Page 13 of The Billionaire and the Nanny: Part 2

I hold back tears. I don’t know why I’m about to cry. I only knew her for aday.

“Miss Rainville?” Vero says, and I look up at her doe-like eyes. “Everything will be alright. I promise.”

“Thanks.” I fully feel her sympathy and kindness, guilty for thinking that a beautiful woman such as her would be unable to empathize for someone likeme.

At the bottom of the stairs, Zayden awaits leaning against the wall, hands in pockets, like the GQ model that he is. Stoic. Hard. Unflinching. I can’t believe I slept with him. I can’t believe the things we did. I can’t believe I’m leaving the house with my tail between my legs, which does not feel anywhere near as good as his cockdid.

Shit, Bailey. STOP.

“I was rash last night. Angry and impulsive,” he says, flicking something away with his nails. He looks at me, and I can see that something has shifted. It’s a new day. “You don’t have to leave.”

I don’t know what to say. In forty-eight hours, I’ve been rung though the emotional ringer more times than I can handle. My body vibrates with anxiety. “I needed this job,” I say, keeping my eyes down. “I shouldn’t have givenin—”

“I shouldn’t have tempted you,” he cuts me off. He’s willing to take partial responsibility. I can respect that. “However, what’s done is done. We can’t be physically intimate again. Consider today your first day of official employment.”

So that means the sex was off the record. That’s what he’s implying. Oh, my God, I could die of relief.

Inod.

That should be it—we should go our separate ways. However, I’m torn by his “apology.” See, the thing is…he doesn’t actually apologize. He merely acts as though this was all some oversight on his part, like the entire thing was mechanical and accidental.

“Go ahead.” His fingers whirl, indicating it’s time to spin around and head back up the stairs. All I can do is stand there, hurt and confused. It would’ve made better sense for me to leave, but now I have to see him again, every day, acting like none of this ever happened. I have to pretend that he didn’t take my virginity, slide into my body, or lay his head against my chest like a lonely child aching for his mother.

Whatwas that all about? Do all men dothat?

I have to pretend that last night never happened.

Swallowing my pride, I whisper, “Yes, sir. Thankyou.”

* * *

For the next several days,I concentrate solely on Olivia, how much better she’s getting, how much more she’s smiling and how much happier she seems the more time she spends with me. At least someone wants to spend time with me, unlike Zayden who keeps his distance for three days straight. When the house alarm beeps each night, alerting me that he’s home, like a ghost, he slips into his room without so much as a hello.

Even though I catch fleeting glimpses of his stare down the hall whenever I’m talking to the baby, he quickly turns and minds his own business. Maybe I’m imagining things, but he seems envious that I get to spend time with her, as if he wants to actually be a daddy to his baby. But hey, he could change that about himself any time. He would really love his own daughter if he would only get to knowher.

It’s like living with a roommate who only comes late at night to sleep then leaves again in the morning. The staff doesn’t talk to me. Maybe they’re under direct orders not to interact with me anymore. Clearly, Zayden, Vero, the chef and assistant live in one world, and Olivia and I live in another. Upstairs and annexed in isolation.

“It’s you and me against the world,” I tell the baby during her night time bottle on the sixthday.

She smiles and gurgles.

“Yeah. That’s just fine with me, too,” I whisper.

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