8
The tapping at her bedroom door was light, but insistent enough to wake her up. Naisha groaned and rolled over, dragging a large fluffy pillow over her head, hoping it would muffle the sound.
It was Saturday morning, and she’d been up late binge-watching a thriller series on Netflix. One minute she was idly clicking through the lineup over dinner, and the next she was on season two and it was one-thirty in the morning. It felt like she’d reluctantly given in to sleep a mere half an hour before, and now, there it was tapping.
Ugh.
The tapping continued, and Naisha realized that the pillow over the head trick wasn’t working. One thing for certain, it wasn’t Willa. That girl didn’t stand outside and tap. She rapped on doors with her knuckles and then launched herself inside the room like an invading squadron of flying aces.
Maybe it was Yvette, the housekeeper. “Entrez!” she called out and tried to smooth down her mussed hair. She sat up, and the sheet that had covered her body as she slept fell to her waist.
The person who stepped inside was not Yvette. William’s broad silhouette filled the doorway.
Startled, she reached for the coverlet to draw it up over her thin nightgown, which didn’t bother to pretend it was doing its job of covering her breasts. But then, halfway through that defensive move, she halted. This was her room, and her day off. He was invading her private space. So why should she bother to be embarrassed?
So she gave him a look of cool inquiry. “Yes?”
Liam looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s Willa—”
In an instant, Naisha was out of the bed and on her feet, palms pressed to her chest, in which her heart had suddenly begun to pound. “What is it? Is she okay? Has something—”
He lifted a hand in a gesture of calm. “It’s not an emergency. She’s fine, I think.”
“Well, what is it? Is she fine, or do youthinkshe’s fine?” She was beginning to lose patience with this man.
“She’s in her room, and she won’t come out.”
“Not coming out? Has she done something naughty?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Is she throwing up? Does she have a fever?”
His eyes were pained and anxious, and she would have felt bad for him if she hadn’t been so irritated by his cluelessness. He tried to enunciate, to explain. “My daughter is in her room with the door locked. She won’t get out of bed. She won’t talk to me, won’t open the door, and says the only people she wants to see are you, Jacyn or her grandmother. My mother is in town at one of her ladies’ coterie breakfasts. Jacyn and Alex are in London. That leaves you. So, Naisha, please.”
Without even waiting to hear the rest of what he had to say, Naisha darted past Liam and ran barefoot across the hall to Willa’s door, tapping as gently as her father had. “Willa, sweetie? You okay?”
Silence.
“Honey, you want to open the door?”
There was a click, and the door parted just a crack. She could see Willa’s eye at the opening and hear a hissed whisper. “Youcan come in, but him?Non!”
Naisha threw Liam another what-the-hell look, and he gave her an elaborate I-got-no-idea shrug.
“Okay,” she agreed, shooing Liam away with one hand. “Just me.” She threw him a glare so formidable that he backed away, and then turned and walked off in the direction of his room.
“Est-il partir?”Willa hissed like a spy in a bad movie. “Is he gone?”
“He is, baby,” Naisha attested.
The door opened just enough for Naisha to slide in sideways, and again she wondered worriedly what manner of tragedy could warrant this entire production. Instead of asking again, she waited.
“I got it,” Willa whispered, half in awe, half in excitement.
Naisha was still mystified. “Got what?”
Dramatically, Willa rushed to her bedside and threw back the sheets to reveal several dark red blotches. “It! You know! Iitttt!”