“Have fun,” I chide. If he can’t see that I am being fake, then he really doesn’t know me at all. “I suppose picking up girls in the park is all in a day’s work for a popular, wealthy bachelor such as yourself.”
I glance over to look at Teddie, who has headphones on and is laughing at some show streaming on the kids’ channel, just to make sure he can’t hear what we are saying before I continue.
“She probably just wants your money and your cock,” I say. The remark is a bit crude, but I don’t care. I think that I am secretly trying to get him to rethink this date altogether. But instead of feeling mad or bad or even put-off by my remark, he simply laughs and acts like he doesn’t care.
“She’ll be lucky to get either,” he says as he tosses his keys up into the air with one hand and catches them before walking out the door.
When I hear his car start, I have to fight back the sudden urge to run out and lay myself down in front of it.
What did he mean when he said, “she’ll be lucky to get either”?Is he honestly even thinking about sleeping with that woman on the first date?
Teddie sets his tablet down and stretches his mouth into a big yawn. It’s bedtime.
I try to stay focused on putting him to bed, doing the whole bedtime routine, and then tucking him in for the night. But after he’s asleep, there is no one to keep my mind away from obsessing over Hunter. I need to distract myself so that I don’t sit here dwelling and thinking about what he and Kate could be doing on their date. But I can’t seem to pull away from the thick sexual angst that has been clinging to my skin ever since I saw him getting dressed.
I try reading a book. Literature is my thing after all—it’s my passion, and when I was traveling around Europe, I could literally spend an entire day and night with my nose stuck between the pages of a book from cover to cover. But tonight, I can’t focus enough to save my life, let alone read a book.
I pace the entire mansion like a caged animal, waiting for Hunter to get home from his date and feeling as if every minute ticking on the clock is another minute that he could be putting his hands on Kate. She could be kissing him right now, orworse.
I scold myself for even caring. Iamthe nanny, not the girlfriend. My job is to live in this house, take care of the kid, andnotget involved in Hunter’s romantic life. I tell myself that over and over again, but the mantra isn’t working this time. The more I remind myself that I’m “just the nanny”, the more I start to feel like I don’t want to be. I am starting to sink into having dangerous thoughts about wanting to be somethingmore.
Just as I am on the verge of driving myself mad with my own thoughts, I hear his car door close and practically run into my bedroom.
Shit, I forgot to close the door again.
I don’t have time to get up, so I just jump into the bed and pull the covers up so that I can pretend to be asleep.
Pleasedon’t let him have brought that woman home with him. I don’t know what I will do if I hear her voice inside this house. But the only thing that I hear are Hunter’s footsteps as they come to a slow stop just outside my doorway. For what seems like painfully long minutes, he stands there. I can feel his eyes on me even though my eyelids are pressed tightly closed. I am filled with a nervous energy that threatens to involuntarily pop my eyes open, and it takes everything I have to keep them closed and slow my breathing so that it looks like I am connivingly asleep. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking that I was waiting up for him.
I listen as he walks away and then I hear the familiar sound of him pouring himself a drink before walking into the living room. He didn’t even go into his room to change out of his clothes, which means that he is probably sitting in front of the fireplace with a scotch in hand, in those jeans that make me feel the need to press my thighs together.
For a while, I lay in bed and listen.
The only sounds I hear are the crackle of the fire and the clink of the single cube of ice in his glass. I wonder how his date went. No—scratch that, I don’t want to know.
It’s torture as I lay in bed envisioning him sitting out there alone by the fire. This is a hornet’s nest that I shouldn’t poke. Teddie is sound asleep, I’m in my bed, and Hunter came home alone from his date before it got too late. Things are okay as they are,stableand innocuous. And the smart thing to do would be to close my eyes and go to sleep.
But I can’t.
I climb out of bed, tugging my oversized T-shirt that I sleep in down to cover the top of my thighs, and slip out into the hallway. Noiselessly, I slink down the corridor to spy on him. I won’t stay long, just a peek to see if I can tell by his posture whether he had a good time on his date or not. I shouldn’t even care, but I do.
I stand in the hallway with my face peering around the doorway and looking into the living room where I see Hunter sitting on the couch with his shirt casually unbuttoned as he sips his scotch. He stares at the flames, and I watch the shadows dance over him with their flickering light. For a moment, I am mesmerized.
I feel like I could stand there all night just looking at him, transfixed, but I know I shouldn’t. Before I can summon my legs to move and walk away, he sees me there.
Without a word, Hunter stands up and walks over to me, and I brace myself for a scolding on sneaking around the house. But instead, he simply stands in front of me and holds my gaze. His hair is mussed, his shirt half-open, and the glass of scotch that he left on the end table is still half full. There’s something in his eyes—something dark and desperate, but I can’t make out what it means.
Finally, he says something.
“I couldn’t do it,” he says quietly, his lips curling around his words.
I don’t know what he’s talking about. I want to ask him, but I am too transfixed in how he looks at this moment, as if he is the most temptingly sinful thing I could ever imagine, all wrapped up in a gorgeous package divinely created to torment me into submission. This is the man thatbrokeme. I can’t have these feelings about him anymore.
“I couldn’t sleep with her tonight, or even kiss her,” he says as if something is absolutely tormenting him beneath the surface. “Kate was practicallybeggingfor me to go home and have sex with her, but I couldn’t do it.”
I feel my pulse quicken as I watch his chest heave with labored, ragged breaths.
“I couldn’t touch that woman at all, Tabitha, because all I could think about wasyou. All that I want isyou.”