CEO's Secret Baby: A Single Dad & Nanny Romance Page 11

  “I wish I could believe it was that simple and crappy,” I sighed and toyed with the salt on the rim of my drink.

  “You’ve really got it bad. This isn’t just a crush is it?”

  I shrugged.

  “You guys were together. You were dating or hooking up or something. Because you look like shit.”

  “You should be a detective, Nicki,” I said.

  “I know. But no one would pay me what I’m worth.

  He dumped you?”

  “He ghosted me,” I said miserably.

  “In the same house where you’re working? That’s cold.”

  “I even called him and tried to talk about it, find out what the problem was but he totally shut me out.”

  “Did you think he wanted to talk about his feelings?” Nicki said with a snort, “If he’s so done with you he’s turning down sex, then it’s over. Talking? Eh, men don’t even like talking when everything’s going well.”

  “Talking with him was practically the best part. He really listened to me, and he cared what I thought and laughed at my jokes…”

  “Are you sure he wasn’t just trying to get in your pants? You’re not sixteen. You should know this already. Drink up,” Nicki said.

  I took a sip, shook my head. I dug into the chips and salsa, “What I’m most afraid of is that if I lose them, will I even care if I save for a restaurant or show up for my shift at the diner? I think I wanted a life with them so much that losing that will ruin everything. So I’m just clinging to the idea that it could all work out with him. Because if I don’t have that, it feels like I don’t have anything.”

  “That’s not true. You’re the strongest person I know. You’ve got me and Tara and you’ve got your job at the diner, you’ve got money saved up, and you’ve got plans for this restaurant. I’ve seen your menus and your Pinterest boards. You’re serious about it, and you’ve got a good plan. You’re going to do this. I’ve never met anybody so sure about what they want. Don’t let him take that from you.”

  “He wouldn’t be taking it. I’d be setting it on fire because he broke my heart.”

  “You never should’ve gave it to him,” Nicki said.

  “I know.”

  I leaned my head on my hand miserably, “So what do I do?”

  “Exactly what you did before. Keep your eye on the ball. Work toward that restaurant. Take a catering job. Teach a cooking class at the community center. Do something that uses your talent.”

  “That’s a great idea, Nick. Thank you,” I said. My mind was working, and I texted Red before we even left. He said I could use the kitchen after closing the following night.

  I made three huge batches of soup. One was the chicken noodle I’d made for William and David. One was a hearty beef and barley, and the other was a spicy corn soup. When they were ready, I packaged them in the disposable containers Red had said I could use for the project. I taped a spoon to the top of each one, then boxed them up and took them down to the soup kitchen nearest to my apartment with a list of ingredients, proof that they were prepared in an approved commercial kitchen, and proof of my food sanitation certification. They took the soup gladly and thanked me. And I felt a million times better. I’d spent some of the money I’d saved, but it was better for my soul than buying a new cute coat or boots for the same price.

  I spent the next few days planning a schedule to volunteer at the soup kitchen, to serve on weekends, to help sort donations to the food pantry. It gave me a focus outside of William and David. I still worked as David’s nanny and loved spending time with him, but the days of coming over after my diner shifts or spending weekend afternoons with them were gone. I told David that I was helping out at a soup kitchen to help poor people and that was going to take some of my free time. I assured him that I loved him and wanted to play with him while I was there, but that I was going to be pretty busy for the next few weeks. I promised to attend his Thanksgiving play at school.

  I still thought of William all the time. Every day, every night before I went to sleep. I wanted him to see me, to notice me and want me back, but I had my dignity, and I wasn’t going to chase him. I wasn’t going to try to start another conversation that ended in rejection like the last one had.

  The weather grew colder and the time was right to take David ice skating. We had practiced at home. We had watched YouTube tutorials. I even got William’s permission via text to take him to the rink. I got his mittens on him, thick socks, his hat, and we went over the basics again. We practiced our stances, planned to have hot cocoa after our triumphant trip around the rink on our skates. We got out at the skating rink and rented some skates. I helped him get to his feet, wobbly and unsure, after I laced him up.

  He gripped my hands so tightly my fingers hurt.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, “You’re gonna be fine. We talked about this, remember?”

  “I can’t,” he said, “I can’t, I can’t!” Tears welled in his eyes. He shook his head. I pulled him into my lap, trying to soothe him and ease his fear of the new activity.

  “I’ll help you. We’ll do this together,” I said. “Don’t worry. You won’t get hurt.”

  “I’m scared. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to. Please, Jess! Don’t make me!”

  ‘I’m not gonna make you, baby,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s okay. When you’re ready, you’ll do it.” I shrugged.

  I was a little frustrated, but I wasn’t about to drag a crying child onto the ice to make some kind of point about being in charge. He needed to know he could trust me before he could trust himself. So I unlaced his skates and we returned them to the counter.

  “Is something wrong?” the attendant asked.

  “No, we’ve just changed our minds,” I said lightly and took David’s hand.

  We went to Starbucks and had hot cocoa with whipped cream on top. David finally seemed to relax.

  “You’re not mad?”

