Whatever the person on the other end of the phone said, it made Camilla shake her head vehemently despite the fact that no one could see her.
Well, she thought no one could see her.
Brock stood motionless, his breath caught in his throat and his hands tightening into clenched fists at his sides. Surely, she couldn’t be talking about him. Or them, as he would articulate it, as there had definitely been a union between them last night between his bedsheets. It wasn’t about him, or her. It was about them.
“It’s okay,” Camilla continued, trying to reassure whomever she was having the conversation with. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
At that moment, Brock could have used a little reassurance of his own. But he had heard everything he needed to hear. He knew everything he needed to know.
This, him and her, was a temporary thing. She didn’t plan on staying on as Rynn’s caregiver, and she certainly didn’t plan on allowing Brock to be anything more to her than a casual fuck.
He suddenly felt like a complete idiot for having believed it was more than casual.
You knew better, he reminded himself. And yet, you let her get to you.
That was the part that irked him most. He didn’t let her do anything. There had been no conscious thought or decision to take things to the next level with Camilla. It had happened effortlessly. Naturally.
That was why Brock had felt that maybe she was the one.
And she was. The one that was going to screw him over, that is. The woman was just playing games, using Rynn as a paycheck and using him as a way to let off some pent-up steam. Funny, suddenly the only visions running through his head were the ones showing what it would be like to punch his hand through the wall to alleviate some of his frustration and hurt.
Camilla ended the call and was just tucking the phone back into her pocket when she turned around to see him standing there. Her face brightened into a wide smile. “Hey, you. I didn’t hear you come in.” She closed the gap between them. “How are things?”
He couldn’t bring himself not to notice the way she wet her bottom lip with her tongue, or the way her eyes danced with the innuendo of what the evening would bring.
Could have brought.
“Clearer,” Brock replied, defeated. “Much clearer.”
Chapter Seven
Camilla
She wasn’t sure what happened.
Waking up to Brock, with decadent recollections of the night before still running rampant through her mind, was heavenly. In the early morning light, he had held her close, her head resting comfortably on his chest as he spoke softly about the classes he had to teach that day and the staff meeting that was occurring in between those classes. She promised a dinner would be ready for him by the time he got home—and she planned to outdo herself, wanting to impress him with her cooking skills—and relished in the crooked smile that notion managed to bring to his face.
They sounded comfortable with each other. Like they were something more than just the nanny and the professor, or the single daddy and the hired help.
She wanted to be more. Hell, last night there was no way she could have thought they were anything less than more.
Because of that, she had gone over and above her duties of being only a nanny to Rynn and she’d made it her mission for the day to look after Brock, too, making sure he had a decent home-cooked meal to come home to at the end of a long work day. Rynn had even helped to scoop the carrots and celery into the pot, and they had made a fun game out of kneading biscuit dough and cutting it into shapes.
It warmed her heart to see the little girl so excited to help her, so much so that even Camilla had fun putting that much work and effort into such a complex dinner menu. Usually, she reserved her fancy dinner ideas for holidays and special occasions.
Today, she figured that making dinner for someone who managed to capture her heart was a special occasion.
She had the roast in the oven and had pulled the plates and cutlery from the cupboards and drawers, intent on setting the table up elaborately to give it that special occasion kind of feel, when her cellphone rang in her pocket. Rynn had gotten bored with the mundane chopping and cutting that she wasn’t allowed to help with, so she’d meandered back into the living room to watch 101 Dalmatians for the gazillionth time and play with her dolls and plastic castle.
Upon answering the phone, Camilla immediately wished she hadn’t. She wasn’t in the frame of mind to handle her best friend’s theatrics went it came to her upcoming wedding, but she knew as soon as she saw her name on the caller display that that was exactly what Shannah was going to vent to her—theatrics. Lots and lots of them.
Sure enough, Shannah was convinced for the hundredth time since her engagement that Paul, her fiancé, was intent on ending the engagement. Why else would he be so nonchalant about the color of the ribbons on the bouquets and the shape of the doilies that the centerpieces sat on in the middle of each table at the reception?
It was on the tip of Camilla’s tongue to be blunt and honest—because Paul was a guy. Because men, for the most part, didn’t give a damn about stuff like that. Hell, some women didn’t care about that stuff, either. But Shannah did, and Camilla, as her maid of honor, had to be respectful of that. So, she had done everything in her power to try to talk her friend off a ledge. Shannah, however, was particularly distraught over her and Paul’s most recent argument about these little things, convinced he wasn’t going to forgive her this time.
“It’s temporary, sweetie,” she told her as matter-of-factly as she could. “It won’t last.”
Once she finally got Shannah calmed down enough on that topic, the bride-to-be promptly switched topics, determined to find out something, anything, about the surprise bridal shower that Camilla and the three bridesmaids were putting on for her in a few weeks’ time. That was one thing that Camilla wasn’t going to budge on, though. She’d made it this far to keep the bridal shower details a surprise, and be damned if she was going to spill the beans about it now.