The mate of his nanny

Chapter 177: Caffeine Crash

Moana

The rest of the weekend went by too quickly. I spent all of Sunday with Ella to make up for not seeing her on Saturday, and soon enough Monday morning came around.

However, I noticed something over the weekend as well as the first few days of the week: Mina's sleepiness wasn't getting any better. In fact, it only seemed to be getting worse, and it was making me nervous. At first, I thought it was just the pregnancy, but now I was beginning to think otherwise.

And in fact, there was something especially odd about it.
Mina seemed to get better at nighttime. She still had very little energy during that time, but it was an obvious improvement nonetheless. This slightly heightened energy would go on through the night and the early morning, but then she would get extremely sleepy again whenever I drank my morning coffee.

By Thursday, I was beginning to get suspicious. I decided then to try an experiment; on Thursday morning, I decided not to drink my morning coffee.

"Good morning," Selina said as I walked into the kitchen. I was already dressed for work, and Ella was already sitting at the kitchen counter and eating her toast and eggs before school. I kissed Ella on top of her head and smiled at Selina, who had just placed a plate of breakfast down for me.
But when I sat down, I saw that my coffee was there. I subtly pushed it away and ate my breakfast without mentioning it, but Selina noticed that the cup was untouched as I finished eating and stood up to get ready to leave.

"You didn't like your coffee?" she asked, looking a bit confused. "I thought you loved your morning coffee."

"I do," I replied with a nonchalant smile. "I'm just not in the mood for coffee this morning, I'm afraid."

Selina looked at me for a moment, then nodded and poured the cup of coffee down the sink. I felt a bit bad for wasting it, but I needed to find out if the coffee had something to do with my wolf's sleepiness. Maybe the caffeine was interacting strangely with my body due to the pregnancy.
Edrick was waiting for Ella and I in the foyer when we walked out. He smiled at us as the elevator doors opened, but what he said in the elevator baffled me.

"I heard you didn't want your coffee this morning."

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow and look at Edrick with a bit of confusion. Why did it seem as though both Selina and Edrick were overly concerned about whether I drank my coffee or not that morning?

"Yeah," I said as the elevator doors opened to the lobby and we stepped out. "I didn't want the caffeine this morning."

"Hmm." Edrick almost seemed a little bit put off by that, which I thought was strange. However, he didn't bring it up again, and instead had pleasant conversation with Ella and myself as we walked to school. By the time we arrived and waved goodbye, I had almost forgotten about it.
However, as I taught my classes that day, I noticed that Mina's energy was indeed higher than it had been recently. In fact, by the time school was out and I walked out of the school with Ella, Mina's energy seemed almost normal again.

Maybe it was just the caffeine interacting poorly with my body because of the pregnancy.

"Hi, daddy!" Ella said as we walked up to meet him. Edrick grinned and crouched down to let Ella climb up onto his shoulders. As he stood once more, however, I noticed something.
He was holding a smoothie in his hand.

"Here," he said with a smile, holding the smoothie out for me. "I got you something. It's hot out, so I thought this might be refreshing for you after working all day."

"Oh," I replied, taking the cold smoothie cup out of his hand. "Thank you."

"Daddy, did you get a smoothie for me?" Ella asked.

Edrick sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Princess," he replied. "I forgot. We'll pass the smoothie cart on the way back, so I'll get you one. Okay?"

"She can have mine," I said, holding the cup back out. "I don't really need it."

Suddenly, Edrick's face changed in an unexpected way, and his eyes widened. "No!" he said, almost shouting.

My own eyes went wide. I was taken aback by Edrick's insistence, and stared up at him confusedly. "Well... Why not?" I asked, looking down at the large smoothie cup. "I don't mind sharing. Heck, all three of us could share. It's a big cup."

Edrick went silent for a moment. He kept opening and closing his mouth, as though he was trying to come up with something to say. Seeing him like this made me nervous, and I couldn't help but think back on Edrick's strange obsession with my coffee that morning. I looked back down at the smoothie cup then and started to have an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"I just... don't think that Ella would like that flavor," Edrick said with a smile. "Besides, it's yours. If you can't finish it, that's okay."

With that, Edrick began to walk with Ella on his shoulders. I watched after him for a moment before catching up, but I couldn't stop wondering what his deal was today. But the longer I thought about it, the more I figured that he was just having an off day; maybe he still felt bad about what he had said on Friday night and was trying to make it up to me. And besides, it was incredibly hot out that day, and the smoothie did look cold and refreshing. I decided to take a sip, and found it surprisingly delicious. In fact, I had drunk half of it by the time we stopped at the smoothie cart to get her her own, and I had finished it by the time we got home.

As we took the elevator back up to the penthouse, Edrick noticed my empty cup and almost seemed to relax a little bit.

And within the hour, I was pretty certain that I realized why; something was in that smoothie, because Mina's energy suddenly dropped again.
Had Edrick been putting something in my coffee, and when he noticed that I didn't want my coffee that morning, he put something in that smoothie? But why would he do that? Selina had made a comment about my coffee that morning, too; was she in on it as well?

After dinner, I quickly excused myself to my room to think. I paced for a while before suddenly freezing, my eyes widening.
Olivia.

I had nearly forgotten about my conversation with her. I had come to the conclusion that she was being paid to spread lies about Edrick, but now...

What if she had the same experience as I did?
If Olivia had similar symptoms while she was living with Edrick, then it would be extremely concerning. I needed to know if someone was trying to drug me, and why they would do that; but I couldn't just walk up to Edrick or Selina and ask.

As I thought back on my conversation with Olivia, I remembered that she had given me her business card — and when I quickly rifled through my purse, it was still there.
I held the business card in my shaky hand, wondering if I should call her.