by Mia Kayla
Brad stepped out first, and when I scooted to the edge, Charles extended his hand. I tried to ignore the shock of warmth that traveled down my arm when my fingers met his or the way my heart raced, but it was undeniable, how my body reacted to him.
Once again, I tore my gaze away and focused on the ground. Sarah exited the car and flew into Mason’s arms, already in a fit of tears. He picked her up, hugging her close to him, as though she were a toddler. It was so dear that I almost teared up myself. I wondered if she knew how lucky she was to have people who cared so much for her that they were there to comfort her when someone was leaving her. A sharp pang hit me square in the chest as I thought of my lack of caring people, growing up. I shoved it away as I normally did and reminded myself to be in the present. A present I was extremely grateful for.
Patty kissed Mary’s forehead over and over, getting the little one to stir awake.
When her puffy eyes opened, she took in her surroundings and began to wail, “Don’t go. I promise to be good, Nana. I promise I’ll be so good. I promise.”
My heart seized as I saw her break down. I barely knew them, and already, their pain was tearing me apart.
It was a full-on tear-fest.
As soon as Charles had to peel poor Mary off of Patty, I bit back tears.
I will not cry. I will not cry.
But it was too late.
I blew out a few shallow breaths as everything started to hit me.
Patty stepped out of the car. “Stop.” She placed one palm on my face, gently wiping away my tears. “Don’t cry.”
My arms wrapped tightly around her, and my head went to the crook of her neck. I owed Patty my life. She’d taken me in like her own daughter, trusted me to care for her mother, given me my livelihood, and now had found me this job. I was forever indebted to this woman.
“It’s not like I won’t visit. I have to see all my girls, you included.”
“Thank you, Patty. You’ll never know how much I appreciate you.”
“Just take care of my girls,” she whispered so softly that I barely heard her. “And take care of Charles. Out of all the men, he needs the most care.” There was a pointed meaning to her words.
I blinked back my tears, and when I pulled back, she patted my cheek.
Charles handed a distraught Mary to Brad before stepping into Patty’s embrace, lifting her in a fierce hug where her feet dangled from the ground, and then he kissed her cheek in the sweetest way.
After placing her on her feet, he leaned into her, getting in her line of sight. “You’re family … you hear that, Patty?” He placed one fist on his chest and one on her shoulder, peering down at the much shorter woman. “I owe you so much. You’ve loved my girls, our family … and I am just so grateful that you came into our lives.” His voice choked with emotion. “Whatever you need, whenever you need it, it doesn’t matter what it is, you come to us, okay?” He brought her in again, patting her back. “If there is one thing you’ve learned about us, it is that we take care of family, no matter what the cost. And you, Patty, are family.”
I took a few healthy steps away, giving everyone time to say their good-byes.
Truth be told, if I heard Brad and Mason and Sarah’s proclamation of love and gratitude and their sad hugs, I’d be a goner, in a bucket of tears again.
When Brad encased Patty in a hug and shook her as though she were a tiny doll, Charles walked toward the far end of the van.
I watched him a good distance away. He turned the opposite direction, his back toward us. He pinched his nose, his chin dropping to his chest. After a long beat, he placed both hands on his hips and lifted his eyes to the open blue sky, as though searching for an answer written in the clouds.
He turned around, and I purposely focused my eyes on the group congregated around Patty. It was either that or admit that I’d secretly eyed him when he wasn’t looking.
Suddenly, Charles made his way toward me. The lines of his jaw were tight, his shoulders raised, back straight, as though he was disconnected from what he was watching in front of me, though I felt how distraught he was, as it was coming from him in waves. It was in his eyes, which held such sadness.
I didn’t know what came over me or where all my courage came from, but I reached down and gripped his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Everything will be okay. I promise it will be,” I whispered. Because I had promised Patty it would be, that I would care for these children like they were my own.
He surprised me by intertwining our fingers in the most intimate of holds, though his gaze stayed on the group. “I know it will be. It has to. Because that’s my job—to make sure it is okay.” And I felt the weight of his responsibility in his voice.
At that, I held on tighter, hoping he could feel my own determination and little bit of strength there. I hated how he’d been dealt such bad cards in life, but he had to know, at least for the moment, that he didn’t have to go through this alone.
Just then, his gaze swung over to me, and I swore I had seen a ghost of a smile.
Or maybe it was just wishful thinking, but either way, my heart flipped and flopped.
Chapter 9
Charles
Becky was great with the girls when we came back from the airport. She played Barbie with Mary for at least an hour and built some sort of fortress with Sarah in an online forum.
After dinner, everyone was emotionally and physically exhausted from the long day of bidding Patty good-bye. Becky was getting the girls ready for bed, and I was cleaning the kitchen when Brad and Mason strolled in.
“Hey …” Mason said, approaching with his Cartier messenger bag over his shoulder. “I’m heading to Janice’s tonight, if that’s okay. It’s been a few nights since I’ve seen her.”
Brad scratched the top of his head. “Yeah. I wanted to go to the city tonight, too, and check on my place.”
I lifted my head from the sink, leveling them with a stare. “You don’t need my permission to leave.”
