Page 11

Willow

P oppy’s out cold.

Her face is planted into the pillow with one arm thrown over her bunny’s neck. Her tiny mouth is slack as she breathes evenly and her fingers keep twitching. Hopefully, she’s lost in a dream of imaginary fun.

She looks how I want to be—dead to the world and oblivious to the chaos we just stepped into—but sleep eludes me.

It must be this big, empty house that calls for me. Of course I’d love to explore it, to fall more in love with it than I already have, but truth be told, I need to do some toddler proofing.

I lived with several families in my college years when I nannied and when I first arrived, it would always feel like I was intruding on their space.

They’d tell me to make myself at home. They’d encourage me to feel like what’s theirs is mine, but it always takes some time to sink into that feeling.

To not feel like a stranger sneaking around and invading other people’s privacy .

And then, when you add to that whose house I’m currently in, it makes things even more... weird .

Poppy pulls me from my thoughts. She makes a small mewling sound and then murmurs, “ Mommy .”

It’s the first and only time I’ve heard her adorable voice, and it’s a heartbreaking one at that.

Undoubtedly this was going to be hard—uprooting a three-year-old from all she’s known and who’s just lost her mom—but I also wondered if she’d be so wrapped up in all these changes that she’d slowly adjust without realizing what she’s lost.

I can help ease her sadness when she’s awake, but there’s not much I can do to chase the nightmares away when she sleeps.

So far she’s been such a trooper. My smile is bittersweet as I tuck the blanket up over her side, gently brush a curl from her cheek, and back out of the room, leaving it cracked open so that I can hear her if she needs me.

I’m exhausted. The emotional toll of the day, of worrying about her and meeting Rocket for the first time, has hit me hard now that I’m alone. I’m hungry and welcome the solitude and silence of the house.

What I learned a long time ago with this live-in nanny gig is coming back to me now—when your charge is sleeping, savor the time for yourself.

To have a glass of wine. To catch up with friends. To read a book. To simply step outside of my world of sticky hands and cherubic cheeks and be a twenty-six-year-old woman.

It’s not always an easy feat to achieve, but right now is the perfect time. I have a sleeping toddler and a silent house.

And I’m freaking starving.

I grab my phone with the baby monitor connected to it and head toward the kitchen with the intention of getting a better lay of the land beyond where the dishes and pantry are.

As I move down the hall, I take stock of what borders the rooms we’re in.

Yes, their doors are closed, but it’s my job to make sure Poppy is safe and secure.

Therefore, I need to know if she were to open one of the doors and go in, what she’d find.

Some gym equipment she could hurt herself climbing on?

A collector’s room where everything is glass or breakable? Or who knows what else?

I am in a rock star’s house, and they have reputations for a reason, right?

Let’s hope I don’t find anything embarrassing this time around. Not on the first day when my initial impression of Rocket is still forming and amendable.

The first bedroom beside Poppy’s is mine, so I pass it and open the next door to find an office. I stand in the doorway in awe of the platinum records lining two of the four walls. One after another with a few gold ones mixed in there.

And then it hits me squarely in the gut that I’m at the Rocket Caldwell’s house.

Like . . . holy shit .

Those are real, and there are dozens of them. I itch to walk in there and look closer at each and every one, but I’ll wait to do that until Rocket invites me to do so. While he may be a public figure, this is his private space.

But before I can let the picture of what all those accolades paint sink in, my phone rings in my hand. I jump to turn the ringer off, afraid of waking up Poppy, and answer the call immediately.

My best friend’s face fills the FaceTime screen.

“Tell me everything,” Lily says as I hold the phone up.

“About?”

“Um, about your hush-hush new boss—wait. What are those on the wall behind you? Records? Like shiny ones on the wall.”

“No. Don’t be ridiculous.” I shut the door and rush down the hall toward the kitchen. Awesome. Perfect. Breaching the NDA on the first day of the job wasn’t on my bingo card today.

“You’re such a fucking liar. Your new boss is a singer, isn’t he?”

“Lily,” I warn as I prop the phone on the kitchen island and take a seat at one of the barstools facing it. “I can’t—”

“Hold on,” she says and the phone goes dark as she does something I can’t see. “55687 Fairgate Road.”

“What?” I screech.

“We shared our locations on Find My iPhone for safety. Remember that? And now you went to live with some strange man you’d never met before. You bet your ass I just checked the address so I know where you are in case you go missing or something.”

