“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” Spying the shirt on the floor, I straightened up and slipped it over my head.
“Um, do you want to use the bathroom?”
“Oh … sure.” He stepped aside as I passed him, giving me way more space than I needed to get by, which seemed kind of weird since his sweaty, naked body had been tangled up with mine for the last thirty minutes. That was a move you made passing someone in the hallway at work, not in the bedroom after sex. Were we going backward now?
In the bathroom, I shut the door behind me and cleaned up a little, trying not to read too much into it. But something felt off. I dried my hands and paused for a moment before reaching for the doorknob. After a couple deep breaths, I turned off the light and opened the door, hoping I’d been wrong.
My eyes weren’t used to the dark, and I wasn’t sure where he was at first. It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t even in the room. I stood there for a minute, confused and blinking at the empty bed, when the bedroom door opened. Mack entered, holding the pillow I’d been using on the couch. He wore sweatpants and a T-shirt.
“Hey,” he whispered. “I was just switching pillows.”
“Switching pillows?”
“Yeah. Moving mine out there and bringing yours in here. I’ll sleep on the couch and you can have the bed.”
“That’s not necessary. I can sleep on the couch.”
“I’ll just tell the girls I offered you the bed when I realized how cold it was out there.”
It actually hadn’t been that cold out there, but suddenly it felt damn near Arctic in here. “Mack, I—”
“Do you want clean sheets on the bed?”
“What? No.”
“Okay. Keep this closed, and hopefully the kids aren’t too loud when they come down. You can sleep in a little.” He grabbed the door handle and began pulling it shut behind him. “Night.”
“Wait a minute. Mack.” I walked toward the doorway. “Come back in here a sec.”
He hesitated, but then did as I asked and entered his bedroom again, closing the door. “What?”
“Well …” I folded my arms over my chest. “What now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, are we just going to pretend this didn’t happen?”
“I think that’s best. Don’t you?”
Of course not. I wanted to ride off into the sunset with him. Cue the music. Roll the credits. “I … I don’t know. I guess so.”
“It is. Trust me on this, Frannie.” He’d adopted a sort of I’m Older And Wiser tone that made me feel five years old. “Tonight was a nice break from the norm but it can’t happen again.”
Nice break from the norm?
Nice?
I’d just experienced the most unbelievable, mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex imaginable. My life would never be the same. And he’d thought it was nice?
I wanted to die.
“Right,” I said, glad the lights were off so he couldn’t see how mortified I was. “Okay. It didn’t happen.”
“Good. We agree.” He sounded relieved. “And now that it’s out of our system, we can just go back to the way it was before. ’Night.”
He was out the door before I could even say it back.
Confused, hurt, and embarrassed, I crawled back into the bed, which smelled like him. Curling up on my side with a pillow in my arms, I fought off the lump swelling in my throat.
Then I was angry.
Grow up, Frannie. You wanted to be treated like an adult? Free to make your own mistakes? Here you are—a great big plate of THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE, served cold with a side of humiliation. And it won’t do you any good to cry over it.
What, did you think he was going to confess his undying love just because he gave you a couple orgasms in the middle of the night? Did you think you two would be a couple now? What a joke.
Sometimes sex is just sex, and you’re acting like a teenager, sniveling into a pillow in the dark. No wonder he thinks you’re too young for him. You knew your feelings for him were pointless from the start, so don’t pretend otherwise.
Only a child believes in fairy tales.
Mack
I hurried out to the couch and stretched out, tossing the blanket over my legs.
Jesus, that had felt good. Even better than I’d imagined—and I’d imagined it a lot. Everything about it had been really intense—the heat, the chemistry, the connection. I hadn’t felt that in years, if ever. Maybe it was the whole forbidden aspect, maybe it was the fact that I’d been fantasizing about her illicitly for months, or maybe my dick was really that starved for attention after a year of celibacy, but honest to God, I could have wept after that orgasm.
For a moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like if I were younger and didn’t have kids. If I were free to pursue her. Win her. Keep her. Christ, I’d fucking spoil her rotten all the time. She was that perfect combination of sexy and sweet—it drove me crazy in the best possible way. In another life, I’d have done everything possible to make her mine.
But as it stood, I’d meant what I said. As good as the sex had been, we couldn’t do it again. She was still too young, she was still the boss’s daughter, she was still the nanny, and I was in no position to pursue anyone.
Thank God she agreed with me that we should just pretend it never happened and go back to the way things were.
I really didn’t know what I’d do without her.
In the morning, the girls came down in their pajamas and asked where Frannie was.
“She’s in my room,” I told them, yawning and pulling the blanket over my shoulder. “It was too cold out here, so I told her to take the bedroom and I slept on the couch.”
None of them batted an eye. “Can we wake her up now?” Felicity asked. “We want to make the monkey bread.”
“No. Don’t.” Reluctantly, I sat up. Scratched my stomach.
Winifred giggled. “I saw Daddy’s hairy belly.”
“Ewww!” the older two chorused.
“Hey,” I said, grabbing Winnie and throwing her across my lap. “I do not have a hairy belly.”
“Yes, you do,” squealed Felicity. “And some on your chest!”
