Eleanor & Grey(43)

I wasn’t certain I was up for it, to be honest. It all seemed a bit much for me. “I have to admit, I was a bit surprised that I was offered the position.”

“I have no doubt you’ll be great. I’ve been with Mr. East for a very long time, and I have to believe he knew what he was doing when he hired you. Then again, you’re the seventh person I’ve given this talk to in the past ten months, so I could be wrong again.”

She continued showing me through the house, and then we stopped in front of a door. She gestured toward it, lowering her voice. “That’s Mr. East’s office. He’s probably in there now. Most of the time while he’s home, he’ll be inside those four walls, working. If the door is closed, you are forbidden to enter.”

“And if it’s open?” I asked.

She gave me a baffled look. “Oh, no—it’s never open.” She continued the tour of the house and once we covered everything, she took me to the kitchen, and handed me a large three-ring binder filled with paperwork. “This should help you a bit. I put together a complete guide on how to conquer the Easts’ home.”

I flipped through it, impressed by the attention to detail. “Wow, this is amazing. I’m surprised you don’t have this position.”

“Trust me”—she smirked—“Mr. East couldn’t afford me if he wanted me to nanny for his children.”

She made it sound like $65,000 was chump change.

Funny given I felt as if I’d won the lottery with that level of income while she talked as if it was a piece of gum on the bottom of her shoe.

Perspective, I guess.

“Before I go, I wanted to touch base with you on a sensitive subject,” Allison commented. “It’s about the girls, mainly Karla.”

“Oh?”

“When the car accident happened a few months ago, the whole family was in the vehicle. They all suffered injuries, but Karla was tossed from the backseat through the window because she didn’t have her seat belt on.”

I gasped, covering my mouth. “Oh, my gosh.”

“She, um, struggles with walking sometimes. Due to the way she landed, she had to have surgery on her left hip, and there’s a bit of a difference in the length of her legs. So, she limps. It’s pretty noticeable, but we try our best to not call attention to it. Karla will, though. She’ll try her hardest to make you uncomfortable. There are also the scars.”

“The scars?”

She nodded. “Her face was cut up pretty badly. When she went flying from the car, she slammed face first against a tree before hitting the ground. There’s no way to get around it. You’ll notice the markings, but please try your best to not have an outward reaction. Karla feeds on that. It will make things much harder for you.”

“I won’t.”

She smiled. “If it makes you less worried, Lorelai is an utter delight.”

“Such a big part of me is hoping she was named after Gilmore Girls,” I joked.

“One hundred percent named after Lorelai Gilmore. Nicole wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

That was pleasing to me. At least Greyson had married a smart woman.

Allison stood up straighter. “Okay, I think that’s everything. I’m going to head out now, but go ahead and make yourself at home. Get used to the property. Mr. East knows you’re here today, so don’t feel like you aren’t allowed to wander around a bit. If you need anything, my cell number is on the contact list in the book, or you can email me. If nothing comes up, I hope your first day goes well. Claire will be with you Monday to make sure the transition goes smoothly.”

I must have had my non-poker face on, because as Allison grabbed her coat and purse to leave, she gave me a light squeeze on the shoulder.

“You’re going to be fine, Eleanor. Mind over matter. You got this. Let’s touch base later this week so I can check in on how things are going.”

“Sounds great. Thanks, Allison.”

After she left, I took a deep breath and flipped through a few pages in the binder. Then, I did a once-through of the house, familiarizing myself with whose room was where. There was something so unsettling about the quietness of Greyson’s home. It was so dark with an odd gloomy feeling attached to it, haunting almost. I didn’t mean dark as in the lighting situation, rather it was the energy level. There was such a heaviness in the space.

The place felt like a house, not a home.

If I hadn’t known any better, I wouldn’t have believed a family lived there at all.

It felt so abandoned, almost like a memory frozen in time.

That might’ve just been my own thoughts, due to knowing about the tragedy that had taken place in the lives of the individuals who lived there. With the number of books I’d read, it wasn’t inaccurate to say my mind wandered toward the dramatics.

Perhaps it just reminded me of my father’s home after Mom passed away. It had been as if he and I were both frozen in time. That was ultimately the reason I left and went off on my own—the walls had been suffocating me.

I walked back into the kitchen, flipping through the binder, completely taken aback by the girls’ schedules. Between school, swim lessons, karate, piano lessons, physical therapy, and grief counseling, I wasn’t sure how they found the time to live even a little.

“Eleanor.”