Nanny for the Alien Lord by Tammy Walsh

Tauas

I wasin two minds about taking Belle and her sister home, but with Daynnis’s sudden appearance, the house felt very full.

Worse, I sensed Belle was confused about her position in the house.

Each time she got up to help Elken with something, Daynnis got there first, and she eased back into her chair and frowned.

After dinner and before night closed in, Belle took Abbie to one side and spoke to her in hushed whispers.

She then turned to the rest of us and announced:

“I think it’s time we returned home,” Belle said.

“But the workmen haven’t finished draining the water yet,” I said. “There’s still going to be a lot of water damage.”

“We’re used to it,” Belle insisted before heading upstairs to pack her things.

I didn’t want her to leave—either of them.

I wanted them to stay with us.

The best thing for Elken—and for me—was to have both Daynnis and Belle in our lives.

I’d made preparations for my future plans with Belle and hadn’t intended on acting on them until later, but Belle’s decision to leave had forced my hand.

Little Elken’s bottom lip quivered and tears shone in her eyes at the news.

“We’ll still come and see you,” Abbie said, hugging her. “We’re only on the other side of town. It’s not like we’re a million miles away.”

But Elken was too young to fully understand.

Distance and time were still concepts her young mind hadn’t fully grasped yet.

She would be upset for a while and would soon get distracted by something else, I knew.

I, on the other hand, wouldn’t heal quite so quickly or easily.

Elken gave them each a hug and lugged their things into my shuttlecraft.

As Iatell had already taken the largest and heaviest wardrobes, there was little else they had to take with them.

I felt both excited and nervous about what would happen over the next thirty minutes or so.

I knew what I wanted to say to Belle, but could I bring myself to say it?

I hoped so.

I turned the shuttlecraft controls and banked over the broad magnetic pod highway and descended onto Kheb Street, setting the ship down gently.

Belle and Abbie peered up at the facade of their building.

“Huh,” Abbie said, “it looks tidier than I remember.”

Giddy with excitement and struggling to hold in the news, I helped them with their things and followed as they opened the front door and stepped inside their house.

The moment they opened the front door, they froze.

“Oh my God,” Belle said.

“What?” Abbie said. “What is it? Out of the way! I can’t see a thing!”

Belle entered and drifted to one side so Abbie could enter.

I grinned ear to ear, my big secret finally out.

I’d had Ofor, my chief manufacturer, restore the dilapidated building to its former glory.

Everything had been gutted, removed, and rebuilt from scratch.

It would have been easier to knock the house down but as it didn’t belong to me, this was the next best thing.

The general layout remained the same, although the walls had been reinforced.

The building had surprisingly good original beams that crisscrossed its ceiling.

The interior designer had decided to make them visible and sand them down for good measure.

I’d also taken the liberty of installing a fresh kitchen and bought new furniture for each of the rooms.

Best of all, the house had a brand-new water system, pipes, and pumps to ensure another flooding incident never happened ever again.

Abbie wheeled up to a contraption at the foot of the stairs.

She spun around and pointed as Elken might have done.

“We have an elevator! I can go upstairs!”

She entered the elevator and proceeded to use it to explore the second floor.

She was well used to operating it as it was the same model I had installed in my own house.

Belle had her back to me and was silent as she peered at the house.

Only once Abbie had reached the top and rolled around upstairs did Belle speak.

“We can’t afford to pay you for this.”

“You don’t have to. I wanted to do it.”

“We’ll pay for it.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I said, we’ll pay for it,” Belle said, a hard edge to her voice now.

I threw up my arms.

“Fine. I’ll take it out of your sister’s earnings once she gets deals with the wholesalers. She’ll have more than enough to live on. How about that?”

Belle nodded but looked distant with thought.

“You shouldn’t have done this.”

“I wanted to. I want you to be safe and happy in your own home. You can come see Elken whenever you want. You can stay with us too. I just want you to be happy.”

Belle shook her head and stepped back from me.

“You shouldn’t have done this,” she repeated.

Tears were in her eyes.

I couldn’t tell if they were tears of anger or disappointment.

Probably a mix of both.

“Belle…” I said.

“I appreciate your help but I can’t live with you watching over me all the time.”

I was taken aback by her outburst.

“I’m not watching over you all the time. I just fixed up your house.”

“We never asked for you to take control of our lives! We never wanted to leave our home in the first place! We don’t need some Prince Charming billionaire to come into our lives and fix everything!”