“Hey, listen. Where I come from, a man should have some hair on his chest. And I’m a man.”
But for a second, I wondered what Frannie had thought of my body. I wasn’t in my twenties anymore, and while I was physically fit, I didn’t have one of those carefully groomed, perfectly smooth, manscaped male bodies. She hadn’t seemed to mind, and I’d been too turned on to give a fuck about it last night, but now I hoped she hadn’t been disappointed … I found myself saying a quick prayer. Please, God, let it have been even half as good for her as it was for me.
Shoving last night out of my head, I rose to my feet and threw Winnie over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Be quiet now, and we’ll go find something for breakfast.”
They whined and protested, but they followed me into the kitchen and watched as I began opening the fridge, the freezer, and multiple cupboards. Of course, they rejected everything I offered them—waffles, oatmeal, pancakes, eggs, toast, cereal, granola bars.
“Come on, guys. You have to pick something. It’s going on eight, and I have a lot of snow to get rid of before we can go anywhere.”
“But we want monkey bread,” Felicity insisted.
“Well, I don’t fucking know how to make it.”
That’s when I heard my bedroom door open, and then footsteps on the dining room’s creaky oak floor. Frannie tiptoed into view, hair mussed, arms crossed over her chest. “Morning,” she said.
I wasn’t prepared for the sight of her. My heart skidded. My throat went dry. My dick twitched in my pants.
I moved behind the island and cleared my throat. “Morning.”
“Daddy doesn’t know how to make anything good for breakfast,” Millie complained. I felt like pinching her. “Can you make breakfast?”
Frannie smiled a
t her. “Sure. Let me just get dressed real quick, okay?”
“Yay! Okay.”
Without another look at me, Frannie went into the living room to retrieve her clothes. Then she must have gone upstairs to the bathroom to change, because she didn’t come back to the kitchen until she was fully dressed.
Our eyes met only briefly before she looked away.
“So,” she said, pushing up her sleeves. “In all honesty, girls, I don’t think we have the right ingredients for monkey bread. But from what I remember seeing in the pantry yesterday, I think we can make some awesome gluten-free banana muffins with chocolate chips. Does that sound good?”
“Yes!” Millie rubbed her hands together. “Can I help?”
“Definitely.” Frannie set to work, giving the girls small, age-appropriate tasks. “Millie, you peel and sort of chop up two bananas. Felicity, can you grab the sour cream and eggs from the fridge? And Winnie, can you help me remember where the chocolate chips might be hiding?”
I put on a pot of coffee and stayed out of their way, checking messages on my phone, texting Sawyer that I’d be late, glancing out the front window to see if the street had been plowed yet (it had), and the back to see how much snow the blower would have to handle (a lot). When the coffee was ready, I poured a cup and asked Frannie if she’d like one, too.
“Sure, thanks,” she said without taking her eyes off what she was doing.
“Milk? Sugar?” I asked, wishing she’d look at me like she had last night, with adoration in her eyes. Or at least warmth.
“Just black.”
I poured her a cup and left it on the island while I sipped mine standing on the dining room side of the breakfast bar. The girls were happily following her directions, not arguing, and working harder than they ever worked in the kitchen for me. They were even rinsing the dishes as they went along, and putting them in the dishwasher. A few times, I tried to catch Frannie’s eye and smile, but she never seemed to look in my direction.
After a while, I gave up and went into my room to get dressed. I tried not to look at the bed and think of her bare limbs between my sheets, but it was impossible. Not only did I look, but I went over and grabbed a pillow, lifting it to my face and inhaling deeply. Her scent lingered on the cotton, sweet and sexy at the same time, just like she was. My stomach muscles tightened, and I—
“Daddy?”
I glanced at the door, which apparently I hadn’t shut all the way. Felicity had pushed it open and stood there blinking at me with owlish eyes behind her glasses. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I tossed the pillow onto the tangled sheets. “I was going to make the bed. What do you need?”
“We can’t find the vanilla extra. Do we have any?”
“Vanilla extract?” I frowned. “I have no idea. It’s not in the pantry? Or the cupboard above the fridge? Sometimes I stick stuff up there we don’t use that often.”
“We can’t reach that cupboard.”
“Ah. Okay, I’ll look.” I followed her back to the kitchen, where Frannie was doing her best to reach the handle above the fridge without much luck.
I puffed my chest out a bit, feeling like a Man Coming to Save the Day. “Here. Let me.” Coming up behind her—way closer than necessary—I reached over her head and pulled the cupboard open.
She immediately ducked out of my way.
I stared into the cupboard without seeing anything for a moment, then refocused. “Is this what you need?” I grabbed a small brown plastic bottle and handed it to Frannie.
She inspected the label, then twisted off the cap and sniffed it. “Yes. It actually expired this month, but it smells fine. Okay, girls …” She turned away from me and resumed baking with the kids. I realized she hadn’t looked at me once.
Fine. Be that way.
Irrationally angry, I stomped off to my room, got dressed, then stomped into the back hall to put on all my winter crap—boots, coat, scarf, hat, gloves—without looking at anyone. When I was ready, I risked a glance at her and caught her looking at me. Immediately she turned in the opposite direction.
