Chapter 1 - THE GATES STOPPED HALFWAY
Emily’s suitcase split open outside the billionaire’s gates.
Clothes spilled across the pavement.
Behind her, the black iron gates began closing.
Then three little girls screamed the same name.
“Miss Emily!”
Emily froze.
Regina, Lucy, and Valerie came running barefoot down the long driveway.
Seven years old.
Identical faces.
Loose ribbons.
Red eyes.
Safe.
Terrified.
They slipped through the narrowing gate before it closed and threw themselves into Emily’s arms.
“Please don’t leave us!” Regina cried.
Lucy clung tighter.
“Don’t let her send us away!”
Valerie said nothing.
She only trembled against Emily’s shoulder.
On the mansion side of the gate stood Richard Hale.
Billionaire.
Widower.
Father.
And beside him stood his fiancée, Victoria Cross, wearing a cream coat and a diamond ring.
Victoria smiled.
Small.
Victorious.
Emily looked at Richard.
“You’re really letting her do this?”
Richard’s face tightened.
“Victoria said there had been problems.”
Emily almost laughed.
Of course.
Problems.
That was what wealthy people called a woman who knew too much.
Victoria stepped forward.
“The girls need structure.”
Emily looked down at the three children wrapped around her.
“They need to know they won’t be abandoned.”
Victoria’s smile disappeared.
Richard said,
“Emily, enough.”
That hurt more than losing the job.
Emily had raised his daughters for four years.
Stayed through fevers.
Nightmares.
School performances.
The first Christmas after their mother died.
And now he was telling her enough.
Emily touched the small pearl brooch pinned to her gray uniform.
Click.
Static.
Then Victoria’s own voice filled the driveway.
Clear.
Cold.
“They’ll be sent away once I marry him.”
Richard stopped breathing.
Victoria went white.
The recording continued.
“I won’t raise another woman’s children.”
The automatic gates stopped halfway.
No one moved.
Regina looked at her father.
“Daddy?”
That one word destroyed him.
Richard stared at Victoria.
“What did you say?”
Victoria shook her head.
“That was taken out of context.”
There it was.
The first crack.
Emily rose slowly.
“No.”
She held the girls close.
“I recorded the whole conversation.”
Victoria’s face collapsed.
Richard looked at Emily.
“How much did you hear?”
Emily’s eyes hardened.
“Enough to know firing me was never the real plan.”
Silence.
She touched the brooch again.
A second recording began.
Victoria’s voice:
“Once Emily is gone, the girls will have no one left who believes them.”
Richard went pale.
Then another voice entered the recording.
Male.
Unknown.
Calm.
“And Hale?”
Victoria answered,
“He’ll sign anything if the girls look unstable enough.”
Richard stared at the brooch.
May you like
Because someone had not only planned to remove the nanny.
They had planned to use his daughters next.
