Page 20 of Devil Seeks Nanny

I walk quietly and look into the kitchen once I arrive at the threshold, and the sight before me squeezes my chest. Monica and Matteo are standing on step stools so they can reach the top of the center island where ingredients are spread around to bake cookies. Diana stands right with them, and the three of them are rolling chocolate chip cookie dough into balls in their hands before placing them on a tray with a baking sheet spread on top of it.

The kids are giggling, obviously enjoying themselves, with Monica nodding her head to the music as Diana hums along. Matteo sneakily attempts to steal a chocolate chip from the bag that rests on the counter. But right as he pops it in his mouth, Diana, without even looking up from her hands as she rolls the dough between them, says casually, “Every chocolate chip you steal equals to a bite of your veggies with dinner tonight, Matteo.”

Matteo freezes, eyes widening slightly as he swallows the chip. Monica is giggling as Matteo puts on an innocent act. “That was just my first one.”

“Oh, really?” Diana muses, putting the rolled-up dough ball on the tray before bending to look Matteo in the eye. No one notices me yet, and I watch as Diana playfully narrows her blue eyes at my son, her fisted hands resting on her hips. “Then how come I counted six, mister?”

Matteo smiles at her, wide and charming. I suppress a smirk; the kid’s going to be breaking hearts when he’s older. I would know. “Maybe you counted wrong.”

“Really?” Diana repeats with an arch of her brow. “Tell me—who checks whose math homework every day?”

This time Matteo pouts, apparently having no argument against that. “How did you know?” he asks instead. “You weren’t even looking.”

Diana grins at him, and the tightness in my chest intensifies at the sight of it. Her smile lights up the fucking room, even if it’s bright as hell in here thanks to all of the kitchen lights. But none of it compares to the happiness her smile radiates. “I have eyes in the back of my head,” she tells Matteo, widening her eyes dramatically.

My son wrinkles his nose. “That’s gross.”

That makes Diana laugh, and that sound—fuck. It echoes in my ears, resonating deep in my bones. I bite the tip of my tongue, keeping my own smile from upturning my lips. It wasn’t as though our house was lacking any laughs or smiles—I made sure to give my kids the kind of life where they wouldn’t ever lack anything. I want them to always smile, always have reasons to laugh.

With Diana in our house, the smiles and laughter are still there, but it feels different now. Lighter, if possible. And while I worked day and night to make sure my kids always had everything they wanted, and that they would never feel like they were missing something, I know that we are. I feel it, every day. Maria’s ghost haunts the hallways.

I miss my wife, every day, and the pain of her loss stays with me. But Monica and Matteo—they never knew her. I keep her memory alive for them, I always will, but I’m grateful that they don’t know that kind of loss.

And the longer I watch them with Diana, with a light in their eyes that is wonderfully blinding, I’m grateful that Diana is here.

My gaze slides to the glass of water that is resting on the counter, and I inherently know that it’s for me. Gloria used to always hand me one whenever I came home at the end of the day, cracking jokes about how I couldn’t live off of whiskey and Scotch. I appreciated it every time she did it.

But now Diana has taken up that task, along with taking care of the kids, and the first time she had handed it to me, there had been a foreign sensation brewing deep in my chest. A feeling I haven’t experienced in a long time. It had taken me aback because I absolutely didn’t expect her to do it, too. I’m aware it’s a mundane thing, her just handing me a glass of water, but something about Diana doing it instead of Gloria feels different. And I’m afraid it’s in a way that I can find myself rapidly growing attached to.

I step into the kitchen then, immediately announcing my presence as the kids look over at me. They grin widely, their smiles thawing the cold heart that beats in my chest. “Hi, Daddy!” Monica greets me, waving a doughy hand at me. “We’re baking cookies!”

The corner of my mouth lifts up. “I see that,” I say, walking over to the end of the counter and picking up the glass of water. My gaze flicks up at Diana, and her eyes lock with mine; bluer than any ocean I’ve ever seen. I have an incriminating feeling that if I could, I’d happily drown in them.

“Will they taste like the ones from the bakery?” Matteo asks Diana, looking up at her with wide, green eyes. “The ones daddy gets?”

A part of me tenses at Matteo’s question, at him bringing up the bakery. I keep my gaze fixed on Diana as I sip my water, my grip on it tight. In raising my kids, I’ve worked hard on protecting them from the darkness of the world and the horrors that live in it—especially because I work so intimately in the shadows of it all. My children are the only light in my life, the only good. For as long as I can, I want to protect them from anything unsavory, anything they might not fully comprehend just yet.

So, to them, asking about the bakery is normal. But to Diana, they’re practically asking about her father, about the very place he was killed in.

And for the first time, I find myself wanting to protect someone other than my children.

I look at Diana, and I see the way her smile freezes for a fraction of a second. In this moment, she is vulnerable, and she wears her heart on her sleeve. I see the emotions flash across her face; the pain, the grief. But she smiles through it. “They sure will,” she tells the kids with a grin. “What’d I tell you? I used to bake a lot of the stuff in that bakery. And now, you get the good stuff right here at home.”

Matteo giggles. “Awesome.”

For the next few minutes, I stay in the kitchen, watching as they finish with the dough. Then, Diana takes the tray and walks over to the oven. Making sure the kids stay back, she pulls it open and slides the tray in, shutting the oven afterward and setting a timer.

“Alrighty,” Diana grins at the kids. “In about ten minutes, they should be done. Why don’t you two wash your hands, huh? We’ll have dinner and then cookies.”

Monica and Matteo nod before hurrying out of the kitchen, their feet lightly thudding along the floor as they go. I set the glass down, watching as Diana washes her hands before moving to clean up the mess on the counter. Today’s meal is already sitting, cooked, on the stove, so I move toward the cabinets to pull out plates.

I hear her clattering behind me as she cleans up, and just as I turn around with the plates, Diana clears her throat. I arch an eyebrow. She’s holding the bowl they had likely mixed the dough in as she locks her gaze with mine and asks, “Do you have any updates on the fire?”

I press my teeth together, unsurprised by her question. She hasn’t asked about the fire in a while—and I had hoped she wouldn’t. Diana doesn’t move from where she stands, still holding onto the bowl, short hair pulled back into a ponytail. Wisps of blonde hair frame her face, and I see that hope in her eyes. It’s bright and runs deep, and the muscle in my jaw tics from how hard I’m clenching my teeth.

My instant reaction is to tell her it isn’t any of her business—except, I know that it is. It’s her family’s bakery, it’s her father who died in that fire. But I have nothing new to tell her, and there is a voice in the back of my head that I listen to more often than not telling me to keep her in the dark. For now, at least.

“My business is not something to concern yourself with,” I say coolly, walking around her to place the plates on the round table toward the back of the kitchen.

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