Page 22 of At First Flight
“Maybe you could send me the information about the nanny job? I’m not promising anything, but you’re right. It may be nice to keep myself occupied for a while.”
“Oh, thank you, Lila.”
“It’s not a yes, Mom.”
“Of course,” she says, her thrilled smile growing with every second. “I’ll send it to you once I get the kitchen cleaned up. Love you, sweet girl.”
“Love you too, Mom. Dad.”
We’re only a few minutes into the twenty-minute drive back to Ashvi’s house, nineties R&B, Ashvi’s current obsession, blaring from the speakers. A girl group sings about how the man is never going to get it, and I smile, leaning my head against the window as the sun finally drifts beyond the trees. Soon, the smell of salt water will penetrate the windows, and the sun will last well into the evening. But for right now, I’m happy being in my small town, with my best friend, listening to songs far older than us.
“You did a nice thing,” Ashvi says as we pass the local elementary school, suddenly reminding me that I’ve likely sold myself as someone’s housemaid, not just a nanny, for the next six months or more.
“Yeah,” I mumble, still not feeling so great about the decision, but knowing I’m helping someone who probably feels as helpless as my dad had all those years ago. “What game are we playing tonight?”
It is a tradition that wine drinking includes playing a ridiculous game together. We usually end up with Clue or Yahtzee. Scrabble and Monopoly have been banned since we were in junior high.
“Oh, without a doubt Clue. I’m hoping somewhere along the way you slip up and tell me what’s really going on with you.”
Groaning, I turn away so she doesn’t witness my epic eye roll. The last time we played Clue, I finally got it out of Ashvi that she’d slept with her economics professor. Thankfully, it had been after she passed his class.
“You’re on, but only if you agree totwobottles of wine. I’m going to need it.”
“Deal,” my best friend says with a mysterious gleam in her eye that is absolutely not from the shimmery reflection ofstreetlights. Instead, it came from her overzealous, competitive nature.
“Yeah. Definitely going to need two bottles tonight.”
Chapter Five – Dean
Exhaustion and exhilaration duel behind my eyes as I pull into the small grocery store just within the town lines of Coral Bell Cove. Originally, I’d planned on stopping halfway during the fifteen-hour drive from Miami, Florida, to this small coastal town, but I was too keyed up to sleep as it was. Dusk turned to sunrise, and before I knew it, I was crossing the Virginia state line and headed for my new home.
Did I have reservations about packing up my entire life and moving? A bit. Do I regret the decision? Absolutely not. Not if it meant I was giving my niece and nephew their best shot at a normal life. One far more conventional than the one I’d been handed.
Thankfully, being a billionaire made purchasing a home and filling it with everything I’d need easier than snapping my finger. In less than a week, I had picked up my life and was ready for the new change.
I park the car between two faded lines, my hands still gripping the steering wheel like I’m trying to anchor myself to something solid. The leather creaks beneath my palms, the quiet tick of the engine cooling the only sound filling the cab. I stare blankly at the polished dashboard of the Lamborghini, sleek, clinical, and expensive, and feel… nothing.
The truth of it is that it still hasn’t fully landed. That Genevieve is gone. That my sister. My bright, complicated, fiercely stubborn sister isn’t just on the other end of a bad argument or sulking through one of our regular disagreements. She’s not answering my texts because she can’t. She’ll never answer them again.
I grit my teeth, feel the grind of tension along my jaw and the ache behind my eyes. I’m holding on too tightly, trying not to shatter.
The worst part isn’t the funeral I had to plan alone. Or the will that felt more like a slap than a farewell. It’s the fact that my parents treated it all like a scheduling conflict. Something to be solved, delegated, pushed to someone else who wasn’t them.
The moment the ink was dry on the death certificate, they were already boarding their private jet, bound for their summer estate in the South of France. Like grief was a bad business deal they could simply opt out of. Like Genevieve’s death was a nuisance rather than the earthquake it’s been in my life.
My knuckles go white as I loosen my hands from the wheel, one finger at a time.
They didn’t even stay for the kids. Not that I expected them to.
Two children, confused and grieving, shuffled off to with their previous nanny while I tried to make sense of what was left behind. Evelyn and Oliver don’t know yet how much has changed. They’re too little to understand the permanence of loss. All they know is that their mom isn’t coming back.
And somehow, I’m supposed to step in and fill the void.
The thought tightens something deep in my chest, but not in fear. In responsibility. In fury. Because I never expected to be the one holding Evelyn’s hand when she cried herself to sleep, or explaining to Oliver why he won’t see his mom again.
Instead, I’m the one making plans to uproot my life. To move just inside the Virginia state line where I could give the children a place to grow. Far from where Genevieve had beenhiding out in the city she called home. At least I can give the kids some sort of familiarity. Stability. Something my parents seem pathologically incapable of providing.
I exhale through my nose and force the rage down. It simmers just below the surface, but I’ve gotten good at masking it. At least, I thought I had.
