Page 32 of The Nanny Next Door

Miles finally noticed me standing there when Olivia ran in my direction. His face broke into a wide grin that almost looked out of place on his usually-serious face. “Felipe! What a nice surprise!” he called out, his voice filled with genuine excitement. “Want to join our game? Olivia calls it ‘super fun tag’, but it’s basically the regular kind.”

“Nuh-uh,” Olivia contradicted her dad with the kind of attitude only a three-year-old could achieve.

I smiled at the invitation, the warm dynamic between father and daughter. But when I stepped further into the room, I noticed that Lila seemed frozen, a look of nervousness crossing her face. It was subtle, but it was there in the faint wrinkle between her brows, the thin line of her lips as she pressed them together.

“Hey,” Lila said quietly, trying to mask her unease with a smile I couldn’t quite believe. Concern shot through me—for her, but also for me. “I–I didn’t expect to see you here today.”

“I thought I’d surprise you,” I replied, my tone light but my eyes searching hers for answers. “Both of you,” I amended, gesturing toward Miles even as I couldn’t pull my eyes from the woman I’d been seeing even in my dreams lately.

“That’s… so sweet,” Lila said. I watched her throat bob as she swallowed hard, a smile struggling to form on her lips. Her eyes darted to Miles and Olivia, her hand coming up to hold baby Jamie’s little hand without thinking. She finally met my eyes again and asked, “Would it be okay if we talk for a minute? In private?”

I nodded and followed her out of the living room and into one of the guest rooms. Once we were alone—well, besides the baby strapped to Lila’s front—the reality of her behavior started to worry me further. But I wasn't one to run from difficult conversations, so I started us off.

“What is it, mi amor?”

Lila sighed. “Well, it’s—I don’t want it to be a big deal. But I just kind of wanted to clarify some things. Between us, I mean.”

I nodded slowly, and she went on.

“So I know we've only been on one date, and it feels really soon to have this conversation, but recent events” —she shook her head— “I don't know. I just… I think I need us to define this. Or at least define what it could be. What we hope it'll be.”

That wasn't what I expected, but it was a relief compared to what my brain was trying to cook up. My answer came to my lips easily. “I thought I made it clear on the night we spent together. I care for you, Lila, and I want you to be mine, just as I want to be yours.”

She nodded, pleased with this answer but not without some complication. What exactly that complication was, I didn’t know, but there was still a hesitance in her, and even Jamie seemed to pick up on the restlessness as he started to squirm against the carrier. Lila shushed him a little, then took a deep breath and went on.

“Yeah, I… I want that, too. To be your girlfriend, I mean. At least eventually, even though it’s a little soon to… I don’t know. Make it official.” She winced. “It’s just… if we’re going to be together, I figure I should be honest with you about something that happened the other day. Because after our night… well, it feels like something I should tell you even though we didn’t have this conversation before.”

My pulse picked up in my ears. Her words seemed tailor-made just to stress me out, but I tried to remain calm. “Oh? What… what happened?”

“Well… I slept with someone. Other than you, I mean.”

I blinked, unsure that I’d heard her correctly until her eyes, full of guilt and sympathy, met mine. A maelstrom of emotions, none of them pleasant, seemed to fill my head. I felt my mouth drop open, though no words attempted to form for a long time.

“Please, say something,” Lila whispered when the silence became too much. It was strange to have this conversation with her while Jamie was there, watching me from just below Lila’s eyeline.

I was struggling harder than I should even without Jamie’s blue eyes watching me, though. There was chaos inside me, all the different parts of my head and heart struggling to make sense of how Lila had waited so long to experience sex, had given me the honor of being her first, and just days after we’d shared that magical experience, she’d given it away to someone else. I liked to think I had no problems with women expressing their sexuality, and I certainly hadn’t gone into dating Lila with the intention that she would sleep with me and only me, that she’d lack any kind of romantic past. But the idea of someone else getting to feel and taste her sweet body the way I had… it had me going a little insane.

“I… I don’t understand,” I told her at last, the despair in my voice clear. “I thought I was your first.”

“You were,” she said, her tone downright miserable. “I didn’t mean for–for this other guy—” She winced, stopping herself. “I mean, I let it happen. Obviously. But it wasn’t intentional. It just sort of… happened.”

“Who was it?” I demanded. I wasn’t proud of the machismo energy I knew that gave off, but it was hard to think straight right now. Lila hesitated, clearly reluctant to tell me, so I took a guess. “Was it Miles?”

“What?” she balked. “No, of course not. It… it was Aaron Pierce.”

Oh, fuck. The revelation landed like a stone in my stomach. Why did that feel so much worse all of a sudden?

“He’s your boss,” I heard myself say, my tone far more scathing than I’d ever been when speaking with a woman before, my volume steadily rising without my control. “What—why would you do something so stupid?”

“It’s not—he’s…” Lila snapped her lips shut as if deciding against making an attempt to defend herself. I saw her chin start to tremble, her brown eyes welling up with tears. “You and I weren’t—aren’t—really together, Felipe. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Then why would you tell me in the first place?” I exploded.

“Because I like you, and–and I respect you, and I thought you should know,” she said, and now she was actually crying. Even worse, the tension in the air, the harshness of our tones, seemed to scare baby Jamie, whose small face screwed up, turning bright red before he let out a wail. Just like that, all of the anger in me dissipated. I’d never had much of a temper, and my anger, when it did show up, was always quick to defuse. Left in its place was just a sense of disappointment and sadness that I couldn’t quite process.

At the sound of the baby’s cries, Miles burst into the room, eyes searching for the cause of the disturbance.

“Lila, are you alright?” he asked, seeing the tears streaming down her face. “Is Jamie?”

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