Page 96 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

"You don't owe me anything for it. Leave it in a drawer if you want." Her hand was still on the counter next to it. "I just don't want you standing out at that gate waiting for somebody to come let you in."

Lucy didn't move. On a bus, with everything she owned packed into six boxes, she'd told herself she'd never let somebody else control her life or hold anything over her again. She'd meant it every time she'd said it since.

She wanted the key. But it took a moment for her to let her feel it. She picked up the key, then dug her key ring out of her coat pocket and worked the split ring open with her thumbnail. It took three tries and the metal went into the pad of her thumb. Carrington stood on the other side of the island and watched her.

"Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me for a key."

"It’s not just a key."

Carrington watched her put the ring in her pocket. "You've never let me give you anything."

"You gave me that letter to the social worker. You didn't tell me about it until you wrote and sent it."

"That wasn't for you."

"You keep saying that."

"Because it wasn't."

"All right."

Lucy walked around the end of the island and stopped a foot short of her. "I love you."

Carrington put both hands on the edge of the counter and met Lucy’s eyes. “I love you too.”

"The room in town is paid up to the end of the month," Lucy said.

"You’ve said."

"Afterward, I’m coming back here, and I'm paying my way," she said. "I'm not being kept in this house."

"I figured you’d say that."

"You're not going to argue with me?"

"No."

"But you argue about everything."

"Not about this thing," Carrington said.

Upstairs, a door banged. Grace bounded down two at a time with one shoe on and the other in her hand.

"Tell her," Carrington said.

"It’s your information to share."

"She asked you, not me."

"Grace." Lucy waited until she stopped on the bottom stair. "You asked me something yesterday. About whether I live here."

"Yes."

"I'm moving back in on the first of the month."

Grace looked at Lucy, then she looked at her aunt. Then she dropped the shoe on the stairs and ran across the kitchen. She wrapped both arms around Lucy's stomach and whispered something in her coat that she couldn’t hear.