I went out the back door and closed it with a bang.
After snow blowing my driveway and Mrs. Gardner’s next door, I shoveled both front walkways and porch steps, then moved on to the back. When I was done there, I grabbed a shovel and went out to the curb to dig out Frannie’s car, although what I really felt like doing was marching into the house and demanding to know why she was giving me the cold shoulder.
Because the more I thought about it, the more I decided this was not what we had agreed on. We said we were going to pretend it never happened and go back to the way things were before.
This wasn’t how things had been before!
Full of furious energy, I finished the job and stomped back into the house. The kitchen was blissfully warm and smelled heavenly. But I was grumpy as fuck. “Can I have your keys?” I asked Frannie, who was loading the dishwasher.
Without answering, she went over to her purse and took them out. Then she handed them to me without meeting my eyes or saying a thing.
I glanced toward the living room, but didn’t see the kids. “Where are the girls?”
“Getting dressed.” She put a detergent pod in the dishwasher, closed the door, and started it.
“Are you mad at me?” I blurted, unable to stand it anymore.
She began wiping down the counter. “What would I be mad about?”
I rolled my eyes. “Last night.”
“Last night didn’t happen, remember?”
I stared at her back for a moment, then stormed out the back door, slamming it behind me. Hard.
Her car started fine, so after I’d taken a quick shower and gotten dressed, we all piled into it for the drive to Cloverleigh. I was behind the wheel, Frannie was in the passenger seat, and the girls were squeezed in the back. The tension in the front seat was icy and thick.
“Daddy, what are we going to do at Cloverleigh?” Felicity asked. “Can we see the animals?”
“I don’t know,” I said tersely.
“Can we take a sleigh ride?” Winnie asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“But Frannie said we could.”
“We can’t take up all Frannie’s time.”
“It’s fine,” Frannie said stiffly.
“Will we have lunch there?” Millie wondered. “I’m kind of hungry.”
“I don’t know,” I snapped. “Stop with all the questions already.”
“Jeez, why are you in such a bad mood?” Millie asked.
“I’m not in a bad mood!” I roared. From my right I could feel Frannie’s eyes on me. I clenched my jaw and gripped the wheel tighter.
When we arrived at Cloverleigh, Daphne Sawyer came rushing out from behind the desk. “There you are! I was so worried about you all on these roads. Was the driving awful?”
“It wasn’t too bad,” I said. But I couldn’t seem to unclench my jaw.
She hugged Frannie. “I’m so glad to see you. And you, too, girls,” she added, smiling at my daughters. “Mr. Sawyer said you can take the sleigh out this afternoon.”
“And how about lunch up in my apartment?” asked Frannie.
The girls jumped up and down with excitement at both ideas. After thanking Daphne and Frannie, and warning the kids to behave, I went back to my office and tried to get things done, but it was tough going.
My dark mood refused to lift. I barked at DeSantis when he checked with me about his new bottling line. I skipped lunch to punish myself and my stomach growled hungrily all afternoon. I swore at the guy from the towing company when he told me they were backed up because of the snow and he wasn’t sure when they’d be able to get to my car. And all day long I kept glancing out the window, wondering if the kids were out in the sleigh with Frannie and whether she hated my guts for last night. Sure seemed like it this morning.
But I knew I hadn’t forced her to do anything she didn’t want to do. Had she faked he
r orgasms? Maybe I wasn’t the stud I thought I was.
The thought did not sit well with me.
Or had I hurt her feelings somehow? Slighted her in some way? Had I said something insensitive without realizing it?
Goddamn, I was fucking clueless about women.
Around four-thirty, my ex called. Of course.
I winced when I saw her name on my phone and gave the screen the finger, but I took the call. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” she said.
“I know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose with two fingers. “What do you want?”
“I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” Her voice oozed sarcasm.
“Fine.”
A heavy sigh. “I’m coming up this weekend.”
“Have you told the kids?”
“No. I want to surprise them.”
“Do you have a ticket already?”
“Not yet.”
“Do me a favor, and don’t say anything to the kids until you’re sure you’re coming,” I said. “Last month, you didn’t make it and they were devastated.”
“I won’t,” she snapped. “That’s how a surprise works, Mack. You don’t say anything beforehand. And it’s not my fault that I couldn’t come last time. I was sick.”
“Whatever. I just don’t want them disappointed again.”
“They won’t be,” she snapped. “I’ll be there Friday.”
“Fine.” I ended the call and tossed my phone onto my desk. I felt like throwing it out the window. Why the hell did she bother coming at all? She didn’t really care about them. And she’d probably spend the entire weekend badmouthing me.
Suddenly my office door swung open, and the girls came running in. They were red-cheeked and runny-nosed from the cold, and their hair was matted from their hats.
“Daddy!” Winnie said excitedly. “I got to drive the sleigh!”
“Me too,” said Felicity, taking off her glasses to wipe the fog off them. “The horses’ names were Scout and Cinnamon!”
“Frannie says we can make real hot chocolate in her apartment if it’s okay with you,” Millie bubbled. “So can we?”
Irresistible: Cloverleigh Farms Standalone Page 8