The Ice CEO's Contracted Nanny

Emma Anderson

Luca's embrace was warm, familiar, impossible.

Two years dissolved in that single instant. The smell of baby shampoo, the way he clung to my neck as if I were the only thing keeping him from being swept away... It was all exactly like the day I pulled him from the flames.

But the moment shattered in a heartbeat. A voice sliced through the air, sharp as a steel blade.

"Who are you? And how do you know my son?"

I slowly lifted my gaze.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in an impeccable gray suit that felt too expensive to exist on the same planet as me. His blond hair was perfectly combed, and his eyes were a blue so pale they looked like cracked ice.

Damien Knight.

I didn't need a name badge. I recognized him from the magazines at the diner, but seeing him in person was something else entirely. Power rolled off him in suffocating waves.

His name was engraved on every plaque and glass door in this place, but the man himself was far more terrifying than any corporate logo.

He looked at me as if I were vermin—a pest that needed to be crushed.

Luca stayed glued to me, his small arms locked around my neck. He wouldn't let go. He didn't say a word. He just trembled, his face buried in my shoulder, his breaths coming in short, panicked gasps, as if terrified I would vanish into smoke all over again.

Damien took a step forward, and the hallway seemed to shrink around him.

"Answer me," he repeated, his voice dangerously low. "Who are you?"

Marina stepped forward, her voice wavering between professionalism and raw nerves.

"Mr. Knight, this is Emma Anderson. She's here for the night cleaning interview. We were just finishing up... She was just about to leave."

His gaze never left me. It bored into my eyes, analyzing the way his son clung to me, refusing to let go.

From behind me, an employee's shocked whisper cut through the silence. "Oh my God... he never lets anyone get that close. He hasn't said a word to anyone since the accident."

A chill traced a path down my spine. I stared at the top of Luca's blond head, the whispered words echoing in my ears. I couldn't process the weight of this embrace until Damien's voice, heavy with suspicion, dragged me back to reality.

"My son doesn't allow strangers to touch him." His voice was low, thrumming with an authority that demanded an impossible explanation. "Never. So I'll ask you one more time. Why is he clinging to you like he's known you his entire life?"

Luca slowly lifted his face. His green eyes, flooded with tears, met mine. He didn't speak—he never spoke, according to the news reports I'd devoured in the months after the accident.

Instead, he stretched out a trembling little hand and touched my cheek, his fingertips seeming to confirm I was flesh and blood, not a ghost.

Damien's brow furrowed. For a split second, his icy composure cracked, revealing a flicker of dark confusion.

"Luca," he commanded. "Let her go. Now."

The boy just shook his head, a desperate denial as his small fingers dug into the cheap fabric of my blouse. A low, hoarse whimper escaped him, and it broke my heart.

"I said, let go." Damien's voice was like contained thunder. He stopped beside me and tore the boy from my arms with a single, non-negotiable motion.

"Take your child," he hissed, his gaze flicking contemptuously toward Ellie. "And get out of my building. Don't you ever come back."

His tone was one of icy cruelty. My heart hammered against my ribs. Beside me, my sister's small hand squeezed mine, her fingers tight with a child's instinct for danger.

"Mr. Knight, please," Marina tried to intercede, her words tumbling out. "Emma desperately needs this job. Her sister is sick, she had no one to watch her. It's just... it's been a terrible day."

Damien's gaze dropped to Ellie, who was cowering behind my legs, her eyes wide with terror. Then his icy blue eyes snapped back to mine, completely devoid of empathy.

"My son does not interact with strangers," he said, his voice a low, controlled growl. "If you think you can use his vulnerability to pull something in this company, you are making a fatal mistake. Get out. Now. Before I lose what little patience I have."

"That's not what this is!" The words burst out of me. "I swear, I didn't even know—"

Luca thrashed in his father's arms. He reached for me, his small body leaning dangerously forward as silent tears streamed down his face. He wasn't making a sound, but his eyes were screaming for help.

Damien ignored his son's distress. He cupped the boy's face with his palm and turned it away from me—a gesture that looked gentle but was absolute in its authority.

He looked at me one last time. "Don't make me call security, Ms. Anderson."

Marina's hand was on my arm, pulling me back.

"Emma, let's go," she urged. "Please, we have to leave."

I stumbled back a step, then another, the polished floor seeming to tilt beneath my feet. Panic rose in my throat like a black tide. Ellie clutched my leg, her small body trembling.

"I... I just wanted the job," I whispered, but the vast marble lobby swallowed the words whole.

Damien didn't bother to respond. He simply turned his back with an icy elegance and walked away, carrying Luca with him.

Over his father's shoulder, the boy kept reaching for me, his small fingers grasping at the empty air, his face wet with silent tears. It was the most desperate look I had ever seen.

Security guards closed in, a wall of dark uniforms.

One of them murmured, his voice tinged with something like pity, "Please, miss. You need to leave quietly."

I bent and picked Ellie up. She felt too light in my arms, and her skin was hot, like a small ember about to burn out. My legs felt like lead as I walked to the elevator, Marina at my side murmuring comforting words that my brain couldn't process.

We stepped inside. The doors began to slide shut with a metallic sigh.

Through the narrowing gap, my eyes met Damien's one last time.

He had stopped down the hall, watching. His gaze was pure ice—no anger, just a flat, absolute indifference that chilled me to my very soul.

That was all I was to him. An insect under his shoe.

But then Luca's eyes found mine. He squirmed in his father's arms, a tiny, futile struggle.

No sound. Just a silent, devastating goodbye.

The doors sealed shut. The elevator began its descent.

Outside, the sharp city air hit me like a slap. The sky was a flat gray, the traffic a dull roar, the entire city indifferent to my ruin.

Humiliation burned through me, hot and sharp, leaving me feeling small and utterly defeated.

I managed a few steps, Ellie a heavy weight in my arms, before my legs gave out.

I stumbled to a low wall bordering the building's small, artificial garden, a sad patch of green surrounded by spindly trees. I carefully sat Ellie on the wall and fumbled with my bag, my hands trembling so badly I could barely work the zipper.

"Take a sip, sweetheart," I urged as I held out a bottle, my voice shaking. "It'll help."

She tried, but her lips barely moved. When I touched her forehead, her skin was burning. Her small body went limp, sagging against me without resistance.

"Ellie?" I cupped her face.

She was on fire. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

"Ellie!"

Her body collapsed forward, and I lunged to catch her before she hit the pavement. She weighed almost nothing, but in that moment, she felt like the weight of the entire world.

"No... no, please, Ellie..." I begged. "Wake up!"

Panic detonated in my chest. I screamed for help, but my voice was a hoarse, broken thing, swallowed by the roar of traffic.

People hurried past, their eyes glued to their phones, oblivious. The world spun, losing its color.

Ellie wasn't moving.