His Curvy Nanny

Chapter 5: The School Run

AMARA’S POV

Monday mornings were their own kind of chaos.

"Ezra, socks. You need socks." I crouched in front of the hallway bench, holding up the offending bare feet in question while Ezra stared at me with the solemn betrayal of a boy who genuinely believed shoes alone should suffice.

"They're itchy," he informed me.

"They're mandatory," I said, and he huffed but let me pull them on anyway, already resigned to losing this particular battle.

Elijah, meanwhile, had somehow managed to get peanut butter on his shirt before we'd even left the house, which meant a full outfit change while Ezra tapped his foot by the door with the impatience of someone who had never once been late for anything in his life.

By the time I wrangled both boys into the car with backpacks, lunch boxes, the dinosaur Ezra refused to leave home without, I felt like I'd run a small marathon, and it wasn't even eight a.m.

I liked it more than I expected to. There was something about the noise, the mild chaos, the constant small negotiations that made up a morning with six-year-old twins that felt more like life than anything my quiet apartment had offered in years.

The school pickup line was where I first noticed the other mothers watching me.

It wasn't hostile, exactly. Just curious, assessing glances as I climbed out of Grant Whitfield's very recognizable car, two boys in tow, clearly not their mother. I could see the math happening behind polite, glossy smiles. Nanny has to be; look at her, and I told myself it didn't bother me.

It bothered me a little.

"Amara!" One of the moms, a woman named Sheila who I'd met exactly once at pickup the previous week, waved me over with the enthusiasm of someone starved for new gossip. "How are you settling in? Must be a lot, taking on the Whitfield boys."

"They're a joy," I said, keeping my voice light. "Really."

"I'm sure." Her eyes did a quick, practiced sweep of my outfit, my body, the space where a wedding ring might've been. "It's just after everything with their mother, you know. Grant's been so private about the whole thing. We were all a little surprised he hired... well." She caught herself, smiling too brightly to cover the gap. "Someone new."

I understood exactly what she wasn't saying.

"He hired someone qualified," I said, evenly, refusing to let the smile slip. "The boys are thriving. That's really all that matters, isn't it?"

Sheila's smile faltered slightly, like she hadn't expected pushback, however polite. "Of course," she said. "Of course."

I said my goodbyes and walked back to the car with my chin up, refusing to let the exchange settle into my chest the way it wanted to. I'd spent my whole life being underestimated by women like Sheila women who looked at my body before they looked at anything else, who made assumptions about my competence, my worth, my place in a room, all based on a dress size.

I'd learned not to let it change how I moved through the world. Mostly.

That afternoon, waiting for the bell to ring, I ended up next to a woman I hadn't met yet, younger than Sheila's crowd, with kind eyes and a toddler asleep in a stroller beside her.

"Don't mind Sheila," she said, apropos of nothing, catching the tail end of my expression probably better than I'd meant to show it. "She does that to everyone new. I'm Priya; my daughter's in Ezra's class."

"Amara," I said, grateful for the unprompted kindness. "Nanny to the Whitfield twins."

"I figured." Priya smiled, easy and unbothered. "For what it's worth, the boys look happier than I've seen them in a while. Whatever you're doing, it's working."

It was such a small thing to say, but it settled something in my chest that Sheila's comment had unsettled. "Thank you," I said. "That actually means a lot."

"Suburban moms can be a lot," Priya said, with the particular candor of someone who'd clearly decided we were going to be friends. "Half of them haven't had an original thought since the PTA newsletter came out. Ignore them."

I laughed, genuinely, for the first time since Sheila's comment, and found myself hoping I'd run into Priya again at the next pickup.

That evening, after the boys were down, I found myself telling Grant about Sheila anyway, not because I needed him to fix it, but because the words came out before I could stop them, sitting across from him at the kitchen island while he nursed a glass of scotch.

"Sheila Danvers," Grant said, jaw tight in a way I hadn't seen before. "She's exhausting."

"She wasn't wrong to be curious," I said. "I'm sure it's a lot of change, for the boys, for their mother's absence to suddenly have a face attached to it."

Something flickered across Grant's expression surprise, maybe- that I'd extend that kind of grace to a woman who'd clearly been unkind.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he said, quiet but firm. "Being good at your job isn't a scandal, whatever Sheila Danvers thinks."

"I know that."

"Do you?" He was watching me carefully now, in a way that made my skin feel warm despite the coolness of the kitchen. "Because it sounds like you're trying to convince yourself."

I opened my mouth to argue and found, inconveniently, that I didn't have anything to say.

"For what it's worth," he said, quieter now, "I hired you because you were the best candidate. Not despite anything. Because of everything."

The words settled somewhere low in my chest, warm and dangerous.

"Careful, Mr. Whitfield," I said, aiming for lightness even as my pulse betrayed me. "That almost sounded like a compliment."

"Grant," he corrected, low. "And it was."

I didn't trust myself to respond to that. I said goodnight instead, retreating to my room with my heart doing something entirely unprofessional, and lay awake far longer than I should have, replaying the way he'd looked at me.