“I’m serious, Stephanie.”
“You want an answer to your question? What kind of woman am I?” She smirked. “I’m not the kind of woman who you would be interested in. I can at least say that with certainty.”
I furrowed my brow. “What makes you so sure?”
“You said yourself. You ‘spend time’ with beautiful women.”
“And?”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. I understand what she was insinuating. She didn’t think of herself as a beautiful woman. I was shocked. Legitimately shocked. Stephanie was the most attractive woman I had ever seen in my life, and now she was telling me she didn’t even think I would take her out to dinner? I would have beenhonoredto walk into a restaurant with her on my arm.
I balked. “Stephanie—”
“It’s getting late,” she said. She tried to walk away from me, but I caught her arm. I held her, gently, and waited until she looked me in the eye. “What?” she asked, finally letting our eyes meet.
“Stephanie, before I let you go, there’s just something I have to say. There’s something you have to hear. You are stunning.”
She tucked her chin so I reached out with my other hand and cupped the side of her face.
“I’m serious,” I said. “The first time I saw you, I was speechless.”
“No you weren’t,” she said. “I remember, you—-”
“Earlier this week wasn’t the first time I saw you,” I said. I slid my thumb across her soft cheek and stared at her pink lips. “I saw you in Hawaii. In the café one morning, I saw you sitting by yourself.”
“But you said—”
“I know. I lied. I did see you in Hawaii and more importantly, after I saw you, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Day and night I thought of you. Then, last week you showed up here, and I have been in agony ever since.”
“Agony?”
“Because the woman who had been running through my dreams every night was now here, in person, but I couldn’t tell her how much I wanted her because she was my son’s nanny. And that would be inappropriate.”
“You’re right,” she said. “That would be inappropriate.”
But she didn't move out of my reach. She stood perfectly still, blinking up at me and parting her lips ever so slightly.
“You know what else?” I said. “It would be inappropriate to stay up late in the kitchen whispering, and it would be inappropriate for me to touch her. It would be inappropriate for me to slide my hand down her back and to pull her close.”
She let her body press up against mine and sighed softly.
She wanted me too. I was 100% certain now.
“You know what would bereallyinappropriate?” she asked.
“What?”
“If you kissed her. The nanny, I mean.”
I smiled with one side of my mouth, then pressed my lips against hers.
ChapterNine
STEPHANIE
My mind, which had been racing just a moment before, quieted down the moment Matt kissed me.
It was as if everything else in the world dropped away, and the only two things that existed were him and me.