Chapter 4 - The Leaked Photograph
Two weeks later, a photograph of Claire appeared online.
She was standing outside a coffee shop with a man named Ryan Cole.
The headline beneath it read:
MERCER’S MYSTERY NANNY MEETS FORMER LOVER AS SECRET HOUSEHOLD ROMANCE HEATS UP.
Claire stared at her phone until the words blurred.
Ryan had never been her lover.
He had been a college friend who spent seven months trying to become one.
At twenty-one, Claire had finally cut him out of her life after he told mutual friends that something was psychologically wrong with a woman who “guarded her virginity like a trust fund.”
She had not seen him for three years.
Until the previous afternoon.
He had appeared outside Luke’s preschool.
He told her reporters were asking questions about her.
He said he wanted to warn her.
Claire had told him never to approach her again.
Apparently someone had photographed only the three minutes in between.
When she returned to the penthouse, Ethan was waiting in the living room.
The expression on his face told her everything.
“Tell me it isn’t what it looks like.”
Claire stopped.
“You don’t get to begin with that sentence.”
“Who is he?”
“You already know his name.”
“My security team identified him.”
“Of course they did.”
“Why did you meet him?”
“I didn’t. He approached me.”
“Why?”
“To warn me.”
“About what?”
“This.”
Ethan held up his phone.
The article contained details no journalist should have known.
Luke’s nightmares.
Ethan’s canceled boarding-school application.
Their pancake mornings.
Even the fact that Claire had insisted Ethan attend a parent meeting at Luke’s preschool.
Private details.
Ethan’s face had gone gray.
“How did they get this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ryan Cole?”
“I never told him anything.”
“You expect me to believe he appears after three years and suddenly an article contains details from inside my home?”
“Yes.”
“Claire—”
“No.”
Her voice cut through the room.
“If you have a question, ask it.”
He stared at her.
The question hurt him before he spoke it.
“Did you give anyone information about my family?”
Claire felt as if the floor had moved beneath her.
“No.”
“Did you discuss me with Ryan?”
“No.”
“Did you discuss Luke?”
“No.”
“Did you—”
“Stop.”
Her eyes burned.
Ethan rubbed both hands over his face.
“I’m trying to understand.”
“No. You’re trying to gather enough evidence to decide whether my word deserves to count.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither is this.”
“Twenty-six thousand people depend on my judgment.”
“And one woman is standing in front of you asking whether you trust her.”
“It isn’t that simple.”
Claire almost smiled.
There it was.
The refuge of frightened people everywhere.
Complication.
“Actually, it is.”
His voice hardened.
“I cannot ignore evidence because I have feelings for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Believe me.”
“I want to.”
She flinched.
Want.
Not do.
Not choose.
Want.
Claire nodded slowly.
“Then I resign.”
Ethan’s face changed.
“What?”
“I quit.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You don’t get to call my decision ridiculous.”
“Claire, Luke needs you.”
The words were instinctive.
And terrible.
She stared at him.
For the first time, Ethan seemed to hear himself.
“Don’t,” Claire whispered.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You were about to use him.”
“No.”
“You were about to remind me that leaving would hurt a child I love because you know that is the one thing powerful enough to make me stay.”
“I wasn’t manipulating you.”
“Maybe not consciously.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“That’s the problem, Ethan. Men like you don’t always know when you’re using power. You’re so accustomed to having it that it feels like gravity.”
He looked as if she had struck him.
Claire went upstairs.
She packed one suitcase.
Not red.
Black.
Practical.
Luke found her halfway through.
He stood in the doorway.
“No.”
Claire stopped folding.
His face crumpled.
“No, no, no.”
“Luke.”
“You said you weren’t leaving.”
“I said I would never promise something I couldn’t control.”
“You lied!”
He threw his stuffed fox at her.
Claire let it hit her chest.
Luke began sobbing.
“You’re leaving because I need you too much!”
“No.”
She crossed the room and knelt.
He pushed her.
She stayed.
“No, sweetheart. Listen to me. This is not because of you.”
“Everybody says that!”
The words ripped through her.
Daddy.
Mommy.
Now Claire.
Adults always had reasons.
Children still experienced absence as absence.
Claire held him while he fought her.
Eventually his small fists stopped pounding her shoulders.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“Then stay.”
Sometimes love gave no good answer.
That was the cruelty nobody put into children’s books.
“I can love you and still have to leave this house.”
Luke cried harder.
Claire cried with him.
At the bedroom door, Ethan stood silently.
He looked ruined.
Claire met his eyes over Luke’s head.
May you like
Neither of them spoke.
There was nothing useful left to say.
