ALEX.
I stared at the neatly written list in my notebook, my fingers tightening slightly around the pen as I read it again, as though the words might rearrange themselves if I wished hard enough. It was seven days to Christmas, and I was down to seven days to the end of my contract. Christmas Day would be my last day here, and after that, I would pack my things, take my payment, and leave this mansion and the people in it behind. That had been the plan from the beginning: clean, simple and temporary.
Yet the tight feeling in my chest told me it was no longer that easy.
I scanned the list of remaining activities I had carefully planned, assigning one to each day like a countdown I wasn’t ready to reach the end of.
Game night. Building a gingerbread house. Christmas scavenger hunt. DIY h
