Page 158 of Nanny and the Beast

I take a deep breath.

I revisit the memory that I worked so hard to keep buried.

When I found my grandmother slumped on the floor that evening, my mind jumped to the worst. Her face was so deathly pale. She looked like she was no longer a part of this world.

“There was white froth at her mouth,” I tell Vera. “And her muscles were...locked up.”

Vera grabs a notepad from the workbench and starts writing.

“Muscle rigidity,” she says. “What else?”

I close my eyes. Tears roll down my cheeks. I try to envision the other details of the room.

There was an unnatural quality to the air at my house, like someone else had been there. Like something very wrong had happened.

Gentle hands wipe the tears from my cheeks.

“Vera, is this really necessary?” Klaus asks, sounding distraught. “Can’t you just perform some tests on the sample?”

“A tiny pink petal,” I say. “Underneath the table. It was a dried flower petal, and I don’t know where it came from. But I remember seeing it. However, it was gone after the police searched the house.”

“A pink petal,” Vera whispers.

She grabs a thick textbook and starts flipping through the pages. She makes notes as she reads, her scribbles growing messier the more she writes.

We watch as she turns on the light for the microscope and prepares a slide.

“This might take a while, so feel free to walk around the estate in the meantime,” she tells us. “I’ll call you when I’m done.”

She doesn’t look up from her work.

Klaus tugs on my hand, telling me to follow him. He leads me out of the greenhouse. The temperature has dropped sharply. The cold bites into my cheeks as we walk toward the lake.

“It’s so beautiful here,” I say.

“Would you like to have a lakeside home?” Klaus asks.

“Maybe,” I say, glancing up at him. He makes it sound like he’s making future plans with me. Which is ridiculous. We’re just two people who enjoy each other’s company, nothing more.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Not really.”

He leads me toward a section of the lake that’s surrounded by trees on all sides, offering us a private alcove. He presses me against one of those trees, his hands almost bruising my waist.

“Me neither,” he says.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask.

“Not right now,” he says. “You?”

“I already did,” I say. “That’s why it hurts.”

After keeping everything bottled up inside me for this long, I finally ripped the Band-Aid open. I’m bleeding again.

He leans down and brushes his lips against mine. Like always, I unfurl like a flower for him. My lips open with a sigh as he presses his mouth harder against mine, taking me like I belong to him.

His tongue warms up everything cold inside me.

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