“The Summer Benefactors’ Ball,” Severn said, half-distracted. “A gala hosted by the city’s largest commerce organization. My advisors tell me I must make an appearance. There will be several executives in attendance who only come to the city rarely, so this is our chance to broker new business deals.” He set down his quill. “I want you to come with me.”
At his suggestion that I go with him, Briar’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly before she slipped back down her cool mask of indifference.She’s jealous,I realized. She quickly turned her attention to his desk, organizing and straightening papers.
“I assume you mean as your girlfriend?” I said. “Not the nanny?”
He scowled at me across the desk as though offended I would think otherwise. “Of course.”
“Okay, but are you sure? That sounds very public.”
He leaned back in his chair, a slight frown on his face. “What does that matter?”
I shifted in my own chair, crossing my legs, thinking of how to explain my concerns to him. “Well, it’s one thing to take your nanny slash girlfriend out for breakfast. This is a totally different thing. At an event like this, there will be benefactors, socialites, CEOs of major companies. The press will beeverywhere. If you bring me as your date, it’s a major statement. That you’re not just screwing the nanny but in a serious relationship.”
I felt a blush creep up the sides of my face. Severn had publicly called me his girlfriend, but the definition of that word could be—and had been—widely debated. Most of what I’d read in the press speculated he was having an affair with his nanny and trying to avoid criticism by calling it a relationship.Iknew it was more complicated than that, but I also didn’t want Severn to feel like I was forcing him into a more serious relationship designation.
He cocked his head, curious. “You don’t want to go?”
“No, that isn’t it at all. It just… Look, I know that Wilde Tower doesn’t have an HR department and that the fae in your court don’t give a fig who you sleep with. But the human worlddoescare. Dating an employee who still technically works for you isn’t a good look.”
“Hmm.” He tented his hands, considering this, then dropped them onto his desk. “Fine. I’ll fire you.”
I slumped back in the chair and rolled my eyes at his proposed solution, though Briar lit up, delighted by the possibility of getting me off the payroll and potentially out of Wilde Tower altogether.
“What about Henry and May?” I asked. “You’ll just hire a new nanny?”
He scowled, rethinking his idea. “Of course not. Now that I’ve come to know them better, I couldn’t possibly let a stranger care for them.” He rolled up the parchment scroll and handed it to Briar, then rubbed his forehead as though it ached him. “Perhaps you could formally resign from your position but stay on to take care of them. I’ll give you a separate penthouse if you like. One even grander. Whatever you want.”
He brushed his hands together like the solution was really that simple.
I crossed my legs, leaning back in the velvet chair. “Now that sounds like you want to sleep with the nanny but not pay her, which is even worse.”
He groaned as he dug his fingertips against his eye sockets, muttering, “The human world is completely indecipherable.” He dropped his hands and squared his shoulders at me across the desk. “Look, I want you at the gala, Willow. I want everyone to see that you are mine. I don’t care what they think.”
I took a deep breath.Ihad a sense of how much drama we’d be getting into—I knew how the human world worked. I’d seen rom-coms and read about high-profile bachelors. Severn might not care about the consequences, but did I?
“I guess there’s nothing to worry about,” I relented.
His mouth drew back in a wolfish smile. “Excellent. I’ll make the arrangements.”
Over the next few weeks, our relationship deepened in a way that made me think weweregetting serious. Severn came to the apartment to eat dinner with us most nights, though he ordered his fleet of chefs to prepare a medieval-style banquet for himself while we ate mac ’n’ cheese; he accompanied me when I took Puck out for walks, unbothered by the paparazzi constantly snapping pictures; he would even help me and the kids cross off items on the checklist when he was able to get away from work. Once, we took Henry and May fishing at a trout pond upstate. Another time, we rode the elevator down to the tower’s mailroom and spent hours popping bubble wrap.
One day, Severn offered to fly us in his helicopter to Vancouver so that the children could try real French crepes and we could escape the American press. He suggested it would be a good opportunity to cross off “ride a private jet” and “visit a foreign country” from the checklist, and I had to explain to him that the checklist was meant to be normal childhood experiences that every kid should have: things like raising tadpoles into frogs and learning to hula-hoop.
“Most kids don’t ride in private planes,” I said.
Henry and May shushed me loudly and elbowed me to be quiet before Severn changed his mind. We ended up spending a whole Saturday in Canada, courtesy of his private jet.
One evening, after we’d eaten together and Henry and May had fallen asleep on the sofa watching TV, Severn dragged me into his lap and started kissing me. After a few minutes, he pulled back to meet my gaze with hooded eyelids.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” he said. “Do you remember the olive farm I own in Tuscany?”
I nodded—it was hard to forget about my boyfriend’s multimillion-dollar second homes around the world.
He traced a finger along my hairline and down my jaw, stopping at my chin. “After the gala, I want you and the children to pack some things and go there for a while.”
I shifted in his lap, frowning. “How long is ‘a while’?” A week or two lounging in the Tuscan sun hardly sounded like torture, but knowing his overprotective nature, I was suspicious that he wasn’t talking about a brief vacation.
He rubbed his chin. “Until the end of the year.”
