The Nanny's Secret

by Kiersten Modglin

  When I’m dressed and the mirror has mostly unfogged, I look myself over. It’s the best I can do under these circumstances. I swipe lotion over my face, thankful I don’t have any breakouts this week, and rub lavender-scented deodorant under my arms. I toss the tiny bottle of deodorant out when I’m done, feeling guilty for wasting so much. I wonder if they’ll throw away the hairbrush too, but I shove it back in the drawer anyway.

  I make my bed, grabbing my cell phone from the nightstand, sliding on my shoes, and heading out of the bedroom as I flip off the light.

  The hall is quiet except for a noise just down the hall that I can’t place. I walk quietly toward it and, when I get close, the noise stops. It’s coming from Orrick’s office.

  The realization hits me all at once, and I’m filled with curiosity. From the moment Iris said I wasn’t allowed to go into his office, it’s been driving me crazy with worries of why. I’ve never been one to follow rules blindly, but with this position, there’s very little room for error. Keeping this job is too important.

  Orrick bursts out of his office, already dressed in a suit and tie, though he looks more tired than usual. He looks surprised to see me standing there, and I watch as he processes my appearance—first shock, then understanding. Perhaps he forgot I had stayed overnight.

  “Good morning, Olivia,” he says finally. I almost always wait for him to speak first.

  “Good morning,” I say.

  He pulls the door shut, and I notice a piece of paper and a ring of keys in his hand. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Very well,” I say. He looks me up and down, not even trying to hide the appreciation he has for my appearance. I bite back a grin.

  “Excellent. Find everything you need, then…for a shower?”

  I nod. “Iris has it well stocked.”

  He gives a dry laugh. “She’s…always prepared.”

  I smile. “Again, thank you for letting me stay over.”

  “You’re always welcome to stay, Olivia. Any time.” He’s incredibly still, observing me in a way that’s unnerving.

  “Did he go back to sleep okay? After…” I trail off, letting him fill in the blanks.

  He takes a moment, the memory of last night running over his expression like a flame, and then nods, glancing back toward his son’s bedroom. “Oh, yeah, he was fine. He was back asleep within minutes.” He smiles with one corner of his mouth.

  “Awesome,” I say with a sigh. “Hopefully he didn’t miss too much sleep, then. I should go and make sure he’s awake.”

  The smile fades from his face, but he steps to the side to clear my path. “Have a great day, Olivia.”

  I stroll toward John’s bedroom, knocking on the door. “John? Are you awake, sweetie?”

  “Just a minute,” he calls almost instantly.

  I turn back around, seeing Orrick disappear into his study. I take quiet steps in his direction, listening to him moving around inside. When I reach the doorway, I peek in with utter curiosity. I wonder what he’s like when I’m not around. He sets the ring of keys into a bowl on a shelf in the far corner of the room and reads over the paper in his hands, a morbid grimace on his face.

  When he looks up, I jerk my head back, breathing fast. Hopefully I was quick enough. How will I ever explain spying on him?

  To my surprise and great relief, John’s bedroom door opens and he appears, already dressed.

  “Good morning, Olivia,” he says, already sounding like his father.

  “Good morning, John. Are you ready for breakfast?”

  I help him comb his hair, which is sticking up on one side, and brush his teeth, before we head down. While I’m making sure he eats his plate of egg whites and yogurt, Orrick sticks his head in the doorway briefly to tell us both goodbye and wish John a good day. He barely looks at me, though when I look away, I’m sure he’s staring.

  A few minutes later, after I get John out the door with Danny, it is time for me to leave, but I can’t. Not yet.

