She sweeps the files off my desk. The papers don’t stay together in their respective folders, instead flying haphazardly everywhere.
I groan and scramble to clean up the mess. I’m not even sure what was in the file folders and how difficult they will be to reorganize. Nancy is going to kill me tomorrow when I hand them back completely out of order with the wrong items in the wrong folders.
And if I tell her why, I’ll never hear the end of it.
I’m bent down, grabbing the contents and trying to clean up what I can, keeping the pages that are still half-sorted and sticking out of their folders back in the correct order.
Clare squats down to help. “Sorry, I guess I got a little carried away.” Her voice trails off as she grabs a sheet that’s abandoned from its file. “You’re still looking for a replacement nanny?”
“I was keeping my options open in case you decided to quit. But I don’t want a replacement nanny for Amelia. I want you.”
“For Amelia,” she says.
“Well, I don’t want you to be my nanny.” I grin and pull her to her feet, forgetting the files for a moment. “I really like you, Clare, or as Amelia likes to call you, Clare Bear.”
“You’re going to call me that, too?” Her nose scrunches in the most adorable way, and her cheeks redden.
How could I not? My daughter has been raving about Clare Bear and how she’s the best nanny and her favorite person in the whole world. Of course, minus her mother, whom she misses. Sometimes, I think Amelia even prefers Clare over me. But she does spend more time with her nanny than me.
I wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her in for a hug. “I promise, my interest in hiring another nanny is non-existent. But you did tell me that you were tendering your resignation on the flight home.”
“And you didn’t accept.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t walk out the front door.”
“Do you honestly think I would do that?” she asks, staring up at me.
I cup her cheek, my thumb stroking her jaw. “I hope not, but we’re still learning a lot about each other.” We’ve only been together a few weeks. It’s all still new.
“True.”
“Which reminds me, I haven’t paid you for your services as a nanny.”
She pulls back out of my reach. “What? I have a wonderful house to live in and plenty of food. I don’t need anything else.”
“Well, if I hired any of those floor nannies,” I say, gesturing toward the marble flooring and the dozens of scattered pages covering our feet, “I’d have to pay them a stipend. And seeing as how I’m about to make a generous offer to your shit-faced ex-husband, the least I can do is pay you adequately.”
Her eyes widen and her mouth shuts. She rolls her lips together. “I don’t know what to say.”
“How is two hundred thousand a year?” I ask, “And that’s just for you. Any funds that you spend on Amelia will be reimbursed.”
“It’s too much,” Clare says. “I don’t—you shouldn’t be paying me.” She slips out of my grasp, folding her arms defensively across her chest. Her brow is tight, pinched. She looks troubled.
Did I say or do something wrong?
“Why not?” I ask.
“We’re sleeping together, Levi. It feels dirty, like I’m a prostitute.”
I step closer, grabbing her hand, and pulling her to me. “We’ll stop sleeping together if that will resolve this issue.”
“You know it won’t,” she says, and glances down at our entwined hands. “Twice, we’ve fallen into bed together. It seems rather inevitable.” There’s a faint smile on her face like she doesn’t want to give that part up, and apparently, she’d rather return the money than the two of us end what we’re exploring.
“I promise, if I wasn’t sleeping with you and hired another nanny, I’d still be paying them as much to keep them. Hiring decent help costs money.”
“You’re overpaying me,” Clare says.
“Would you rather I pay you half?” I can’t believe she’s arguing and trying to talk me out of giving her a more than fair salary. It has nothing to do with the two of us sleeping together.