Page 47 of Offside Devil

“You say that, but this coffee isn’t strong enough to make me forget your little nanny in the other room.” He takes a slurping sip anyway. “Keep your tadger out of that one if you don’t want to find yourself in this mess again.”

Mira bolts up, since I guess you don’t need to be familiar with Scottish slang to pick up Owen’s meaning. As she turns to face us, I’m positive I’m about to referee a bare-knuckled, no-holds-barred fist fight between my nanny and my sponsor.

A part of me is looking forward to it.

Owen might get his ass kicked.

But then Mira breezes past the kitchen and down the hallway. Her voice echoes back to us. “Let’s go to the park, Aiden. We need to get out of this house.”

I rest my elbows on the counter. “Ease up on her, O. Mira is helping me out.”

“For a price,” he warns. “She’s getting something out of it.”

“Yeah, money. It’s what most people get out of a job.”

He sits back, hands folded over his stomach. “You’re hot for nanny.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snap a little too loudly.

“Until today, Paige was the only other woman you’ve ever mentioned to me.”

“Weird, since you just stood in my living room and told everyone I’m a fucking manwhore.”

He ignores that, powering ahead. “You’ve never cared about a woman enough to bring her up in our meetings, but you’ve known this woman less than a week and she’s living in your house. After you found out you had a son.”

“If you think it looks like I?—”

“It looks like life dumped a kid in your lap and now, instead of reaching for a bottle to cope, you’re reaching for this woman. It’s addict behavior, Zane.”

“I needed a nanny,” I grit out.

“Making excuses. More addict behavior.”

By this point in our relationship, Owen has tossed enough quotes from the NA handbook at me that I could recite the damn thing by memory. I’m used to him calling me on my shit. It’s why he’s my sponsor.

But this is grating on my fucking nerves.

“Someone has to be here with Aiden while I’m at work.”

“Someone,” he agrees. “Not her. She’s here for the money, and if you can’t see it, then?—”

“I see just fine,” I snarl, shoving myself up tall and crowding into his space. “What I see is that Mira isn’t on your payroll. So you don’t get to come in here and say shit that hurts her feelings.”

Owen snorts. “You care about her feelings now?”

“I care about Aiden being taken care of by someone he trusts. Aiden likes Mira, which means I like Mira. There’s nothing else going on.”

Of course, Mira picks this exact moment to clear her throat behind me.

I spin around and try to read her face. Fuck. How much of that did she hear?

She has on a pair of white Chucks and her sunglasses are hanging from the deep V of her tank top. “We’re going to walk to the park if you want to come.”

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind. I’ve been inside all day, Owen is pissing me off, and it would be nice to see more of Aiden being a kid.

But Owen’s accusations are still hanging in the air and every time Mira and I are alone together, this line we’ve drawn in the sand gets fuzzy.

She’s my nanny. Nothing else.

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