Page 16 of The Spice Play

“She’s nice,” Sebastian said, but the look on his face told me he didn’t fully believe that. Thankfully, Matty wasn’t watching his dad and instead had his eyes locked on me. “She won’t bite, Mat.”

“Are you gonna fire her too?” Matty asked.

Sebastian sucked air in through his teeth as he squatted down. He took Matty’s hand in his, his thumb rubbing back and forth across his little hand, and every feature of Sebastian’s face smoothed as he looked at his kid.

It was almost… humanizing. Almost.

“I know you liked Angela, bud, I’m sorry,” he sighed. “But Angela did a bad thing, and that meant we couldn’t keep her around.”

Matty’s lower lip jutted out. “It was just a watch.”

Sebastian bit back a scowl. “It was aRolex.”

His last nanny tried to steal a Rolex? My God.

“So?”

“So, that’s very, very expensive, and it meant that we couldn’t trust her anymore,” Sebastian explained, pulling his son’s hand until the boy stumbled into his waiting embrace. “I’m sorry. But I promise, Nelly is just as fun and a lot nicer.”

“Pinky promise?” Matty asked, pulling back his arm to hold up a single pinky. His gaze shifted to me briefly, a little blush spreading across his cheeks.

Before Sebastian could offer up his pinky, I broke my silence, squatting down beside the door despite Matty being a good fifteen feet from me. “I’ll do you one better, squirt,” I said, offering out my pinky. “I’llpinky promise you. And if you take it, I’ll give you the treat I brought for you.”

His eyes let up, almost twinkling under the rays of sunlight streaking through the window, and the moment Sebastian released him, he ran at me, slotting his pinky into mine and biting down on his thumb. I glanced over at his dad, a look of utter surprise painting his features, and he raised his thumb to his mouth to bite down, too, a silent instruction for me to follow along.

I did.

Matty giggled and released his thumb, his grin spreading wide and revealing a single missing tooth along the bottom row. He was positivelyadorable.“You brought me a treat?”

“I did!” I adjusted my footing to keep my balance in my squat and opened up my bag, pulling out a single, carefully wrapped cookie from the bakery I’d stopped at on my way over. Matty squealed in excitement.

Sebastian shot up to his full height, his face falling as hetook a hasty few steps toward me, his mouth open like he was about to speak.

“There’s no peanuts,” I said to Sebastian. “Don’t worry.”

He paused halfway between where he’d been and where his son and I were, his brows knitting.

“It was in the paperwork you filled out for Rosie,” I said, answering his unasked question and slipping the cookie into Matty’s eagerly awaiting hands.

“I…” He hesitated, folding his arms across his chest. “Sorry, I just assumed I’d need to fill you in on that. Thank you for checking it.”

I raised a single brow at him as I helped Matty unwrap the treat, little chunks of chocolate dotting the top of the cookie. I’d already eaten two cookies of my own in the car. “Of course I’d check it,” I said. Surely, that was an obvious thing to do. “I always check. Snacks are an easy way in with kids, and I don’t want to accidentally send one into anaphylaxis.”

“Right,” Sebastian mumbled. “Matty, how about you eat that while you watch your show, and I’ll give Nelly a tour around the house. Sound good?”

“Okie dokie!” Matty chirped, and a second later, he took off back into the room he’d come from.

————

The house was three stories. On the ground floor, there was the living room, a sitting room, a kitchen, a powder bath, and a pool bathroom with a door on both the inside and the outside. On the second floor were Matty’s room, Sebastian’s room, three bathrooms, and two guest rooms large enough to fit at least half of my apartment inside ofthem. And the third floor, spanning across almost the entirety of the footprint of the home, was a home gym with every kind of equipment one could think of. There was also a small office and a bathroom on the third floor.

The house itself was gorgeous — white trim ran along the tops of the walls, and plain but decorative rugs ran along the stairs and some of the walkways. Each room came complete with deep black leather furniture and dark marble countertops. It was a drastic difference from the stark white exterior, and it made it almost more cozy and inviting than I’d been expecting.

Sebastian made minimal small talk with me as he showed me around, and I didn’t dare push him on that. I knew I’d either get a snarky response or a comment about my truck or another accusation that I’d been stalking him.

By the time we’d finished the house tour, Matty had finished his cookie, and Sebastian sat down beside him on the sofa and pulled him into his lap. “You, sir, need to get your shoes on so we can go show Nelly the guest house together.”

God, he was so much nicer to Matty than I expected after what had happened earlier. I’d worried that the side I’d seen of him last week was some kind of blip, but his genuine side slipped out so easily around his kid, even if it immediately went away the moment he spoke to me.

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