“You listen to too many true crime podcasts.”

“Don’t hate your girl for being prepared,” she teases. “But if I were to look up the address of that house and— holy shit .” Lily’s eyes grow wide, and her jaw drops open .

“Christ,” I mutter under my breath.

“Willow Adams, please tell me that you are not at the house the sleuths on Reddit are telling me that address belongs to.”

“I’m not. Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kill me now .

“Ha. You so are, hence why all the stupid secrecy and—why are you there? He doesn’t have a kid, so who are you—”

“Lily, I signed an NDA. I can’t talk about anything.”

“Okay. Fine. I wouldn’t want you to get bent out of shape or anything.” She grins and winks at her double entendre. I do the only thing I can—I shake my head and sigh.

“I still can’t say anything.”

“You didn’t. You haven’t. You took a new job as a nanny for an orphaned little girl and her newly found father. At an address I double-checked to make sure an axe murderer hadn’t accosted you only to find it’s owned by an incredibly famous rock star...and here we are.” Her grin is contagious.

I glance around the open space before looking back to her. “You have to promise not to—”

“You know my word is good. All I did was FaceTime you. I didn’t even mention any name so we could be talking about anyone.” She rolls her eyes.

“I know. You’re right. I just . . .”

My guilt rides high. I do not want to be responsible for how the media finds out that Rocket Caldwell has a daughter.

I know I can trust Lily with my life. She’s not exactly the social butterfly, nor would she have any reason to blab, and yet, the non-disclosure agreement I signed said no one is to know.

Call me a rule follower.

“Relax.” She sighs. “You are such a rule follower, it’s ridiculous,” she says having no clue that she’s just voiced my thoughts. “But oh my God. You know what this means, right? Your face is going to be splashed over every damn tabloid.”

“No, it’s not.” I shake my head to reject the thought and the fear it evokes. “Rocket has security in his neighborhood. A guard shack and privacy clauses. My pay is through an LLC, so there is nothing connecting me to him.”

She snorts. “Except the fact that you’re living in his house. You’ve clearly never seen how rabid superfans are.”

“Let’s hope not,” I murmur but wonder how long Poppy and I will remain under the public radar.

She then claps her hands together. “Now, tell me everything. ”

I hesitate for a second and then welcome the chance to talk to someone about this very odd situation I’m in.

“Not much to tell, really. He was only here for like an hour max.”

“And that’s one hour more than I’ll ever have or will. One hour more than I have to make the qualified decision of his certifiable hotness. Like, is he simply just hot-HOT or is he more the totally and completely fuckably hot-HOT.”

“Jesus.” I know he’s not home, but I glance around the great room as her voice carries through the empty space.

Leave it to Lily to lay that question out there.

And to force me to think about something I probably haven’t wanted to admit to myself.

“He’s...” Sexy. Even better in person. Attractive . “Yeah. He’s hot.”

“Willow. I need more,” she whines playfully.

“What do you want me to say? That he’s totally and completely fuckably hot-HOT?” I whisper and play along. “Likedangerouslyhot. Leather pants, tattoos, lean-muscle, man-who’s-lived-some-shit hot?”

Lily’s eyes go wide. “Well, hell. Now I’m gonna need to get my vibrator out and picture him all the while. Wait.” She narrows her eyes. “Your text said you thought your new boss was emotionally constipated though.”

“Oh, heis. Fully. Emotionally unavailable, defensive, occasionally charming in a what happened in your childhood kind of way—”

“So then he’s perfectly your type? Too fucked up to get attached but hot enough to have some good, dirty fun with.”

I snort and rest my elbows on the counter so that I can stare straight into the phone. “Nope. Nope. And oh, nope . He’s myboss, Lil. Even having this conversation makes me feel like I’m breaking all kinds of ethical boundaries.”

“God forbid you break a rule now and again.”

“I’m here for Poppy—first and foremost—not for—”

“And still, it’s crossed your mind at least once since you got there.”

“Changing subjects,” I say.

Lily gasps and points at the screen. “You’re so full of shit. You only say that when you want to avoid reality. You so want to climb that man like a tree.”

“Lily. Stop. That’s en—”

A floorboard creaks.

I jump, heart hammering in my chest, and whip my head toward the opposite side of the kitchen .

To right where Rocket is standing. Shirtless. In the dark. Looking like the fuckably-HOT rock god he actually is with a glass in his hand and a bemused expression that says he heardeverything.

Oh. My. God.