  Instead, I walk back upstairs. If anyone catches me, I’ll say I’m planning to get my things from the guest bedroom. However, rather than heading down the hall, I stop at the first door on my left. Orrick’s office. The one area I’m not allowed and the one area that may hold all the secrets of the mysterious Locke family. After catching him in there this morning, my curiosity is at an all-time high. Why the secrecy surrounding his office? I want to know more about him—about his life, his marriage, his company. My heart is pounding as I reach for the handle—it could be a mistake. It likely is a mistake. For all I know, the office could be protected with a passcode and my entrance could trigger an alarm. I could be fired for defying a direct order, but I don’t think Orrick will fire me, honestly, not after the way he’s been with me. What could be in this office that would be worth firing someone over, anyway?

  What is this family hiding? What dark secrets lay beyond this door? I can’t go much longer without knowing.

  I twist the handle, unsurprised to find it locked. I think of the glass bowl in his study where Orrick laid the ring of keys earlier. They’re up high, high enough I wouldn’t have noticed them or realized the bowl contained anything if I hadn’t seen them placed there, but now that I know where they are, I can’t forget about them.

  I cross the hall to his study and push open the door cautiously. If I’m caught, there will be no denying what I’m doing. I’m nowhere near the guest bedroom at this point.

  The room smells of him, like alcohol, leather, and earth. I breathe through my mouth.

  The blue, blown glass bowl sits atop a piece of driftwood on the shelf in the far left corner of the room, and I make my way to it in a hurry, my pulse racing. I pick up the ring of keys. There are six of them, none that match, and wonder what else they might go to. Perhaps his desk, but there is little else in this room that locks, so that still leaves several keys.

  For a moment, I contemplate trying to dig through his desk first. It does seem like he’s in here more than the office, but the fact that the office is locked tells me that’s where his secrets are kept. There’s obviously a reason for all the secrecy.

  I hear the door open down below and freeze, listening carefully. There are muffled voices downstairs, and when I move to the doorway, I hear Ruby and Norma talking to each other. By what I’ve learned of their routine, they should start on the bottom floor and work their way up, which gives me time to do what I need to.

  I carry the keys across the hall, selecting one and inserting it into the locked handle. I attempt to turn it to no avail.

  Next.

  The second key turns slightly, but doesn’t move the lock enough to matter. The third doesn’t fit the hole at all. The fourth key slides in, and when I twist my wrist, it moves with it. I hear a faint click, and the door swings open.

  I stand still, in complete disbelief that it worked. I wait for an alarm to sound, for Warren to run up the stairs and stop me, but nothing happens.

  I step across the threshold, pressing the white door open further to get a good look around. The office is smaller than the bedrooms, a third of the size of the study. Inside is a simple, glass desk, with two monitors sitting on top. The chair is made of worn, black leather. There are no pictures on the wall, but stacks and stacks of boxes are piled together in the corner. The wall to my left, the one shared with the staircase outside, has a door on it—the attic, most likely. I walk toward it cautiously, twisting the handle, but it doesn’t budge. Could one of the keys in my hand work for it?

  My eyes travel to the stack of boxes in the corner. I can only choose one—boxes or door. I’m giving myself fewer than ten minutes in the room. Thinking quickly, I move to the boxes, lifting the lid off the top one. Blueprints for Locke Industries. Receipts for a service call. Receipts for four new office chairs. A tax return. A formal, written warning for one Cathrine Locke—I’m intrigued, but I have no time to dwell on it. This is not why I’m here. I reach the bottom of the box and set it aside.

  The box
underneath it contains employee files on company letterhead, it looks like. I flip through them quickly, looking for anything to tell me more about Orrick, Iris, and the company they run.

  Sam Alexander

  Alex Reynolds

  Derek Shelton

  Thomas Carey

  I freeze, staring at the last, familiar name, my heart a lump in my throat.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jump, throwing the papers on the ground. When I turn around, I’m mortified to see Orrick standing in the doorway, his eyes narrowing at me as I scoop the papers up from the floor. My body trembles with fear as I stand up, the employee files on broad display as irrefutable proof.

  “Thomas Carey?” I ask, trying to straighten the mess of papers in my hands. “The boy from the news?” If I’m going to be fired, I can at least get this answer.

