Vanessa nodded, disappointment flickering across her face.
“Yes, sir.”
Adrian left, unsettled. He knew she had saved the night. But pride was a fortress he didn’t know how to lower.
He thought he had regained control.
He had no idea that the yellow gloves were only the beginning.
The next morning brought a different storm.
A sleek black Mercedes pulled into the circular driveway. Out stepped Margaret Bennett, Adrian’s mother.
Impeccably dressed. Silver cane in hand. Eyes sharp as glass.
She entered the house like an inspector.
When she saw Vanessa carrying the twins downstairs, her lips tightened.
“This is the new nanny?” Margaret said coldly. “She looks like a college intern. And the boys—goodness, Adrian, they’re unruly. They need structure. A European governess. Not… this.”
Vanessa absorbed the insult silently, instinctively positioning herself between the twins and the older woman.
Adrian said nothing.
He had never learned how to oppose his mother.
That night, guilt gnawed at him. Around midnight, he went downstairs for a drink and found Vanessa asleep on the small couch in the staff sitting room.
Something had slipped from her hand onto the floor.
A photograph.