Chapter 7

Douglass stared at her. He didn't look shocked. He looked like he was analyzing a piece of faulty data, trying to find the error in the code.

"You're proposing marriage?" he said, his voice flat. "I've known you for less than forty-eight hours."

"I know," Adelina said, her voice quiet. She had prepared for this. "This isn't about romance. It's a contract. A practical solution to both of our problems."

He gave a short, humorless laugh. "I have a problem that requires a stranger to marry me? I need a nanny. Washington is full of them."

This was the moment. The part that would either make him listen or send him walking away for good. She had to say the words she had spent her first life hating, the words that had been carved into her soul.

She took a breath that felt like it was tearing her lungs. "You should marry me," she said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper, "because I can't have children."

That got a reaction. The skepticism in his eyes was replaced by a flicker of something else. Surprise. Confusion.

"I have the medical diagnosis," she pushed on, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. "I will never have a child of my own. Which means your children will always be my only children. I won't be a mother who resents them, or a stepmother who favors her own. I can give them the stability they need. A nanny's job is to care for your children. A wife's life is bound with them. I'm offering a lifetime commitment, not a contract that can be terminated with two weeks' notice."

She was using her deepest wound, the source of all her shame, as a bargaining chip. The irony was a bitter pill.

Douglass was silent for a long time. His gaze dropped from her face to her hands, which were clenched into white-knuckled fists at her sides. He was considering it. She could see the cold logic of her offer warring with his natural caution.

"Even if that's true," he said finally, his voice softer but still firm, "marriage is not the answer. It's too extreme."

Her heart sank. But he hadn't walked away.

"Then let me come to Washington," she said, her voice pleading now. "As a nanny. A trial period. Let me prove to you that I'm the right person to help with your family."

He looked at her, his eyes searching her face. She knew what he saw. A young woman who was too eager, too desperate. It didn't make sense. His suspicion was a wall between them.

"I can consider the nanny arrangement," he said, his voice cool and distant again. "The marriage proposal is off the table. Completely."

It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no. It was a start.

"Okay," she said, relief making her feel lightheaded. "A trial period." She held out her hand. "Deal."

He looked at her outstretched hand for a second before taking it. His grip was firm, his palm dry and warm. The jolt of his touch was so unexpected, so real, it sent a memory flashing through her mind-this same hand, holding hers, as a heart monitor screamed its final song.

She must have flinched, because he looked at her, his brow furrowed. "What is it?"

She pulled her hand back quickly. "Nothing," she said, forcing a smile. "Thank you. For the chance."

He gave her one last, long, unreadable look before turning to leave.

She watched him walk toward his car, her heart pounding. A nanny. It wasn't enough. It was too precarious. She needed to be essential to him. She needed a contract.

Just then, a familiar car turned onto her street. Garret.

And as he pulled up to the curb, a wild, reckless, terrible idea bloomed in her mind.