Page 42 of Falling for the Nanny

I couldn’t touch her because we were in full view of the security camera, which my mother had access to on her phone, but every nerve and synapse in my body began firing. Part of me was pissed she was asking for something like this so soon, part of me just wanted to agree and take her back to the pool house now.

“Catherine,” I said warningly.

“I know, I know. But Mackenzie’s mom already said Mackenzie could go tomorrow, but she’s busy the rest of the week.” Her blue eyes were wide with appeal–a no less effective tact than her stubborn defiance.

“Just you wrangling two seven-year-olds?” I didn’t like the numbers.

“Just me used to wrangle seven two-year-olds,” Cat countered. “Don’t you remember where I used to work?”

I remembered, but that didn’t mean shit. None of those kids had been mine. But I really didn’t want to say no to her. An idea was slowly percolating in the back of my brain. I left for the conference on Thursday morning, and thankfully, we were running out of obstacles to deal with. I could take the day off and go to this damn park with them. It would help make it up to Lily for being gone over the weekend and working late these last few weeks.

And if it made Cat stop arguing with me for a little while, then it was a win-win situation.

“I have an idea,” I said finally, committing to it.

Cat scanned my face and saw that she was going to like whatever it was. She smiled, and it was a twist in my gut how much I wanted to see that smile. When did making Cat happy become so damn important to me?

And what was I going to do about it?

* * *

Lily couldn’t believe it. She was getting to go back to Busch Gardens, and I was going with them.

“But you hate roller coasters!” she kept saying, as if she were worried I didn’t know what I was signing up for.

“I don’t hate them. I just don’t let my seven-year-old ride the big ones, even when she does meet the height requirement,” I countered.

“He hates them,” my mother said, handing us all bottles of water. “He always has.”

I shot her a withering look that she smiled blithely into. “Well, it’s true.”

“Why?” Cat asked innocently. “Is it a control thing?”

Now I shot her a look. I was glad to see she was wearing another pair of cut off shorts and a thin tank top over her bathing suit. If I was going to spend the day surrounded by roller coasters, which I did indeed hate, at least I could focus on her long, tan legs.

We picked Mackenzie up on our way out of the neighborhood. Melissa was surprised to see me driving. She looked past me at Cat in the passenger seat, and a shadow passed over her face. She didn’t know–there was no way she could–but she wondered.

Cat sensed her curiosity and the strange tension that leapt up between us as Melissa looked back at me. She stayed unusually quiet, twisting around to talk to the girls.

“If I’d known you were going, I’d have signed up to chaperone, too,” Melissa murmured when Cat’s attention was turned away.

“Last minute decision,” I said briefly. I felt a faint twinge of guilt, but I’d always been up front with her. I meant it when I told her I didn’t want anything serious. I never planned to bring another woman into Lily’s life who might not stay.

Until Cat.

She’d dominated my thoughts ever since she came into our lives. First because I was fighting how much I wanted her, then because I grimly accepted that I did, but could never have her. And now because of this impossible situation where I had everything I could possibly want and no way to keep it.

It was fitting we were going to a park filled with roller coasters because that was how my life felt recently, and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t about the roller coasters. It was about not being in control. Strapping myself in and going for the ride had never been my specialty. I’d done it once with Chloe, and it had been a disaster. I knew Cat wasn’t Chloe–for one thing, she took better care of Lily than her actual mother ever had. It came naturally to her. I’d seen it at the restaurant even before she came to work for us. She adored my daughter and the feeling was mutual.

And that made it even harder for me to tell myself that this thing with Cat wasn’t going to go completely off the rails.

CHAPTER 25

CAT

David drove with the same narrow-eyed concentration he did everything. Like 495 was a competitor and he had to stay one step ahead. If it had just been us in the car, I would have put my hand on his shoulder or his thigh and tried to smooth the tension out with my touch. It was hard not being able to reach over and claim him, and I wondered how we would get through several hours, side by side, unable to cross the divide.

I also wondered if it was as hard for him as it was me.

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