They ignored the statement.
“Do you want me to stay to help with the morning routine tomorrow?” Brad asked. “Because I can just go to the city tomorrow night.” He shared a secret glance with Mason, and it annoyed the hell out of me because this was what they did—worry about me when I was perfectly fine.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No. We have Becky. She’ll be in charge of the morning routine, and I’ll be here, so …” I turned back to the sink of dishes and focused on rinsing them and placing them in the dishwasher.
“It’s fine. I’ll stay,” Brad said, which made me slam the dishwasher shut.
Maybe it was unfair. They were simply concerned and looking out for me. But I was used to change. If anything, change was all I knew.
“Listen, I’m going to be okay tomorrow.” Plus Becky was here to assist with the girls.
When had I ever broken down? Okay, that one time—when Natalie had first died—but the boys hadn’t witnessed it, only my mother. I’d promised myself that it wouldn’t ever happen again, and it hadn’t. Maybe my mother had told them. I wouldn’t put it past her since we were so close.
“It will be fine,” I said slowly, so they would believe me and take the hint.
This was the thing about my brothers—they were always here. When our parents had died, they had moved in to help me raise the girls. What men in their mid-twenties uprooted their lives to raise two young girls? They had. They moved around their schedules, and at the very beginning, one of them was always here in the mornings to drop the girls at school, to help Patty get them ready. Both of them had been here at every milestone, attending most of their school concerts and events.
They made sure that they were present, and the girls didn’t feel any lack of support. And I appreciated them, truly … but a big part of me felt as though I was taking away a part of their lives. The guilt was overwhelming at times. It was a natural feeling I lived with; it surrounded me, and I’d accepted the fact that it would always be there
.
I didn’t need to tell them how I felt because they knew, and they disagreed, still wanting to be ever present in the girls’ lives.
“Promise. If I need you guys, I’ll call.” I threw them a small smile for good measure.
My stare bounced back and forth between them, and after a beat, Brad nodded. “Okay, I’ll say good night to the girls and pack up my stuff.”
“All right then. I’ll see you tomorrow night for dinner.” Mason patted my back, and Brad saluted me as he strolled to the foyer.
My hands fell to the edge of the sink, and I let my head hang. Patty gone would be an adjustment, but it’d be fine, right?
It had to be.
Chapter 10
Becky
Darkness surrounds me, and the rush of pressure in my ears is so overwhelming that I think my eardrums will burst.
My heart pounds, louder, faster, harder. I hear the thumps of my chest in my ears.
But what is overwhelming is the pressure. The intense pressure above me. Below me. All around me.
The worst is … I couldn’t breathe.
Could not get air into my lungs.
Could. Not. Breathe.
I lose focus.
Everything blacks out around me.
And I am floating into space, but this space feels warm and, for the first time, safe, so I welcome this space in the blackness because in the dark, in this area, there is no pain.
I let it take me. Take me under. And I know the moment the air from my lungs slowly leaves my body until I have no more air to breathe.
But then … I am jolted back to reality, struck by an impact, an unbearable pain that reminds me that this hell is my life.
Suddenly, I jerked upright on my bed, sweating profusely, breathing heavily.
My hands flew to my chest, hugging myself, keeping myself together. I took in my surroundings—the pale yellow walls, the neutral curtains—and I exhaled deeply, one big sigh of relief. This was my new room, my new employment. This wasn’t the hell I used to live in.
I inhaled deeply, taking breaths in big, overwhelming gulps.
I’m alive.
Please. I hope I didn’t scream this time.
I pushed the covers off of me, slipped on my slippers, and headed downstairs, needing a drink of water.
I hadn’t been in the Brisken household long, but I had already memorized my surroundings. That was how I’d trained myself—to know where I was at all times and to know where the exits were.
I lightly walked through the foyer, down the hall, and into the kitchen. The floors creaked with age, but I was light on my toes.
I flipped on the light to get a glass in the cupboard and opened the fridge to get some water. My eyes caught a shadow in my peripheral view. And then I screamed.
The glass dropped to the floor and shattered.
Charles was up from the chair at the kitchen table and next to me in a nanosecond, bending down to pick up the big pieces of glass.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Charles said.
After catching my breath, I met his eyes. “I didn’t expect you there.” Of course not. He’d been sitting in the dark.
He laughed. “I’m sorry.” Then, he answered my question with a nod of his chin. He picked up a another piece of glass and threw it in the trash. “Don’t move. I’ll get the broom.”
I stood, feeling a sharp pinch on my big toe. “Mother-pluckers.” I hopped on one foot, realizing I had stepped on a shard of glass.
“I said, stay still.” Charles’s voice boomed.
I flinched, cowering into myself. I hated that it was an automatic reaction, that my body had been taught through the years to fear a man like that. He stilled, his eyes widening just a tad. When I tore my gaze from him, he walked toward the closet.
He came back in with a broom, sweeping all the tiny pieces of glass away. I bent my leg and pulled out the piece of glass from my toe, and tiny droplets of blood rushed to the surface.
“Do you have a Band-Aid?” I asked, applying pressure to my big toe.
