ZARIA

Chapter 2

Zaria

She knocked on the front door, her hand shaking slightly as she I did so. The doors swung open after a moment, and an old lady appeared on the other side with a polite smile as she ushered her inside.

"Hello, dear. My name is Betty. I'm the housekeeper. Are you here for the nanny job?" she asked.

"Yes," Zaria said, sighing in relief when she realized this wasn't some prank like she had feared when she called the number and scheduled a meeting with a certain Mr. Daigo. She was apprehensive about the truthfulness of this whole thing, seeing as they apparently didn't care that she only had a high school degree.

Betty nodded and motioned for her to follow her as she made her way through the house. Zaria did as she was asked, trailing after Betty while her eyes danced over her surroundings, widening slightly the more she observed.

The house was huge, nothing like she had seen before, more resembling a mansion than a simple house. The closest she had witnessed was Nate's place, which they had been hiding in when she arrived two months ago.

"You can wait here, dear. Mr. Daigo is in a conference meeting but should be done soon. You don't mind waiting, do you?"

She shook her head, taking a seat on the oversized, white couch at the center of the living room, careful not to touch anything for fear of dirtying it.

Luxury, she was surrounded by luxury and felt very uncomfortable about it. She thought she didn't belong there as she looked around once Betty left her alone, already starting to rethink this whole idea.

She was a nobody, a foreigner with a high school degree and nothing else, hardly a hirable prospect for what appeared to be a high-society family. They would ask for experience and high education, nothing of which she possessed.

She was about to stand up and leave, her mind full of self-doubt and insecurity, when a boy of about nine or ten entered the room, holding a book in his hands.

"Um... hi," she said, making the boy startle since he didn't seem to have noticed anyone in the room until he heard her voice.

"Who are you?" the boy asked in confusion as he stopped in his tracks, his big, brown eyes observing her intently.

"I'm Zaria. I'm here about the nanny job."

The boy hummed, looking her up and down curiously before continuing his way into the room and sitting on the floor near the coffee table, his eyes once again glued to his book.

She felt awkward as the two of them sat in silence, though the boy seemed pretty at ease. She wracked mind in search of some topic that would be interesting for a boy of such a young age when her eyes fell on the book the boy was reading, and her brow hitched in surprise at the sight of her favorite book.

"Do you like it so far?" she asked.

"What?" the boy asked, still reading, not even moving an inch.

"The book. Do you like it? It's my favorite, so I wonder what you think about it."

The boy's head snapped up at that, his eyes going around as he jumped to his feet and came to sit beside her.

"Really? Mine too! I've read it ten times at least!"

She started at that, frowning as she looked at the boy who couldn't have been more than ten years old.

"Ten times? How old are you?" she asked, a snort escaping her mouth as the boy proudly stated he was ten.

"Are you a genius or something?" she asked, more as a joke than anything else, but when the boy nodded, her eyes widened.

"Yeah, although I don't call myself that, it would be pretentious, right? But yes, I am considered a genius. I'll be starting high school next year."