After she left, I couldn’t get any work done. I tried to focus on the spreadsheets and quarterly reports, but it was no use. I got up and crossed my office to the window. Staring out at the rolling lawn, I thought of Kelly again.
I didn’t often wonder where she was. She’d left Seanan with me and never returned. I paid her handsomely, but in the back of my mind I always wondered if she would show up asking for more. Of course I could have a detective track her down, but why would I? She was a mistake. The only good thing about her was Seanan.
I could tell my daughter was falling in love with Bre. Her face lit up every time the new nanny came near. She told me stories about what they did during the day, and it all sounded like good, wholesome activities. They went to the park, they walked around our pond. Bre was teaching Seanan a little bit of Spanish for some reason. I didn’t think she would need that language, but I couldn’t argue. At least they weren’t watching television all day like some of the nannies had tried to do.
Damn Bre and her voluptuous curves. It would be so much easier if she weren’t so blooming attractive. Everywhere she went, she took my fantasies with her. I knew she was somewhere in the house, stewing over my rejection.
I hoped it hadn’t been too harsh. It had probably taken her a good deal of courage to bring it up. The fact that she was thinking about me the same way I was thinking about her was almost too much. I wanted to go to her, damn the consequences. I wanted to hold her in my arms and feel her lips against mine.
Not once had I ever been hot for one of Seanan’s nannies before. They were all a bunch of lazy, entitled women for the most part. The ones who had been good at their job just didn’t excite me. But Bre had it all. She was a great playmate for my daughter, and she would be an even better one for me, if I had the courage to claim her.
I heard the door open and shut and went out into the living room. Peering through the glass beside the front door, I saw Bre getting into my town car. When the driver returned, I pumped him for information.
“I dropped her off at a club,” the chauffeur said.
“Which one?” I asked.
“Club Ocean.” He named one of the better clubs in the city.
I turned on my heels, furious with myself. How could I let her go downtown without me? Obviously, she was free to move around the country as she saw fit, and after Seanan went to sleep, Bre’s day off officially started. I didn’t like it, though. I didn’t want to think about her fucking some other man.
I was the one who should be sharing her bed, who should be teaching her everything there was to know about being a woman. I’d seen her first, welcomed her into my house and trusted her with my one and only child.
She had just been in my office earlier that day throwing herself at me. All I had to do was say yes. But I’d stood on convention and denied both of us what we needed. As a result, she had turned her back on me.
I had no doubt that she would go home with some lucky bastard, doing all the things that I wanted to do to her. And I was left alone in my giant mansion, with only the staff for company. It was ridiculous. We were both adults. As long as I didn’t pressure her, if she wanted to come to me, I should have let her.
I resolved to do better next time. All the rules I was worried about breaking seemed meaningless next to my overwhelming desire. Whether or not she spent the night with another man, she was coming home to me. I would be waiting for her when she did.
* * *
Sunday wasBre’s day off, and she didn’t return home right away. Seanan got up at seven and demanded breakfast. I did my best to focus on my child, making her pancakes.
“I like chocolate chips,” she pouted, looking down at the plain discs before her.
“Sorry,” I said, breaking off a piece of one of them. I tasted it and approved. “These are good.”
“Bre makes me chocolate chip pancakes.”
“I know for a fact that Bre asks you to eat fruit,” I said, not falling for her lies.
Seanan folded her arms across her chest and sat for a moment. Finally realizing that she wasn’t going to get everything she wanted, she began to eat. “What are we going to do today, Daddy?”
“We could go for a walk down to the pond,” I suggested.
“Can I take my toy ships?” She got all excited, pushing away from the breakfast table before she had finished.
“Finish your breakfast,” I instructed.
“Bre lets me take my ships,” Seanan said.
“Fine.”
Baby girl climbed back up onto her chair and finished her meal. “Now can we go?”
“Sure.” I helped her pick out an outfit to wear. I didn’t even recognize many of the clothes in her dresser. “Where did you get this?”
“Bre bought it for me,” Seanan said, snatching up the shirt with the cartoon cat on it.