Rose Is Back With Thorns

chapter thirty three

The little girl giggled hysterically, clapping her dainty hands together. Her eyes were focused on the uniformed nanny who'd been feigning mounting the small, pink bicycle but would never fit causing the cherubic girl to roll on the grass in a fit of girly giggles. "You're too big, you're too big! Nanny Helen." She chanted now laughing really hard.

Nanny Helen feigned a frown and abandoned the bicycle on the ground before approaching the joyous child who made a run for it, her excitement and happy laughter in the air. Her little legs barely made a second step before Helen apprehended her. They stared at each other before the nanny began tickling the girl, who went breathless with giggles. When she started panting and tears of joy trickled her chubby cheeks, nanny stopped. "Alright, you mean thing. Time to clean up."

Now she pouted. "Too soon. Daddy's not back yet."

The nanny grinned sheepishly and nuzzled the little girl's protruding tummy with her face. "That's the point, sweetheart. Don't you want to look pretty when dad comes back home?"

The child seemed to be thinking about it. She bit the corner of her lower lip and rolled her eyes heavenwards, the act too grown-up for her four years. "Okay. I just want to ride," she rose a tiny finger in the air for emphasis. "One more time. Just one. Please,"

The word no had been on the tip of Helen's lips but it stuck there refusing to come out following the puppy face the girl pulled. Squinting her eyes at the little girl, Helen spied the pouting plump lips, scrunched brows and clumped hands. Tiffany was just too adorable to refuse. "Okay, but I'm just going to prepare your bath and come get you alright?"

"Yes!" And she was sprinting towards her bicycle.

"Don't go any further, Tiff."

"Okay!" Tiffany shouted over her shoulder as she wobbled a little before finally balancing and cycling with prowess.

***

"You are mad!"

"She's so adorable."

"Doesn't make you any less mad."

She shot a murderous glare towards the other woman. "Then you shouldn't have followed me!" She chastised whispering.

They were crouching behind flowers, hiding their bodies from view. They had entered, rather snuck into Villa Sylvesters from a little gate that faced towards Mountain Green. Gabrielle had tried without success to reason with Rose but the woman chose to be stubborn! Peeping from behind a lavender plant, she  countered heatedly. "And let you kidnap someone's child? We should just go back home, Rose."

Rose pouted childishly and fluttered her eyelashes before speaking in low tone. "Then go back. I am getting my hands on that little bundle of joy."

Gabrielle harrumphed. "Just get your own." The realisation of the damaging words she'd just uttered struck her. "Rose_"

Keeping her threatening tears at bay, she let out a shaky laughter in an attempt to assume the lump forming in her throat. "It's alright,"

"No, I'm_"

"I said it's fine." She snapped. Seeing her mistake, she sighed with resignation. "I will be fine if you help me get that little angel."

Rolling her eyes, she huffed incredulously. "Kidnapping, Mayor. It's called kidnapping."

"I don't care." With that she crawled on all fours, until she was fully exposed but not close enough for spotting. "Hey!" She whisper-yelled.

She watched as a lone Tiffany balanced herself and stopped the bicycle before turning halfway towards the garden. When she didn't see anything, she made to leave. Then she heard it again. "Tiffany!" Again she craned her small neck and spied the garden. Tiffany saw a big, pretty girl smiling at her. She seemed about mom's age but instead of mom's permanently frowning face, this strange girl was grinning widely at Tiffany.