  “What are you doing in here, Olivia?” he asks, his voice calm, though his eyes are wild with fury as he glances down at the keys still hanging in the door. “You’ve been told you aren’t allowed to come into my office.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “I—I know. I’m sorry.”

  He steps forward and pulls the papers from my grasp before I can say another word. “These are confidential files. If it’d been Iris who caught you in here, you’d be fired immediately.”

  I stare at him, taking in the words. Does that mean he isn’t going to fire me? “I’m sorry,” I repeat.

  “Are you going to tell me what you were doing snooping through my things?”

  I have no valid excuse. No reasons I can give him. “I was curious,” I say simply. “After what we talked about last night, I wanted to…to know more about you, and then I saw you coming out of here this morning…I was curious about you, about this place. I can’t explain it other than to say I want to know you more, Orrick. I’m sorry.”

  He moves past me and shoves the papers back into the box before closing the lid and stacking the first box back on top. I feel like a child, foolish and insubordinate. If he fired me, I couldn’t blame him. “You could’ve just asked me,” he says in a huff, putting a hand on my back as he ushers me out of the room like a toddler who’d been reprimanded. He shuts the door behind him and locks it, shoving the ring of keys into the pocket of his suit jacket. “We’ve allowed you free range of the house, anywhere you’d like, but you are not allowed in my office, and I know Iris told you that already. Am I making myself clear? I can’t overlook this again.”

  Again. So, I’ll be given another chance? I dare to breathe a sigh of hope and relief. Though his words are sharp, his tone is so calm it’s shocking. Almost like he’s conflicted about being angry, though I’ve disobeyed a direct order. Perhaps I’ve underestimated my power over him. “Of course, Orrick,” I purr his name. “I’m so embarrassed.” I put a hand over my face, shielding my eyes.

  He walks into his study, and I follow close behind. When he stops by the bowl that previously held the keys, I am sure he won’t put them back there. To my surprise, he pulls them out of his pocket and places them into the bowl once again. “I keep these keys here because sometimes my security team needs to get into my office, the attic, the basement, or any one of the other rooms we keep locked. There’s nothing of use to you in any of these places, but in order to keep you safe, in order to keep us all safe, we have to keep these keys available. We have cameras in all the common areas of the house. Warren called me the second you went into the study instead of leaving like you should’ve. I wanted him to be wrong about what you were up to.” He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry to say I wasn’t. This house is all about trust, Olivia. We can’t have you working here if we can’t trust you.” He presses his lips together, looking me up and down. “Can I trust you?”

  I nod. “Of course. I can’t tell you how sorry and embarrassed I am.”

  “What did you think you’d find in there, anyway?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, trailing a hand along the wall. “All your dark secrets, I guess.”

  He chuckles but doesn’t meet my eye. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have any secrets, Olivia.”

  I smile, but it’s devious, because we both know that’s a lie. “We all have secrets, Orrick.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Orrick

  My blood is boiling, and she knows it, yet I can’t show my anger. It would be too big a risk. I can’t afford to scare her away, and I can’t deny her mischievous side has attracted me to her more than ever. If Warren hadn’t been watching the feed when she climbed the stairs, hadn’t called me to ask what she was up to, I might not have known. If I’d ridden to work with Danny before he took John to school rather than getting a late start and having to drive myself, things could’ve gone very differently. She might’ve gotten fired. She might’ve gotten away with whatever it was she was searching for. Now, the question was…what was she searching for? What did she want?

  She claimed she’d just wanted to know more about me. Lucky for us both, I want the same.

  “What secrets do you have, then?” I press, grabbing the back of the chair in front of me and watching her move slowly, gliding across my floor. She runs her fingers across the wall before leaving it, heading my direction. Her hips swing with every deliberate step.

  She smiles, her eyes cast downward. “If I told you that, they wouldn’t be secrets, now would they?”

