Page 56 of Falling for the Nanny

Another hour passed. The bar was filling with people getting off work. I watched them stream in. Only I sat alone now, in a booth that could easily fit six. The noise level rose, chatter and drinks clunking down on tabletops, silverware clinking against plates. I stopped being able to hear the bell when people walked in.

And then, suddenly, Cat was standing in front of me.

I looked at her for a few seconds, wondering if she was really there or if my brain was superimposing her image over the scene. But no, it was really her. She looked beautiful and tired, defiant and sad. She slid into the booth across from me, and it was like a bubble came down around us. Suddenly I couldn’t see anyone else in the background, and the noise faded away.

“Thank you for coming,” I said, surprised to find that I was having trouble coming up with what to say. It had seemed so clear when I made this plan. If Cat showed up, then the words would, too. The apology, the explanation, the truth–it would all be there.

But it wasn’t.

Cat nodded, tight lipped. “It’s not for you. It’s for Lily. I shouldn’t have left her without saying goodbye.”

“She doesn’t know you have. She thinks you’re still on vacation.” Belatedly, I shut my laptop and slid it down the table, out of our way. “Cat…”

She shook her head, a sharp, impatient gesture. “No. I get to go first.”

“But I–”

“No.” Cat narrowed her oceanic blue eyes at me. “I heard what you have to say, David. Trust me, I heard every word. Now you have to listen to me.”

I hated the pain that flickered across her face. An inarticulate, desperate explanation was bunched up at the base of my tongue, but I swallowed it back. She was right. It was my turn to listen. I braced myself for her to cut me a hundred different ways. I would deserve it.

Cat took a deep breath. “I love you.”

My eyes shot to hers. That was the last thing I was expecting her to say, and it made my chest expand with joy. But the look on her face quickly deflated it. She looked grim and worn out as she said it, like it was a heavy burden that she had been carrying for a long time, and she just wanted to put it down already.

“But I’ll get over it,” she finished, her voice bleakly resolute.

“Cat, I–”

Her gaze was twin daggers. “David, please. You have to let me finish.”

The words burned in my throat now, hot as coals. I desperately wanted to interrupt her, but I forced myself to swallow them.

Satisfied I was going to stay quiet, her gaze softened somewhat. “I also love Lily, and it’s not fair to just disappear on her. I promised Mrs. Barnes that I would take care of her, and that’s what I’m going to do if you agree to the plan I’ve come up with.”

I’d agree to anything as long as it meant she was coming back, but I didn’t want to risk opening my mouth to tell her so. Everything else would spill out with it.

Cat pulled a yellow pad of paper out of her purse. The kind with a magnet on the back, like you find affixed to a refrigerator. “First, I will no longer be living in your home or on your property. My hours will be from eight to six.” She wrote it down on the first line. “If that works for you, I need to continue borrowing the car until I can buy my own.”

She glanced up at me for an answer.

“You can have the car, and–”

“Great, that makes things easier.” Cat wrote it down. “Obviously we’re going to need new rules, and this time we have to stick to them. No touching, no alluding to the past, no conversations about anything other than Lily.”

For a minute, the only sound I heard was the scratch of her pen on the paper. Finally, Cat looked up again, not quite looking at me. “Do we have a deal?”

I raised my eyebrows, asking for permission to speak.

Cat laid the pen down and blew out her breath unsteadily. “Go ahead.”

“I need you to look at me first.”

Irritation wrinkling her forehead, she did. I could tell by the expression on her face that she had all her guards up. Every gate, every wall, every defense was visible in the set of her chin, the flat line of her lips, the narrowing of her eyes. She was determined not to let me in again, no matter what I said.

But she’d told me she loved me, and that meant there was a way past her guard.

I reached across the table instinctively. My heart was beating fast. Reaching for Cat’s hand felt like the time I’d put everything on the line, signing up for the loan to start DKI. It could lead to everything, or it could ruin me. DKI had made my fortune, but if this gamble didn’t pay off, what would the money be worth?

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