  “Nope. Are you?”

  “A little. I wanted to do it, but it was loud and fast and I was scared.”

  “It’s cool. There was a big crowd. Maybe we’ll start out slow. Do a little skating on the pond sometime when you feel like it.”

  ‘I want to! I want to do those big spins like on TV!”

  “Easy, buddy. I don’t know how to do the big spins. And it’s a lot of regular skating before you can learn the big spins. Do you want me to see how your dad feels about lessons?”

  “At the big place? No.” He shook his head again, very certain.

  “Okay, then. Let’s go hit the books.”

  “All I have to do is read the little book about the nut again. We’ve been reading about that nut for daaaays.”

  “Kiddo, not everyone can read as well as you. They have to make it work for everybody. So sometimes it may seem slow to you. Tell me about this nut,” I said.

  “Do you think I can skate? Sometime?”

  “Sure I do. It takes practice, and you’ll be braver next time. It’s okay.”

  “Thanks, Jess,” he said, taking my hand with his sticky mitten.

  10

  William

  When I got home, a hot pizza in my hands, I heard David and Jessica in the next room. I set the pie down in the kitchen and went to see what they were up to. I could hear them playing some kind of rhyming game, the matching one with the cards lined up on the floor. I peeked in the door in time to hear David talking.

  “No, Jess! That’s not fair!”

  “It is fair. It was my turn, and I got a matching pair. That’s how you play the game. Now it’s your turn,” she said patiently.

  “That’s stupid. I don’t want to do this anymore if you’re going to be mean!” he said.

  I stepped into the room, “Hold up there, kiddo,” I said, picking him up as he was about to kick the cards. I held him on my hip, “Now you listen to me. That is no way to speak to Jessica. She is here to take care of you, and she deserves respect.” I glanced at her and she was giving me a look,
one eyebrow raised ironically. I felt it, just as she meant for me to feel it—that I hadn’t given her the kind of respect I was lecturing my son about.

  “David, I’m not always as respectful as I could be when I speak to others. I’m working on doing better at that. And you need to work on being polite and respectful as well. When you feel mad it’s hard, I know. But you don’t get to act like that. I love you too much to let you be mean and unfair to others.”

  I set him down. He crossed his arms, pouting and obviously unmoved by my speech.

  “You can’t tell me to go to my room. We’re already here,” he said.

  “Hey, sassafras,” Jessica said, “you might want to take that down a notch. People who act like that have a hard time keeping friends. Would you want to hang out with somebody who talked like that to you?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “Well, I love you no matter what you do. But I’d be prouder of your choices if you were kinder when you talk.”

  She kissed the top of his grouchy head, “I’m going to take off,” she said.

  I told him to pick up the mess and followed her out to the hall.

  “The cook went to visit our former nanny today. I gave her the day off. So I brought pizza. If you’d like to stay.”

  “No thanks. I just wanted to tell you we went to the skating rink but he freaked out and we left without getting on the ice. The crowd bothered him. So we’ll try next time at the pond where it’s quieter, but he’s been wound up ever since then. Just a heads up for you.”

  She put her bag on her shoulder and waited for me to say something. I couldn’t say what I wanted to. I couldn’t say, ’I’m sorry, I made a mistake, please stay.’ I couldn’t very well reach for her and ask her to take me back when nothing had changed. I wasn’t capable of loving her the way she deserved, not when it was a danger to me, to my son’s well-being if I went into another depression like that, if I bottomed out again. As it was, I’d poured out the entire bottle of vodka from my drawer. I’d instructed Mrs. Henderson to get rid of all the alcohol except what the cook needed for meal preparation. What I already felt for Jessica, how it already hurt to be parted from her, was all I needed to know. It was far too hazardous to be with her when my feelings ran so deeply that I was on the edge. I thought of her when I should have thought of work or when I should have been sleeping. I would lie awake or go stand outside in the cold looking up at icy stars and trying to cool the memories of our time together. But there was nothing that could distract me from the silk of her hair threading between my fingers as she lay on the couch, her head in my lap, or the kiss of her lips on my shoulder as she leaned against my bare back the night we spent in my bed. The night I made her leave and go home. I regretted all of it, but there was nothing I could say to explain any more than I had, to offer anything to her.

  If I could have one thing only, I would have taken her hands in mine and held them. Somehow that would have communicated everything I couldn’t say. The longing and the fear and the bitter loneliness, that was what I had left. Protecting my son and our way of life, his sense of security is greater to me than my own wishes, I wanted to say to her. But if I could have my way, I would have you.

  “I’ve been volunteering at the soup kitchen near my apartment,” she said, breaking the silence. “David wanted to know if he could go with me sometime.”

  “Yes, certainly. That would be an excellent experience for him. Do you mind if I join the two of you?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t, William. Since you asked,” she sighed, raising her eyes to mine. “I didn’t invite you on purpose. Even though the soup is good—I made it. I think we both know we belong in different worlds. And that any type of friendship between us is just painful.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Would you take it back? Do anything differently?” she challenged. I shook my head. She took a deep breath and let it out, showing me there was nothing left to say.

