It should have felt like winning. Instead, it felt like borrowing someone else’s life.
I thought of Mom back in Holly Creek, working herself to the bone at the diner until her accident years prior. Or of my sisters sharing a bedroom while I slept on the couch. And every time I’d said “I’m fine” when someone asked, even when my family was drowning in bills and debt.
Griffin had no idea what it meant to struggle. To choose between gas and groceries. To lie awake calculating which bill could wait another week.
Now I had a key to his lavish home, an expensive phone on his plan, and a black card with the company name on it. He’d wrapped his coat around me on the street. Sent flowers when I was sick. Bought me pajamas soft enough to make me cry. Each step deeper into his world felt like crossing a line I couldn’t uncross. Like I was playing dress-up in a life that could never possibly be mine.
And I had a baby secret that could potentially strip me of all of it if he wanted nothing to do with us.
McDaniels held the door open for me, tipping his cap again. “Beautiful fall day, Miss Jessa.”
“It is. Do you have kids, McD?” I took liberties to call him that. He didn’t seem to mind.
“Three of them. All grown now, living their own lives. And one grandchild on the way.”
“How sweet. I have to grab Theo’s permission slip that he forgot.” I pointed up as if I needed to explain my reason for intruding. “Kids, right?”
“Always something.”
I rode the elevator to the penthouse. The permission slip sat exactly where Theo said it would: on Griffin’s massive desk in his home office, and signed, thank goodness. Figures—he signed it and forgot to put it in the backpack. I grabbed it, and my gaze stuttered on the space.
The leather chair still held the indent of his body. His smoky cedar cologne lingered in the air, the expensive kind that attached itself to my memories of our night in Holly Creek.
I remembered the way he’d looked at me then. Like I was the only thing in the world that mattered. Like money and status and control had fallen away, leaving just a man who desired me.
Had I imagined it? Made it into something it wasn’t because I’d never had a man look at me like that before?
My hand drifted to my stomach again. This baby was real. The night we’d made it was real. But everything since felt like a fever dream—me in his world, pretending I belonged, waiting for the moment it all came crashing down.
A knock came at the front door of the penthouse. I spun around, heart jumping.
When I answered, a woman stood there—probably mid-thirties, sleek blonde bob, Chanel suit that cost more than my car. She looked like she’d walked straight out of a board meeting and into my life to ruin it.
Her sharp gaze landed on me when I opened the door. “Who are you?”
“Uh… the nanny.”
“Of course.” She rolled her eyes and held out a leather folder, expression icy. “Sam had these sent over to me last night. I’ve known these men for years, and I cannot believe the audacity of them. I’m Sabine, and I’d appreciate it if you could tell Griffin there is absolutely no way I’d agree to any of it.”
She huffed, turned on her designer heel, and stepped back into the elevator. I stood there holding the folder like it might explode.
The doors closed.
What could get a woman like that so upset? I stared at the embossed West Games logo on the cover of the folder.
Don’t look, Jessa. It’s none of your business.
But I was suddenly driven by the same instinct that had kept me alive in Holly Creek, the one that whispered when things were too good to be true. Because they always were.
I’d learned that lesson early. Men who promised to stay left. Jobs that seemed stable vanished. Fairytales were for other girls who grew up in grand houses, who didn’t have to raisetheir sisters or work double shifts or sleep in cars. Girls who belonged.
I took the folder back to his desk, and oops—it fell open. Like any other nanny, what could I do but take a seat and check to make sure not a single page had fallen out. That’s what a good little employee would do, right?
I wasn’t prepared for what I found.
*Marriage of Convenience Agreement between Griffin West and ____________*
The blank space where a name should be mocked me, waiting for someone else’s, not mine.
