Joanette was beginning to realise there were more layers to children than she had initially believe. To her, children had always been booger-ridden, slobbery little creatures with devils for consciences and a penchant for cruel pranks. That was not the case with the DiBiancci siblings.
While little Salvador was more what she expected, Cressida was not. Salvador also had his mature moments, especially when he would sit in silence and observe the world around him like he was trying to dissect it. That was a trait he shared with his sister, they both had invasive gazes that would fuck Joanette up.
She was beginning to get used to the routine of being a nanny. Getting the kids up, getting them bathed and dressed then leading them down for breakfast was all very chaotic considering the level of monotony she was used to when leading her own life. There was a certain charm to the chaos, though, one that she could see herself embracing if she were ever forced to become a mother.
That would never happen, given that she'd taken drastic measures to make sure she would never be hindered by anything to do with the female reproductive system. She told herself that it was all so she could be a better agent, but that was only half the truth. Joanette Bordeaux resented parents and she resented childhood. She never wanted to be responsible for a child of her own.
Maybe knowing that the kids had their own parents was what made it easier for her to slip into her acting role. Katarina wasn't even in Sicily most of the time, busy tending to her businesses in France or moving base to Spain, but when she did visit, the four of them were the picture of the perfect family.
It had been a little over a month since she had started working with them as the nanny, a little over a month since she had started putting her second skin mask on every day, and things were feeling like they had a sense of normalcy to them. Even Ken noticed it. '
When the kids begged her to take them out for ice cream, she couldn't resist. Their father wasn't home and she could have done with a cheat day herself, so she and the children piled into a car with Ken and a few of the other bodyguards and took off toward the city.
Salvador was talkative the entire time, whereas his sister mostly chose to stay quiet and listen to him spin wild tales he'd dreamed or was making up on the spot. He had a very vivid imagination, something that would do him well if he were to be raised as a multifaceted man of talent.
"You're smiling," Ken accused once they'd come out of the car. The ice cream shop they had chosen to visit was a quaint establishment with faded paint and an abnormally large sign that promised the best gelato on the island. Shutter windows sat as evidence of another time in which the people were different and the feet of happy children might've roamed the streets with a spare euro or five, looking for the perfect ice cream flavour to indulge in for the day.
"Smiling about what?" She pulled a flat face at him. "There's nothing to smile about."
"Mhm." He clearly didn't believe her, and the look in his eyes told her that. "What flavour are you getting?"
She wanted to tell him that she didn't eat sugar, which, as a model, she didn't, but then she remembered that she was off model duty and had agreed with herself to have a cheat say. One cone wouldn't kill her.
"Sea salt caramel," she concluded blandly, figuring it wouldn't hurt to stay away from the bolder flavours like saffron and black liquorice.
"I'll have one too." Ken smiled annoyingly at her and pat the top of her head as it she were a child. Joanette swatted his hand away and smoothed down her hair, pulling a few stray strands back into her sleek ponytail.
"Are you really married?" Cressida peered at them from behind her massive ice cream cone with wide eyes.
Seriously, Joanette hadn't anticipated just how big the cones would be, though she should've expected something outrageous from a parlour that made their own waffle cones in-house.
"No," She said at the same time that Ken contradicted her. She glowered at him and he smiled at her, reaching out to pat the top of her head again. Joanette grabbed hold of his thumb and twisted it, licking the ball on her ice cream cone while he hissed at her.
"Ow, ow, ow, let go!"
"Don't touch me, Mackenzie." She tugged on his finger for good measure and released it altogether, ignoring the grumbling from a vengeful Kenton, who was sure to get her back later when they were alone. Cressida was stifling a giggle at the horrified face her brother was making. Joanette grinned at them both and bit into her ice cream.
"Psychopath."
"Can you teach me how to do that?" Cressida's eyes were wide with awe, though she cringed when the older woman bit into the ice cream.
"Of course." She held out a hand, waiting patiently for the girl to put hers in it. "You take your fingers like this and press here, then twist like so."
"Like this?" She mimicked her until Joanette's thumb was at an awkward angle and the tingles of pain started in its joints.
"Exactly like that, but be careful because if you do it too hard you'll snap the other person's thumb. Unless that's what you're going for, of course. Practice makes perfect."
"Wow, that's so cool!" Cressida gushed, turning toward her brother and holding out a hand.
"No." He shook his little head, pulling himself as far away from his sister as the bench they were sitting on would allow him to go.
Joanette snorted at the interaction as the siblings began to bicker, the eldest of them demanding that he let her experiment on his poor fingers and the young boy adamantly refusing.
The shape of a figure passing behind the children into the ice cream shop drew her attention. It was a woman, moderately young, maybe university aged, dressed in activewear and headphones. She pulled open the door of the ice cream shop and stepped inside, going right on up to the counter to order.
She didn't know why such an ordinary person had drawn her attention, but she had. Joanette's instincts had been sharpened, trained to detect things that she couldn't see with the naked eye. Something about that woman was absolutely not fucking normal and it was driving her crazy that she didn't know what it was.
"Joan." Ken's hand came to her back, rubbing along it in a soothing motion. He usually resorted to touch to pull her out of her mind whenever he'd been trying to gain her attention for a while. Placing a hand on her shoulder brusquely would only result in an injury for him, which he knew after having tried it a handful of times and resulting injured, so a soothing, familiar touch that wouldn't alarm her was what he resorted to.
Joanette was sometimes so in tune with analysing threats in her surroundings that whatever she deemed as familiar, her brain would blank out completely, even if it was right in front of her eyes. It was a blessing and a curse to have senses so well developed, in her opinion, but nothing less was to be expected from one of Alistair Bordeaux's twins. If she, a Bordeaux, couldn't be untouchable, then every field agent to have received the Agency's specialised training was completely fucked.
"Something's not right." Her every sense was telling her to get the fuck out of there before things got ugly. "We need to go."
As quickly as she could manage without alarming the kids, she stood up and gathered them back into the SUV before the woman came back out. Her eyes darted from the table they'd been sitting at toward the car they were taking before turning away with indifference.
Why was she looking?
She climbed into the car after them, frowning at Ken, who was looking after the very same woman with a hard gleam in his eyes.
The two agents looked at each other, both thinking the exact same thing.
They were being watched.