I was shocked at her outrage.

“All I did was help you and your sister,” I snapped. “The least you can do is be grateful.”

“We don’t need your help!”

“What did I do wrong? I rescued your sister from a flooded house—”

“Don’t you dare bring Abbie into this! She doesn’t need rescuing! I’m the one who rescued her! I’m the one who takes care of her!”

So, here we were, back to the same old argument.

I saw red and without thinking, snapped a retort:

“You use Abbie as an excuse not to do the things you want to do!”

She blinked in shock, physically stumbling to one side as if I had struck her.

I immediately regretted it.

“Belle. I didn’t mean… I was just angry. I thought I was doing you a favor. I thought I was helping you—”

I moved forward to touch her but she yanked her arm away.

Her eyes were bloodshot and shimmered violently with tears that would spill down her cheeks any moment.

“You weren’t there when our parents were taken from us. You weren’t there through the months and years of treatment to help Abbie regain her confidence, and you weren’t there when the treatments became so expensive that we had to sell our home. You weren’t there when we got stuck in this house on a distant planet that we would never find the money to pay for.”

“No, but I wish I was.”

“And now you accuse me of using her as an excuse not to do what I want to do? I’ve never used her as an excuse. Ever. She’s my sister and she’s never been a burden.”

I couldn’t believe I’d said that to her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry. How about we go in the kitchen for a cup of coffee?”

Belle didn’t move.

“I introduced Iatell to your sister so she might see the talent she has and give her the opportunity to earn enough to take care of herself. Then you wouldn’t need to watch over her. I never said she was a burden. I just meant she can take care of herself now. She has good people around her, and you can move on with your life.”

Belle stuck out her chin.

“I watch over her. I always have. It’s us against the world! Against the galaxy! We don’t need anyone else. We don’t need the other designers and business people.”

Then she looked me directly in the eye.

“And we don’t need you. I don’t need you.”

Those four simple words drove a dagger into my heart.

It hurt, but I wouldn’t let that be the end.

I couldn’t let it be the end.

“Everything I did, I did for you. To make your life better, to make you free, so maybe you could be with me sometimes.”

Belle was silent a long moment.

I reached out to touch her, and I was relieved when she let me.

I braced her shoulders with my hands.

“What I’m trying to say is that even if you don’t need me, I need you. With all my heart and soul. I need you and I love you.”

There they were.

The words I’d been trying to say ever since I first met her.

There was no turning back now.

I did love her.

I would never have gone to all this effort if it wasn’t for those unbreakable emotions.

“And there’s something else. That day at the zoo, when we saw those jobless people? It made me realize something. It made me realize that rather than making everyone’s life better, I was making them worse. It made me realize that if I was going to take away someone’s livelihood, I needed to replace it with something else.

“That’s why I set up a new center to train engineers. The people who know the most about the service bots’ jobs are the people that used to do them. They’ll be trained in how to reprogram the bots and service them. Anyone who lost their job can apply and be given free training. I already wrote a clause in the sales contracts that the employers must offer former employees those positions first.”

Belle was silent a long moment.

“I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do,” I said. “You made me see that. I can see it now. It’s thanks to you. That’s why I want you to head up the training program. You can use your knowledge and experience of education to help people learn. And if that’s too much, you can take up the nanny bot course. I leave it up to you. All I ask is you stay on Zev and see me sometimes. I want to be with you but I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want.”

Belle cleared her throat.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want to be with you. So does Elken.”

“And Daynnis?”

“She can keep her job. I know it would make Elken happy to have both of you in her life. And you’ll be busy doing something else too—if you want to. Or Elken can have two nannies. I leave it up to you.”

I studied her expression but it was blank and hard to read.

I thought she would have been happy with my offer and leaped for joy, would have wrapped her arms around me, kissed me, and told me she loved me…

It might have been what I hoped for but it was clearly not what I would receive.

Was there some problem with my offer I hadn’t foreseen?

“Whatever you need, I’m here to give it to you,” I said. “You and your sister aren’t alone anymore.”

I thought it was the most supportive thing I could say.

When she looked up at me, her bottom lip was trembling…

And not in a good way.

Her hand flashed out and caught me across the cheek with a solid thwack!

The slap made my ears ring and stars dance in my eyes.

I stumbled to one side, shocked more by the emotional impact than the physical one.

Belle screwed up her face in an effort to contain her anger, turned on her heel, and marched out of the room.