Page 14 of Off Limits (Alpha Billionaire)

I typed in a return message.I’ll be there.

7

DYLAN

“Daddy!” Max yelled as he jumped up from his toys and ran to me.

I scooped him up and stepped into the nursery.

Jessica looked up. Confusion creased her brow. She looked at the light coming in from the window and then back at me. “You’re early.”

I nodded. I had missed at least one week of having dinner with my son, and I didn’t want to keep doing that. Knowing that Jessica was at home taking care of Max had allowed me to focus on projects and spend more time at work. But something changed over the weekend. I don’t exactly know what it was, but I felt the need to be home to see my son. And Jessica.

“I thought I’d come home for dinner, and maybe even be around to do more than just read Max a good night story.”

“Your timing is great. We were finishing up with playtime so we could start cleaning up before dinner.”

“Cleanup time?” I asked. “Don’t you just pick up after him?”

“I’m his nanny, not his maid. And he’s not too young to learn to take on some responsibility of helping to put his toys away.”

“Let me help out,” I said as I set Max down. “I’ll put my stuff away and be right back.”

Jessica didn’t have time to protest. I wasn’t going to let her. I crossed the hall and basically tossed everything onto my bed before returning to the room. She was kneeling on the floor next to Max with a colorful plastic bucket. Max was moving around the room picking up items at random and putting them into the bucket. I grabbed a handful of blocks, and before I could put them into the plastic bucket, Max was shaking his head frantically at me.

“No blue, no blue!” he said over and over again.

I dropped the blocks into the bucket, and Max immediately dropped what he was holding and pushed me.

“Hey, Max,” Jessica started. “No pushing. Your dad doesn’t know how to do this. He’s trying to help.”

“I know how to clean up.”

“Yes, of course you do, but you don’t know the system we have set up. Blocks go in the red bucket, dinosaurs in the blue bucket. Max, why don’t you grab the red bucket for your dad?”

Max got up and ran across the room and dragged the red plastic bin back to me.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you,” I told him. “You’ll have to teach me how to clean up here.”

With a very serious expression, Max showed me the blocks and how to put them into the red bucket. “No throwing,” he said.

Cleaning up in the nursery took all of five minutes, but when it was over, Max looked so very proud of himself. I had to admit, it was a lesson worth teaching him.

“Join us for dinner,” I told Jessica.

She shook her head.

“It wasn’t a question. Come on, you don’t have to hide to eat.” I held out my hand and didn’t budge until she slipped her hand into mine. The touch of her palm to mine sent a surge through my body. It was a simple touch, but it was potent.

She had to have felt it too. As soon as she was on her feet, she dropped my hand and rubbed her hands against her jeans as if trying to get something off them.

“Fine, I’ll have dinner with you.”

Her smile warmed my chest. Her company had me smiling and Max giggling through dinner. It was more than pleasant. It was something that was missing from my life, the simple joy of being around someone I liked.

“I’ll take Max and get him ready for his bath,” she said as we finished eating. “Come on, let’s get you ready for bed.”

I was a bit behind them when I heard Clara call out to Jessica. One moment, Jessica held Max’s hand as they headed down the hall toward my mother’s rooms, and the next, there was a crash of broken glass and Clara was yelling. “Look what you’ve done! Get that child away from me. What do you think you’re doing?”

---