Page 34 of The Nanny Next Door

It could have been insulting, but instead, I felt the warmth of being understood spread through my chest, comforting and unlike anything else. The social parts of being a human had always been a bit of a mystery for me, and knowing that Lila not only picked up on that from the short time we’d known each other, but she also was happy to accommodate me, to work with me to mitigate any confusion… yeah, that was a damn good feeling. No need to shove that into a compartment under lock and key.

“While we’re being so honest,” I spoke up again, “I hope you know that regardless of my physical attraction to you, I would never take advantage of our working relationship. I’m not the most, um, emotionally available, either, and after my wife, I’m really not sure what I?—”

Lila cut me off by coming up on her tiptoes, reaching for the back of my neck, and pulling me down to meet my lips with hers. She was kissing me, and she was the first person to do so since I’d lost my wife.

Even amid the wonderful sensation of her lips on mine, the passion that came naturally to us, I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming wave of guilt on its heels. Guilt that this was unfaithful to the woman I’d married who was long dead, guilt that I was further hurting my best friend who clearly wanted a claim over this girl. Together, it was a painful cocktail. But even that unpleasantness couldn’t override the pure, perfect beauty of kissing Lila Dawson. Her arms came up to lock around my neck, and it was simple to pull her into me by her waist, the soft plushness of her body melding so beautifully with my bony, sharp edges that it almost made me softer. But at the same time, the heat of her mouth, the need I’d been trying to stave off with my hand for weeks now, inevitably rushed up to meet me, too. I deepened the kiss almost by accident, parting her lips so I could taste her tongue with mine, relishing the soft moan she released into my mouth.

“Daddy? I need water!” I heard my daughter call from her bedroom just a few feet away. Lila and I broke apart immediately, and my voice was raspy when I called back, “One sec, honey!”

That small voice was all it took to destroy any possibility of this going further tonight. My head absolutely reeling from this new development, from the heady effect of Lila’s kiss, I turned away from my daughter’s nanny and headed toward the kitchen to fulfill the little girl’s request. For now, that was all I really could do.

23

LILA

It was easy to tell myself I was fine with the distance I’d been feeling from Felipe and Miles in the past few days when I was at Aaron Pierce’s penthouse, fully focused on nannying the two kids in my care. It wasn’t quite as easy to believe it, but I was getting there.

Felipe hadn’t been ignoring me completely, at least, but our texting had majorly slowed down since the confrontation at the Kramer house. He’d told me that he needed a little space, some time to think this through, and I was happy to give him that. Well, not happy, but I certainly understood it. If the tables were turned and Felipe had slept with someone else mere days after he’d seemingly given himself fully to me, I was sure my own feelings would be complicated, too. Still, it was hard not to spiral about the prospect of losing him. Our romance was just getting started, and no part of me was ready to give up on it yet.

Miles, on the other hand, had been working at his lab pretty much nonstop. That wasn’t completely unusual for him, but considering I hadn’t seen him even once since the kiss we’d shared in the hallway outside his daughter’s bedroom, it wasn’t a huge leap for me to assume he was trying to avoid me.

Aaron, at least, wasn’t avoiding me on purpose. He was busy with his work, as always, so I’d hardly seen him either since our very hot office sex, but our dynamic had gone back to normal, the two of us speaking briefly and mainly just to coordinate things with the kids. It was like all those orgasms had never even happened, though my body still reacted to seeing him, the traitor. There was perhaps an extra layer of cordiality to our interactions, even, since Aaron was now aware that I wouldn’t take any disrespect lying down.

I would, however, take the sexy brand of disrespect bent over on his fancy executive desk. Any day of the week.

Tonight, though, I was occupied with purely child-friendly fun. Olivia was enjoying Aaron’s penthouse more than I’d expected her to, since she had less access to her princess castle, and Jamie had been a happy little guy all day. Now, the evening was winding down, and I was getting both of them ready to start their nighttime routines. Olivia and I were picking out a book to read when Aaron’s keys jiggled the doorknob and he came waltzing in like… well, like he owned the place. Because he literally did.

It wasn’t a surprise, really. I’d known he was supposed to be home at some point tonight, since he lived here and all. But it was a little out of the ordinary for him to be home as early as he was. I’d half expected him to sneak inside in the dead of night, when the kids were long asleep and I was struggling to do the same in his guest room.

“Evening,” Aaron’s low voice greeted me when he’d put down his keys and come all the way into the house. Olivia, Jamie, and I were still in the living room for now, since I’d read it was best for the kids’ sleep cycles to keep their sleep space and play space separate.

“Hey,” I said. “Have a nice day?” I asked him in my best attempt at a nonchalant tone.

“Long day,” he answered brusquely. I watched him roll up his sleeves out of the corner of my eye while I was ostensibly shuffling through my stash of picture books with Olivia. “Better now, though. How are these little guys?”

I almost snapped my neck from turning my head to look at him so quickly. He raised an eyebrow at me when I stared at him, but he continued, “Did you have a good day, Olivia?”

When I first met Miles Kramer’s daughter, she’d seemed shy with people who weren’t Mrs. Nguyen. But in the time I’d been nannying her, I’d noticed a big change that I only partially thought was because of me. It was mostly the fact that she was reconnecting with her father. In any case, Olivia looked at Aaron with a quizzical expression and answered, “We played princess and watched Elsa.”

He grinned at her. “Sounds like a good day to me. Were you nice to Nanny Lila?”

“Yeah,” Olivia said, puffing up her little chest. “I love Lila.”

“Aw! I love you, too, nugget,” I said to the little girl. The cuteness of that cracked my heart down the middle and mended it all at once. Unable to resist, I reached over to pull Olivia against me in a tight hug, making her laugh when I peppered kisses over her face, too. Aaron watched this with something soft and fond in his eyes that I’d never seen before, and then he leaned into Jamie’s playpen to pick up his nephew.

“Hi there, little man,” he said softly to the baby. “Did you have a good day, too? You staying up late with the big kids tonight?”

“He took his nap a little later in the afternoon than usual,” I explained, suddenly worried this was some veiled criticism of me. “But we’re getting ready for bed now.”

“No worries,” Aaron said, and before that point, I wouldn’t have thought such a phrase existed in his vocabulary.

I watched, awestruck, as Aaron tickled Jamie’s tummy, eliciting effusive giggles that could have melted anyone’s heart. He seemed to be in such a good mood that his entire personality had changed—no more grumpy, all-business Aaron, or outright-mean Aaron, or domineering but sexy Aaron. Instead, he suddenly showed himself as a caring uncle, a calming presence, and a good man.

Aaron even helped me get the kids in bed, offering to bring Olivia her now-customary glass of water (in a no-spill sippy cup, no less) and snuggling Jamie before he laid him down in his crib. When the two of us deemed the kids appropriately tucked in, we automatically headed back to the living room.

“I think the little guy’s already grown,” Aaron mused aloud, moving to sit on the sofa—or rather, to spread out with a casual air that made him look oddly approachable. Hesitant, but determined not to be afraid of a man I’d been able to completely let go with in a sexual context, I came to sit beside him, leaving a full cushion of space between us.

“Definitely,” I said. “When they’re babies, they grow so fast. It’s cool to watch. One of my favorite things about working with the littles.”

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