  “Thank you. For all you do with David, for being so devoted to him. In spite of how I treated you.”

  “Jesus. You really are an emotionally challenged asshole,” she said, her voice low with fury.

  I stepped toward her, but she didn’t flinch. “Maybe I am,” I admitted to her.

  She looked up at me and a brief moment of softening crossed her face before her angry mask slid back into place. “Yeah, you really are.”

  She turned to leave but I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t let her think any of this was her fault

  “Jess, wait,” I said, taking her by the arms.

  It felt like the heat from her skin scalded my palms even through her sweater. I saw her breathing hard, the rise and fall of her breasts. I stepped toward her, still holding her arms. She stepped in closer to me, her breasts against the wall of my chest. My whole body went hot. I rolled my lips under my teeth, trying to master myself, trying for some kind of self-control. My senses were firing on all cylinders and my mouth wanted to taste her neck. I wanted to fall to my knees and kiss her between her legs, feel her go tense and then limp under my hands.

  She tipped her face up toward mine, then stood on tiptoe, leaned in to whisper to me. Her breath on my skin sent a tremor through my body, a live wire sparking down my spine just from the heat of her mouth near my ear.

  “I’ll wait,” she whispered.

  Then she stepped back. Her words had shaken me, had sent me right back to that night when I ringed her wrists with my fingers, pressed them into the mattress and then took her while I held her down. I remembered her hips rising to meet my thrusts, her wild cries as I drove her higher. I shut my eyes for an instant. I let go of her arms. My chest was heaving, my breath sawing in and out like I had run six miles. I was so aroused by her nearness and her words that my body felt taut, edgy.

  “It isn’t smart to tease a man who knows how to make you beg,” I told her, my voice low.

  “Then do it,” she challenged, “prove to me that you’re not made of stone.”

  The temptation to push her back into the wall and kiss her, to shove my tongue in her mouth and show her that I could reduce her to molten desire was so powerful that I nearly staggered back from the force of it. I could almost feel her palms on my chest, her fingers digging in to steady herself as passion made her sway on her feet. It would be so easy to go back to that. So impossible to survive it if I had gotten in any deeper to a situation I’d learned was unhealthy for me. My son deserved a father who had his priorities straight and his mind clear from obsession, who wasn’t paralyzed by grief, clutching a bottle in his bedroom when he should have been playing with his kid. I had to be better this time, a stronger man, a better father.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica,” I said, “I mean that. I made my choice. You deserve better than how I treated you. You deserve a man who is willing to risk everything to be with you. I’m too—”

  “Scared? Gun-shy? What’s the word you’re looking for?”

  “I’m too set in my ways. Perhaps it’s the age difference.”

  “Perhaps that’s bullshit and you’re scared that you’ll fall apart like you did when Heather left you. That won’t happen, William. You have me. David has me. I’m not her and I wouldn’t leave when things got tough.”

  I wanted to storm off, punch the wall or shout. Because I felt like she was carving my chest open. She was promising me everything I could ever want. It would be so seductively easy to believe her, to wind up down that nightmare road again because I was too weak to resist. I shook my head, held my hands up as if to ward her off.

  “It isn’t that you don’t trust me,” she said, realization dawning, “you don’t trust yourself.”

  She told David good night and left me standing in the hall, shaken by the strength of my desire for her, by how much I missed her. I went to David’s room and spoke to him about his behavior, helped him put away his toys for the evening. We ate the pizza, barely talking at all.

  “I wish Jess was still here,”
he said. I didn’t reply, although I wished the same thing.

  When he was in bed, I went over some spreadsheets for work, looked over my notes for the next board meeting and finished a report. I also stared at a picture of Jessica on my phone. I had snapped it when we were at the museum. We weren’t even together then, but I had taken the picture of her pointing out something to David. It captured her energy, her warmth. Everything I missed about her. Even letting go of her arms had required me to summon strength I wasn’t sure I had. When she had whispered to me, when she had said those words, so sincere, it had nearly leveled me. I had nearly gone to my knees.

  I was going to have to find a new nanny for my own sanity. I was determined to resist her, to ignore the connection between us. That would be so much easier if I didn’t see her practically every day. I had rationalized keeping that photo on my phone because it was a picture of my son. I shut my eyes briefly and deleted it. I had to stop holding on.

  I had wanted to defend her when I heard David talk back to her. I had felt a surge of protectiveness. As if Jessica were mine. I had to let that go. I had to give up the idea that she belonged here with us, that having her on the couch beside me at night, her head fitting just right in the crook of my neck was not paradise, but the road to a hell I might not escape a second time. That meant letting her go. Not keeping her close when there were probably plenty of qualified nannies available by now. Nannies who could take excellent care of David without distracting me to the point of madness.

  11

  Jessica

  Of all the stupid, high school things to do.

  First I had a massive crush on a customer. Then I took a job working for him. We slept together, had a secret affair. He dumped me. He had never been serious about me. I carried on having feelings for him, being a sad, heartbroken hot mess.