Chapter 4

After the last three days of chaos, Felix's routine was messed up, and he wouldn't take his bottle at all. It was going to take some time to get him back to normal.

At least he wasn't crying all the time anymore.

It wasn't that he stopped crying. He'd gone from those heartbreaking cries of pain to the usual baby fussing.

Now, he'd whimper when he was hungry, howl when he needed a diaper change, and make soft sleepy noises when he was tired.

And I had real-time subtitles for Felix's every move.

He would tell me: [Hungry. I'm hungry. Milk! I want formula, that warm, sweet stuff.

[Alert. Alert! I pooped. My diaper's all sticky and gross. It's uncomfortable. Hurry up and fix it.

[I'm sleepy, but the light's too bright. Turn it off. Turn it off. I want to sleep. Where's the pretty lady?

[I want her to hold me. No one else can do it. Their hands are too cold.]

I was pretty much a baby-care robot with a real-time translator inside me.

Josie didn't trust me at first. I was still new and hadn't gotten my nanny certification yet.

But after three days, Felix's routine was textbook perfect. He was eating more, waking up only once at night, and the wound on the back of his neck was healing up nicely.

Josie's attitude changed dramatically.

"Mia, the baby gained another 50 grams today," she said, holding up the digital scale for me to see, her eyes shining with excitement.

"Yeah, his weight's right on track," I nodded. "But his right nostril's a bit stuffy today. You can see he keeps favoring his left side when nursing.

[It's probably because the air's too dry. Maybe you can put a humidifier in the room and set it to 55% humidity.]

Not all of this was my own expertise. Felix had been chattering away in his mind the whole time.

He complained: [Ugh, my right nostril is blocked. I can't drink my formula properly. Breathing is hard. The air's too dry. My poor nose can't take it.]

I was only putting his complaints into words.

Josie was getting more and more dependent on me. The butler upgraded me to a bigger room, right next to the nursery.

Life finally felt a bit more stable.

The Barton family was more complicated than it seemed. There was no telling what secrets were hidden beneath the surface.

On the fifth night, after I finished feeding Felix his last bottle of the night in the nursery and was about to put him back in his crib, I heard the sharp click of high heels on the marble floor outside.

The rhythm was steady, each step precise and deliberate.

The door swung open without a knock.

In walked a woman in her early thirties, dressed in a perfectly tailored black skirt suit.

Her hair was pulled back in a neat bun, and her makeup was flawless, but there was a sharp, cold edge to her whole look.

She gave me a once-over, her gaze sweeping from my head to my toes like she was scanning me for flaws.

"You're the new nanny?" she asked.

Before I could answer, the butler's voice came from outside, a bit nervous. "Mia, this is Mrs. Kenna Barton, Mr. Chandler Barton's wife."

Kenna was Chandler's wife, the second daughter-in-law of the Barton family.

I'd overheard the maids gossiping before, saying she was not someone to mess with. She acted all polite to Darian's family, but behind the scenes, she was always scheming.

Darian and his wife had a son, but Chandler and Kenna still hadn't had a child. Everyone in the Barton family knew about it, but it was taboo. No one dared to mention it.

"Hi, Mrs. Barton," I said, holding Felix and giving her a slight nod.

Kenna ignored my greeting and walked straight to the crib, looking down at the sleeping baby. A faint, almost mocking smile tugged at her lips.

"Well, he's finally stopped crying," she said. "He was making a racket for three days and kept the whole house up."

She was talking about the baby, but the way she said it sent a chill down my spine.

"Of course, babies cry when they're not feeling well," I said, gently placing Felix in his crib and tucking the blanket around him.

"Not feeling well?" Kenna turned to look at me, her eyes flickering with a half-smile, half-skeptical glare. "Ayden says it's nerves, but you say it was a clothing tag poking him.

"So you, a rookie nanny, think you know better than a doctor with forty years of experience?"

"I happened to catch it. That's all," I replied.

"Happened to catch it," she echoed, like she was tasting the idea.

Her gaze lingered on my face for a few seconds and then flicked to the red mark on my left cheek, the one from the soup burn. Her lips curled into a faint, almost mocking smile.

"Fine, lucky you," she said, then turned and walked out.

The sound of her high heels faded down the hallway, steady and deliberate, as if she were tapping out some secret rhythm.

Felix rolled over in his crib, and I caught a sleepy grumble in his mind. [That woman smells awful. It's not perfume. It's this weird sour smell. I don't like her. Every time she's around, the air gets nasty.]

I tucked the blanket around him, saying nothing.

Seventeen days old, and Felix could pick up on people's moods by their scent. He was better at it than I'd ever be.

In the days that followed, I devoted myself to caring for Felix and did my best to steer clear of any Barton family drama.

But some things had a way of finding me, whether I wanted them to or not.