Chapter One

When we get home from the store, Chrissy is on her knees in the living room and she has Tyler North’s dick in her mouth. She’s moaning like a complete whore, and I suppose that’s why she doesn’t realize her nanny and her husband have just arrived. Although I desperately want to see what happens, I say (loudly so the cheating bitch hears me over her moans), “I’m just going to go straight to the new place.”

She hears me.

She sees her husband and me.

And though I really, really, really want to see her get her comeuppance, I say to Brand, “Promise me you won’t kill anyone and please remember to bring the toaster when you go to the new place.” The toaster oven is the only reason we stepped inside.

And then I leave.

Brand is the best boss possible, and I can’t believe anybody would cheat on him. Of course, I’ve never liked Chrissy at all. I can understand a career woman hiring a nanny but she’s not. She doesn’t have any job at all. She just doesn’t want to do the work of raising her daughter. If they were really wealthy, I guess I would understand that but they’re just middle class.

I go home (the new home) and I put away the groceries. Kendra won’t be home for hours, and so I have plenty of time to get all the groceries away, get a snack of cut fruit and veggies ready and in the refrigerator for when she gets home, and make sure her bedroom is completely ready to go. I’ve been Kendra’s nanny for years now. I started way back in junior high as her babysitter and it just stuck. When I graduated high school at seventeen, I moved in with the family while I went to college.

And I’ve been in love with Brand from the moment I saw him.

But I’ve never one time let him know or in any way been inappropriate.

I want him so dang badly and she cheated on him!

He gets home and I stand up from where I sit in the living room. I can see the hurt in his eyes but I see a whole heck of a lot more relief than hurt. I see something else, too. I see possibility.

We can finally do it.

Don’t get me wrong. We’ve never actively discussed the possibility. We’ve never once done anything inappropriate regardless of how we might feel. We’ve never even discussed how we might feel. Nonetheless, the tension between us is obvious and now, there’s a completely guilt free opportunity for us to do something about it.

We’re just staring at each other.

I put my book down and walk toward him. I walk until I’m right in front of him. He says almost absently, “I’m going to give her the old house instead of selling it. Chrissy won’t be coming to the new house.”

Again, there’s awkward silence and neither of us breaks eye contact. Finally, I say, “Kendra won’t be home for three more hours.”

And that causes the break. We stare for a second and I don’t know which of us moves first but soon, our mouths are together and we kiss each other passionately. The kiss is everything I dreamed it would be. It’s like my entire life to this point is designed just for this. I can say that my first real kiss with a boy happened because I pretended the boy was Brand. The blowjobs I gave to my two boyfriends in high school were motivated by pretending I was with Brand, too.

I lost my virginity as a college freshman and, yes, I imagined I was with Brand. By the time I was a sophomore, though, my sex life ended because it wasn’t good enough to pretend. I graduate with my degree in a few weeks and then I’m getting my master’s degree. I always assume I won’t have a relationship until after I get my master’s when I’ll finally stop being a nanny. By then, Kendra will be twelve and won’t really need me. And I won’t live with Brand so I won’t receive daily reinforcement on my impossible crush.

Except it’s not impossible and our clothes come off. We end up on the couch and it’s an explosive, very athletic and rapid episode of passion now unrestrained after years of restraint. I want to believe that he’s wanted me for the last four or five years but I know Brand well enough that he didn’t even consider such a thing prior to my eighteenth birthday so it’s probably only three years. I like to think that he’s wanted me forever, though, even if it’s a stupid thing to think.

The sex is beyond good.

I have an orgasm, and this is the first time it ever happens during sex unless you want to count the two times I masturbated while giving a blowjob and then came. It’s powerful and made even more powerful by the whole emotional side of things for me. After we make love there on the couch, we shower together and that’s beautiful and intimate with a lot of kissing.

We dry off and then get dressed. We don’t talk about it, and I get a bit worried that things will be awkward now. I don’t have any real expectations that he and I are going to be an item or anything but I don’t want things to be awkward.

Except that night after I get Kendra to sleep, he pours me a glass of wine and invites me to sit in the backyard with him. The view is extraordinary. There are no houses in sight because of where this one is positioned. We have a perfect view of the valley and the mountains beyond. He asks me if he just took advantage of me and I tell him I’ve wanted him since I was a child. He tells me he’s wanted me for some time but, of course, couldn’t ever act on it. The conversation ends with agreement that we’re going to hide the relationship from Kendra for a while because she’s already going to be really confused about things with the divorce.

The relationship.

Frankly, the fact that it’s called the relationship makes me happy enough to do whatever the hell he wants me to do in regard to Kendra. I sleep in his bed that night but get up early to get to my room. I sleep in his room almost every night for the next four weeks. In that time, we make love constantly, I get my bachelor’s degree, and he takes me on dates during the day when he comes home for lunch and then we go out. He doesn’t hide our relationship when we’re out. I find that wonderful.

But then, on a Tuesday evening, he comes home and I can tell that something is wrong.

He’s getting back together with Chrissy. He feels like he has to give it a shot for Kendra’s sake. He tells me Chrissy doesn’t know at all about their relationship so I can still stay on as the nanny, no problem.

But I can’t.

We make love that night for the last time and I leave. I check into a hotel for a week but then get a little one-bedroom apartment across from the college. I can’t even blame him for my heartache as much as I want to. Chrissy doesn’t deserve him but Kendra deserves an intact family.