  I want to take things back to where we left off the night before. I want to tell her I couldn’t sleep because I kept going back there in my mind, toying with the idea of going back to her in person. Instead, I keep up the cat-and-mouse game we seem to be playing with each other. “If anyone can keep a secret, I promise you, it’s me.”

  Her eyes flick up to meet mine, the green shaded behind dark lashes. “I have no doubts.”

  “Speaking of secrets, I hope you understand you can never tell Iris you were in my office,” I say, making sure she understands how important it is. “She’d never let you keep working here.”

  “It’s your office,” she says, cocking her head to the side. “Shouldn’t you be the one who’s upset?”

  I rub a finger across the bridge of my nose. “I’m finding it hard to be mad at you, Olivia.”

  She smiles again, this time brighter, and a strange thought crosses my mind: who’s playing whom here?

  “I’m glad to hear it.” She stops at the sofa, her eyes searching mine. “I never wanted to make you upset. I just feel like I don’t know much about you…and I wish I did.”

  I take a step forward. I should be at work. I don’t have time for this conversation, for a morning at home, or for the way she’s looking at me, but none of that seems to matter as I sink into the sofa and, to my delight, she does the same. The skin-tight yoga pants and emerald, oversized sweater she’s wearing are casual, yet incredibly sexy. I can’t help eyeing the hem of the sweater as it rides up her thigh.

  “What would you like to know about me? I’m an open book.” I fold my hands in my lap, waiting for her answer. Her eyes dart back and forth, lost in thought, before settling back on mine.

  “What do you do for fun?” she asks.

  It’s skin deep, at best. A simple question where I should say something like watch baseball or ski. Instead, I’m honest. “Make money.”

  She snorts, shocking us both, and then laughs harder. Her laugh is warm and smooth, like honey, and it has me hanging on until the final, syrupy note, wanting more. “I meant something fun.”

  “Making money is fun.”

  “No,” she says, poking me in the chest. It’s the first touch she’s initiated between us, and it ends too soon. “Spending money is fun, making money is work. Come on, what do you do when you have a day off?”

  “I don’t really take days off.”

  “I thought you were an open book,” she says with a playful sigh. “I’m having to pry these answers from you.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Well, I take vacation once a year, and we
usually go to Cabo San Lucas. I’m a sucker for a day at the beach.”

  “That sounds like a dream,” she says. “I’ve never left the country.”

  “I could take you,” I volunteer way too damn fast. “I mean, we could take you…you know, next time we go. John would love that.”

  “I wouldn’t want to impose on your family time.” She looks away from me and back toward the door, and I hear Ruby coming up the stairs. I stand up and shut the door without thinking, not wanting to be disturbed. When I look back, she has a brow raised.

  “Sorry, I…if I have the door shut, they don’t come in to clean. Is this okay?” I’m still standing near the door, ready to open it if I need to, when she nods.

  “It’s okay.”

  I go back to the sofa and sit down, purposely a few inches closer to her than I had been. “You wouldn’t be interrupting family time, by the way. When we’re there, Iris spends her time at the spas, John spends his time in the water, and I’m usually somewhere watching him. In the past, we’ve brought along staff to help with his care. It would be no different.” It would be so different. I picture AJ sitting in the water with John while I type an email on my phone, then Olivia replaces his image, in a soaking wet bikini, her black hair cascading down her tan back. I adjust in my seat, pushing the image out of my head. “What do you like to do for fun?”

  “Well, nothing as lavish as a trip to Mexico, I can assure you,” she says, and there’s that laugh again. “I like to paint.” She holds her hands up in front of her. “It sounds lame, I know, but it’s very calming. My mom and I used to paint together when I was young.”

  “I’d love to see a painting you’ve done sometime.”

  “Trust me, you wouldn’t. I’m not that great, but it makes me happy.” When she smiles, I believe her.

  “I can’t imagine anything you do could be ugly.”

  She turns a light shade of pink, and I love knowing I’ve affected her, even slightly. She swallows, blinking slowly, her eyes locked with mine. I’m starting to figure her out, day by day.