. Was she crying? I replay the video over and over. Pausing and slowing it down, searching for a solid explanation, but I don’t produce one. It feeds my interest, and I look for any other footage of her throughout the day. I find her sitting by the water, lost in her thoughts. At the pool with Nino. Helping him with his homework. Tucking him into bed. And then, I move to the kitchen in search of their dinner together. But first, I catch a clip of her run-in with Angelina.
I adjust the volume so I can hear, listening to the conversation, and my jaw sets. Angelina can be problematic. This isn’t the first time I’ve had an issue with her, but it’s the first time I’ve found myself truly considering her value as an employee. She’s here because she’s a Society daughter and she volunteered for the position. Her philanthropic gesture wasn’t out of the kindness of her heart or her passion for running a household. She saw an endgame that was never possible with me, and I’ve allowed it to continue because I respect her father. But I won’t stand for her interference in Nino’s care, and this situation will need to be addressed.
I crack my neck from side to side and shut down the computer, locking up the office for the night before I head upstairs. On the second landing, I pause, aware that Natalia is asleep. Something pulls me in that direction, and I stop outside her door, considering how much she has disrupted my life already. From the beginning, my gut told me she was hiding something. Liars are my least favorite life form. If I’m honest, I don’t know why I hired her. I wanted something simple and uncomplicated, but already she is complicating things with her inane requests and observations. She’s in my thoughts more than I’d care to admit, distracting me from my work and now my free hours too. I consider what I would do in this situation with anyone else. Pests must be squashed. That has always been my motto. It would be very easy to walk into her room right now and smother her to death. It would be quiet and fast, and tomorrow, things could go back to the way they were. It wasn’t perfect before, but I’d find a way to make it work.