CHAPTER 1
BEN
A s I fixed my tie, adjusting it to perfection, I could hear my daughter Elle screaming from her room. Smothering an impatient curse, I reached for my jacket on the way out of the master bedroom and crossed the short distance to Elle’s room. I opened the door to a chaotic scene. Unfortunately, Elle’s meltdowns were becoming our new mor
ning routine. It was a rare day when she got dressed peacefully and was ready to be dropped at her exclusive private school without running the risk of being late. I got in the habit of setting my alarm an extra half hour early and having the maid wake Elle forty-five minutes sooner just to deal with the tantrums and inevitable morning conflict.
If only the problem were confined to mornings. That I could almost take. With Elle these days, it’s a constant stream of acting out. I couldn’t blame her—she’s been through a lot, but so have I.
I did my best to maintain calm, and fixed a small smile on my face as I approached my daughter, who was currently screaming from her walk-in closet as she tossed clothes out at the poor maid. I gave Betsy a sympathetic look, marveling for perhaps the hundredth time that she hadn’t yet quit her job and run far away from all our family drama.
She cast a longing glance at the door, and I nodded. She didn’t ask again, or linger to check if it was okay. Betsy ran for it, almost literally jogging from the room and leaving me to face my daughter alone.
It honestly terrified me, but certainly not because Elle was physically intimidating. She was on the small side for her age and thin. She looked too much like Ashe for comfort sometimes, but she most certainly wasn’t like Ashe much in personality. Even her rages and fits came from a place of insecurity rather than the drug and alcohol addiction that had plagued my ex-wife. To this day, that disease probably still plagued her, though I wouldn’t know for certain. When Ashe had lost custody of Elle during a vicious legal battle—which I suspected she undertook as a way to hurt me rather than because she wanted to be responsible for our child—she hadn’t bothered to maintain contact with her only daughter. I had her address, and I occasionally had my people check in on her to make sure she was still alive, but she hadn’t taken advantage of any of her visitation with Elle for months. I’m sure it hurt Elle, but honestly, I was relieved. As long as Ashe was a junkie, my daughter was absolutely better off without her.
“Hey honey, what’s the problem?” I asked, doing my best to sound patient and reasonable. Elle had a way of pushing my buttons and escalating the situation until I could no longer stay cool. I was determined not to lose it today.
“I can’t find my iPhone X case.”
I looked at her dresser, where they were four cases lined up in a row. “It’s not one of these?”
“Of course it’s not one of those,” screeched Elle. “I’m wearing purple socks today, so I need the purple one with the diamond accents. Don’t you know anything, Ben?”
I shuddered at the way she said my name. She was mimicking the vicious, angry tone she’d heard her mother use so many times in the past. She didn’t have much in common with Ashe, except for knowing exactly how to stab a person through the heart, or push their buttons. Reminding myself she was both a child and my daughter helped me keep from giving it back. “Why won’t this one work?” I took a step closer to pick up a zebra-printed case that had purple trim.
She gave me a look full of disgust. “Ugh. It’s the wrong shade of purple. See the socks?” She lifted her foot before stomping it down hard on the bamboo flooring. “That’s dark purple.”
An irritated sigh escaped my mouth. “Perhaps you’ll just have to make do with it today, my love. We’re running out of time, and you still need to get Betsy to fix your hair.”
Elle glared up at me. “I don’t need the maid for anything. I’ve been doing my own hair for years, and she doesn’t know how to do it right. None of your staff knows how to do anything right, just like you.”
I winced at the words, knowing there was truth in them, at least about the hair. I’d been so busy with the startup of the company that I hadn’t realized just how far Ashe had checked out of our daughter’s life over the years until I came home one afternoon and found her passed out in the living room with the needle still in her arm, while Elle had calmly been cleaning up the room and putting a wet cloth in her mother’s forehead. As I’d watched her for just a moment, shocked by the scene before me I’d recognized the kind of competence and familiarity in Elle’s motions that told me she had been in that situation more than once.
I also winced because the words could have come from Ashe’s own mouth. She’d always found fault with everyone, including our lovely daughter, who was still beautiful and could be the sweet child she was at heart, if only I could figure out how to help her.
The problem was, I didn’t think I could do it alone. I didn’t know how, and it wasn’t fair to her to try to split my time between the company and Elle. I also couldn’t abandon my duties, because we employed thousands of people, and many of those workers had families of their own to take care of, or possibly their own wounded little girls who struck out at everyone like angry bear cubs.
“Maybe Santa will get you a new one. Christmas isn’t too far away,” I offered lamely. At her glare, I gave up. “Let me help you look for it,” I said as I knelt down on the floor beside her. At that point, I didn’t care if my suit pants ended up a wrinkled mess, as long as I could give her a moment’s happiness. Surprisingly, we worked together in silence for the next three minutes until she found the missing phone case wedged between the wall and the dresser. As she snapped her phone into it, she looked so happy and carefree for a second that I longed to be able to give her a countless number of similar moments. “I understand Betsy isn’t quite what you’re looking for when you need help. I’d like to hire a nanny.”
Her expression chilled. “Just another servant to mess up everything. Because you don’t have time for me, and you don’t care about me.”
I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. It wouldn’t be the slick look I had in preparation for my big meeting with a new client later today but some things are more important. At least that’s what I told myself and her. “That isn’t true at all, Elle. I love you so much. I just think we both need some help, and a nanny can help you with what you need, while also allowing me more time to spend with you doing fun things.”
She glared at me. “What are you talking about? You’re the parent. You’re not supposed to do fun things.”
The remark was so grown-up and serious, and it hurt my heart to see her sound so jaded. Hesitantly, I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, not surprised when she jerked away. I let it fall back to my side with a small sigh. “I think we can find a good mix of fun and seriousness. It has to be someone you would find acceptable as a nanny. I can ask the agency to send us a few candidates—”
“Lindsay.”
I frowned. “Who’s that?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Lindsay Valentine, remember? She used to babysit me when I was small.”
I frowned, trying to place a face with the name. It came to me abruptly. Lindsay Valentine had been a young girl living in the apartment next to ours in our old place, before the company had really taken off, and Ashe had insisted we needed an apartment in the Imperial. Elle hadn’t even been a year old when Ashe started hiring Lindsay to help with her, which hadn’t raised alarm bells then. I’d like to think my useless ex-wife hadn’t been completely drug-addled at that point, but I questioned her judgment now, along with my own, of entrusting our toddler to a twelve-year-old.
I might not have seen Lindsay in the last six years or so, but it sounded like she had babysat for us up until the point we had moved to the Imperial three years back. That would make her what, eighteen, now? I guess she was old enough to take care of my unruly daughter. “How do you remember Lindsay?” I asked the question to buy some time to think.
“She was fun, and she liked to draw pictures. I still have one.”