I also saw Eleanor’s attempts to control it, whether it’s because she doesn’t know how to let Lillie express herself or because she sees that expression as a threat. I don’t know.
Ruby, by contrast, lets my daughter shine. She gets on her level and plays with her. She talks to her, but she doesn’t force her to be an adult.
It’s incredible how it affects me. She’s like a gift.
Walking around my office, I toss the stress ball in the air, giving it a squeeze every time I catch it. I stop at the French doors facing the lake in my office.
All three floors have them. They’re lined up parallel to each other, with balconies on the second and third levels.
Ruby’s right, it’s a beautiful home, and the layout works well with my family situation. Each floor has privacy, like its own quarters… I never noticed it before.
I haven’t noticed a lot of things.
Gazing out at the calm waters, the cranes stepping carefully along the banks, I dismiss any second thoughts I might have had about hiring Ruby.
Sure, it was impulsive and seemingly out of the blue, but I’d been researching hiring a nanny for weeks. I had planned to go through a service, but trusting my gut has gotten me this far, and Ruby is clearly the right person for the job.
She’s a smart, independent woman who isn’t afraid of Eleanor and who also happens to be great with Lillie. It’s a stroke of luck I’m not sure a service would have provided.
My mind drifts to the way she took Lillie’s invitation to play that Disney princess scene last night. Ruby didn’t care who saw her. She didn’t care if it was silly. She only cared about getting to know my little girl and making a friend.
Seeing her that way did something more, though. It found a crack in the wall I’d built around my heart. It took all the feelings I’d set aside and stirred them up, twisting them into a new and unexpected emotion.
I realized in that moment… I am different.
Before, I didn’t believe I could ever move on without betraying my wife’s memory, no matter how many self-help books I read. It didn’t matter if I was thirty, with more than half of my life still ahead of me… I felt guilty if I responded to the sight of a beautiful woman.
Hell, I felt guilty for being attracted to Ruby.
Despite everything Drew said, I couldn’t let go and learn to live again. What changed?
I don’t have to ask. The answer struts around this house with bouncing curls and sparkly mermaid shirts. Lillie is the key to it all, and now I have to decide how I’m going to handle this new information.
Before, when it was only attraction, I could dismiss it. I’m a mature adult, I’m five years older than Ruby, I can handle myself.
Now that she’s become my ally, now that I know she’s smart and tough as well as sexy, now that she’s stolen Lillie’s heart and treats my daughter like I would…
It’s a pull I’m finding hard to resist.
I turn from the window and toss the stress ball on my desk. I will resist it. I’ll focus on something different, what I hope to accomplish. The reason I hired Ruby in the first place.
Sure, it was so I could move Eleanor into her proper place, but it was also so I could focus on my work and move my investment fi
rm to the next level.
I’ve been following a few tech startups. One even has a bid from the military that could bring in a huge windfall in the coming months, but I’ve fallen out of the mix. Now I’m ready to get back in there and start doing more. Having more time means I can keep the investments rolling.
Picking up my phone, I tap out the old, familiar number. It only rings once before my friend and investment scout answers.
“Hastings here.” Stephen’s voice hasn’t changed. It’s as impatient and arrogant as always. “What’s on your mind, Remington? Psychology Today?”
“I want to know the latest on the Stellan project.”
I tried to acquire the communications security app a year ago, but I confess, fighting with Eleanor and my own apathy probably lost me the deal.
He exhales as if he’s bored. “You haven’t asked about Stellan in six months.”
“I’m asking about it now.”