Chapter 13: Birthday Outing
Moana

Despite everything that happened that day, Edrick still requested that I spend the night with him. I made sure to put more distance between us this time, hoping that we wouldn’t wake up in each other’s arms again in the morning.

When I woke up, my cardigan was still on and Edrick’s side of the bed was empty. I heard the shower running in the bathroom, so I let out a sigh of relief and took it as my chance to get up and leave the room before I would have to talk to him. Not only was it still awkward to look him in the eye with our new arrangement, but I was admittedly still a little upset with him for yelling at me publicly the day before.

I quickly got up and made the bed, opening the curtains out of habit to let some sunlight into the room before I put my slippers on and headed out.

“Moana?” Ella’s little voice said, the second I walked out of the room. It made me jump a bit. I wasn’t expecting her to be standing right outside the door.

“Good morning, Miss Ella,” I said, managing a smile. “Are you feeling better today?”

Ella nodded, but her eyebrows were scrunched together and her eyes were narrowed suspiciously. “What were you doing in my daddy’s room again?”

“I, um…” I stammered, realizing that I couldn’t use the crepes for breakfast excuse two days in a row.

“Good morning, Princess!” Edrick said from behind me, brushing past me to scoop Ella up off the floor. Her look of concern and confusion quickly turned into a wide grin.

“Daddy!” Ella exclaimed, giggling as Edrick blew a raspberry on her cheek. “Where are you taking me for my birthday?”

Ella seemed to have completely forgotten about seeing me coming out of her father’s room; I had also forgotten that today was her birthday. It had been mentioned in the packet of instructions given to me on my first day, but I had admittedly been too busy to look

through his white button-down shirt and his hair still a bit damp at the ends from his shower,

and she began to pout.

replied. “But Moana will do something fun with you today. And I’ll

“And cake?” Ella asked.

“And cake,” Edrick replied.

was — unsurprisingly — quite sad that her father couldn’t spend her birthday with her, so I tried to come up

girl shook her head and folded her arm across her

but every option I offered her was met with indignant refusal. I knew she just wanted to spend the day with

some local attractions on my phone; although Selina and the maids were nervous about what happened before, they did finally concede to Ella’s begging and told me that I could take her out so long as I stayed with her the entire time and didn’t let go of her hand for one second, which was understandable. I knew that Selina still didn’t trust me, but when I suggested going to a

Selina said to me as I put Ella’s sun hat on to protect her face. “And the bodyguard will be watching at all times. Don’t lose

little annoyed at the housekeeper’s blatant mistrust of me. I knew I messed up royally by leaving Ella’s training to visit the orphanage when I should’ve been keeping an eye on her, but I wanted to prove to everyone — and myself — that

with Ella, and I was relieved to see her face disappear as the metal doors closed. Now, I could just focus on giving Ella a nice

to the theme park?” I asked Ella as we watched the floors on the

new matching blue sandals — she clearly liked the color blue, as I was quickly

orphanage, Sophia took us on the occasional field trip or ice cream outing. We even went to the local swimming pool twice a month

“How come?” I asked.

across the lobby as soon as the elevator doors opened. “He says that too many people will know who he is, so he has to stay hidden. Because of the… pa…

ra zzi?” I asked, stifling a laugh at Ella’s childish

into the back of the town car where our driver waited for us, and the bodyguard shut the door behind us before getting

tickets, and soon Ella was

resorted to fanning myself with a pamphlet I picked up at the information booth. But Ella hardly seemed to notice the heat

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