Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
My heart pounded in my chest, and my legs trembled.
Summer at the estate was the busiest time of year, except for New Year. I knew from growing up in LA that Hollywood took time off around summer and returned to business as usual in September.
I was looking forward to a quieter estate.
And the departure of Byron Hoffman.
I chose not to tell Mrs. Hutchinson about the incident. What could I say? He came up behind me and touched my hips. He was the son of a powerful man. I was a housekeeper. It would sound like nothing to most people. So I kept it to myself and decided to avoid Hoffman as much as possible.
The one thing I’d strived to do for ten years was to never let Callie see when I was worried or anxious. My mom died when I was young, but I remember her mood swings and how on edge they’d put me as a kid. The worst day of my childhood, other than her death, was the day she’d locked me in a closet for five hours because I’d had a tantrum. My dad had returned home from work and lost his ever-loving mind to find me locked away. He hired a nanny, and I was never left alone with my mother again. But I still had to endure her mood swings, and I never wanted that for Callie, not even in the smallest sense.
I pasted on a bright smile when I entered Regan and Thane Adair’s home to pick up my daughter. Thane Adair was an architect, and he’d designed his and his siblings’ fancy homes on a stretch of coastal land outside Ardnoch.
He had two children, Lewis and Eilidh, but he’d been widowed when Eilidh was a baby. When Regan visited her sister in Ardnoch, Thane hired her as his kids’ nanny. They’d fallen in love, despite the thirteen-year age gap, and Lewis and Eilidh now called Regan Mum.
The auburn-haired beauty was a supermom. Seriously, Regan could multitask at inhuman levels. It was impressive. Usually, I adored her and all she’d done for me and Callie since we arrived in Ardnoch. But as Callie excitedly told me about wanting to go to tae kwon do two times a week with Lewis, I felt a teeny bit resentful toward Regan as she stood in her fancy big ocean-front house. Regan was normally considerate, but it hadn’t seemed to occur to her that sending Callie to martial arts classes would be a strain on my resources.
Still, it wasn’t her fault, I reminded myself. Callie had jumped on the idea as soon as Lewis started talking about it. Regan had only encouraged it, thinking it was a good thing.
And it was.
I wanted Callie to have interests and passions, and being able to defend herself was an awesome idea.
It was just … expensive.
“It’s £40 for the first class to see if I like it. And then if I do, it’s £50 a month. That’s okay, right?” Callie asked as I drove away from the Adair homes down a narrow country lane toward the main road.
“Uh-huh.” I grinned at her, not wanting her to see my internal anxiety.
Monroe had helped us get a steal on a rental property on the main thoroughfare of the village. Normally, the rent on such a place would be way outside my price range, but the cottage belonged to Brodan’s brother-in-law. And since Brodan adored his very pregnant wife, Monroe, and she, thankfully, adored me and Callie, they’d hooked us up. However, since moving into the lovely cottage on Castle Street, I think Callie had gotten the idea that we were doing better financially than we were. I wanted her to think that. I wanted her to feel secure and safe.
But it had its drawbacks.
“Lewis said we’d start as white belts or at tenth gup. I don’t know what that means yet, but he said the next rank after that is a white belt with yellow tips, and he wants to get that faster than anyone else. I never knew he was so competitive.” She giggled. “He’s gonna be so bummed when I get yellow tips before him!”
Hearing the joy and excitement in her voice, I realized there was no way out of this. I’d have to find more baking jobs every month to cover the extra cost. Or stop using the hairstylists on the estate. I got a mega staff discount, but not using them would probably cover the costs of the classes.
So lost in my thoughts, it took me a second to realize my car was jerking.
“Mom?”
I glanced at Callie to see her gripping the seat, her smile gone as the car jerked harder three more times.
Crap!
“It’s okay,” I reassured her calmly as I guided the car onto the side of the road seconds before it violently jerked a few more times and then hissed to a stop. “We’re okay.”