Nanny ___ Chaesoo

Epilogue

Rosé- One year later. 

                             

"She's finally asleep," whispered Sky, her voice betraying a hint of tiredness. 

                             

I grinned. "You didn't have to wait up." 

                             

She set her shoulders. "I didn't want to miss story time, and I'm her big sister. I have to take care of her." 

                             

I nodded as I carefully pulled the sleeping Gwen from my breast and stood up from the rocking chair. She didn't stir as I laid her in the crib and stroked a finger over her thick head of dark curls.

                             

She had her Mom's color, but my texture. She also had gorgeous blue eyes and would be a heartbreaker someday. 

                             

Just like Sky, who looked different from her half-sister in many ways, but shared the same lips and stubborn expression when she'd set her mind to something. I could recognize similar traits in my eight-week-old daughter. 

                             

"Let's get you to bed." I picked up the tattered paperback copy of one of the Harry Potter books we were re-reading at Sky's insistence, this time with Gwen included. I couldn't convince her the baby was unlikely to remember any of it. 

                             

Sky followed me without protest after ensuring the monitor was on. She was diligent about such things, and sometimes displayed some overly adult tendencies, but she was much more childlike than she had been a year ago. 

                             

I halted for a second as I followed her into her room. Had it really been just over a year since I'd come back into the Kims' lives? Sure looked like it, with the huge Christmas tree in Rockefeller Square, and the presents piled under the nearly-as-big tree here on the sixty-sixth floor of the Imperial. 

                             

And almost an entire year that I had been Mrs. Kim? Yes, but some days felt like it was just yesterday, while others seemed like we'd been a happy family forever. Of course, Courtney will always be Sky's mom. She is in rehab again, trying to make it work, and I hope she does this time. 

                             

Knowing there was one more Kim I wanted to make happy tonight, I put Sky to bed as fast as I could without depriving her of attention. "Santa is coming tonight, so be a good girl and get to sleep soon," I told her. I When her eyes fell shut, I pressed a kiss to her forehead and hurried down the hallway. 

                             

As expected, I found my wife in her office. She was much better about working late and bringing home work these days, but she'd told me well in advance that she'd have to work this evening.  I intended to disrupt her work, and I had no remorse about it. I wore a robe and nothing else. It was modest and discreet, at least until I opened her door and tossed it on the back of the chair across from her seat. Walking naked in front of her didn't bother me at all these days, even though I still had a bit of a tummy from giving birth. She'd seen me in every state of dress or undress, and she'd been there for all the ups and downs in the past year that it was impossible to be insecure about how much she desired me.