Matteo blinked. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
It was not a sweet sound. It was rusty, startled, and gone too fast. But it was real.
From somewhere deep in the manor, a door slammed.
All three boys flinched.
Not dramatically. Not loudly. Just a tiny tightening in the shoulders, the kind that told Claire they knew the sound of anger before they knew multiplication.
Henry’s face changed.
“He’s home,” he said.
The room shifted around those words. Even the foam beads seemed to stop drifting.
Claire stood.
“Who is?”
Before Henry could answer, footsteps approached the open nursery door. Slow. Measured. Heavy enough that each one seemed to remind the house who owned it.
A man appeared in the doorway.
Dante Rinaldi did not look like a man from a nanny ad. He looked like the reason people whispered at restaurants and checked mirrors when black cars followed too long.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a dark suit without a single wrinkle. His hair was black, his jaw shadowed, his expression colder than the marble under Claire’s cheap flats. He had a face handsome enough to be dangerous and tired enough to be human, though he seemed determined to hide both facts.
His eyes moved over the destroyed room, the boys, Henry, then finally Claire.
“This is her?” he asked.
Henry cleared his throat. “Ms. Beaumont, yes.”
Dante looked at the water balloon in Claire’s hand.
“They attacked you.”
“They introduced themselves.”
Luca made a small sound that might have been outrage.
Dante’s gaze flicked to his son. “Luca.”
The boy’s chin lifted, but his hands curled at his sides.
Claire noticed that too.
“What happened to the last nanny?” she asked before anyone else could speak.
Henry’s eyes widened slightly. Dante’s stare sharpened.