A moment later, I yelped because steady arms went under my knees, and I was off the floor. My arms wrapped around his neck, and I felt his strong shoulders pressed against my body. I swallowed. This man must live at the gym. My pulse picked up in speed at the nearness of him.
He placed me on top of the kitchen table and averted his eyes. “I didn’t want you stepping on any more glass. I’ll need to clean up that area later.” He walked toward a set of drawers by the coffee machine and pulled out a first aid kit. After placing it on the table, he opened an alcohol wipe, sat on the chair, and lifted my foot.
“I can do that.” My voice shook, and panic settled in my gut.
Only then did his eyes meet mine, a deep chestnut brown to my green ones. “It’s fine. I’m used to this. Mary is a stunt devil but also the biggest baby. I have to bandage her small paper cuts.” He lifted the bottom of my pajama pants, and his eyes flashed to mine.
I pulled my foot back, my knee to my chest.
“What happened to your ankle?” His voice heightened.
I swallowed hard and couldn’t meet his gaze. “I was a daredevil in my younger years. Bicycle accident.” The lie came out naturally, flowing from my lips, as I’d repeated the story a million times before.
I lifted my head and offered a small smile. He didn’t return it.
Once again, he gently lifted my ankle and met my eyes. “May I?”
I bit at my thumbnail, feeling sheepish all of a sudden. “Sure.”
When he swiped at my toe with the alcohol wipe, I held my breath. The action was slow and deliberate. His strong hands were tender against my skin, and everywhere he touched felt intimate in a way. I bit my bottom lip, watching him as warmth spread throughout my body.
After he tore open a bandage and wrapped it around my toe, he stood.
In front of me, between my legs.
My heart lurched madly at his close proximity.
His chest was a massive wall, his shoulders big as boulders, and he was stunning, his hair a disheveled mess, understandably so since—I assumed—he’d rolled out of bed. But his attractiveness wasn’t in the darkness of his hair or the strength of his body in front of me. It was in the gentleness in his demeanor, in his touch.
He was a walking anomaly. His body was built like a football player, his persona as big as a god, but he was warm, kind, quiet.
His eyes flashed to my mouth, and I swore it was as though the air had been vacuumed out of the room. My heart was in my throat. I hadn’t been this close to a man in years.
Without warning, my nipples pebbled under my shirt. Shit! And of course, I wasn’t wearing a bra.
His eyes flickered down to my breasts, and he let out a shaky breath. Stepping back, he cleared his throat, running a hand through his hair, and then he turned around and walked straight to the fridge, as though he was embarrassed that I’d caught him staring when I should be the one embarrassed.
“Let me get you a glass of water, and then I’ll clean up this floor.”
I hopped off the table. “I can get it.”
“No.” He turned to face me, clenching his jaw. His stern tone had me stilling in my spot.
“Please … just sit down, Becky. I don’t want you to hurt yourself again.”
I stood there, still and stoic, blinking at him. I had a feeling this man hardly used the word please. So, I sat down. Like a child being told. And for some reason, even though I’d fended for myself for most of my life, I obeyed. And for another reason completely unknown to me … I liked it.
Charles
One thing that I knew about myself was that I wasn’t a liar. I didn’t lie to others, and I most definitely did not lie to myself. When Natalie had died, I hadn’t told myself that everything was going to be fine. I had known in my gut that things would never be fine, but I’d straightened my shoulders and told myself I had two girls to raise and had people who depended on me.
I’d dec
ided life was shit, but the truth was, I had the business and little lives to take care of.
So, now, I wasn’t about to lie and tell myself that I wasn’t attracted to Becky—because I was. She was breathtakingly beautiful but in a quiet way. She didn’t want to be noticed, but I noticed. I noticed everything about her.
When I handed her the glass of water, my eyes betrayed me and flickered to her well-endowed chest. Again. Fuck, I was a terrible human being. The absolute worst cliché that a man could ever be—attracted to his nanny.
I tore my gaze away, grunted, and headed to get the mop.
“I can do it, Charles.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I just want this taken care of because the girls will be down here in the morning, and I don’t want little pieces of glass everywhere.”
She sat in silence, and I worked in silence. It took a few minutes to get everything wiped and dried, and I joined Becky at the table with my own glass of water.
“Do you always do that? Sit in the dark?” she asked again.
“Sometimes,” I said, focusing on the condensation on the glass.
What I wouldn’t tell her was that, most nights, I was down here, in the dark. Because I couldn’t stand being in my room alone, without Nat. I used to be the man who slept soundly every night. Natalie used to complain that as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was snoring. I was no longer that man. I hardly slept anymore. I was used to functioning on little to no sleep, mostly because I’d relive that horrid night over and over again.
“Why?” Her eyebrows quirked.
“I have trouble sleeping,” I said honestly—too honestly.
“Me too.”
There was a tenseness in her voice that had me locking my eyes with her. They were the prettiest green color I’d ever seen. I found myself wanting to drown in them.
“Why?” I asked. More curious than I should’ve been.
She shook her head, focusing on the table now.
I knew not to push too hard. I knew she had a past, and what I needed to focus on was the fact that she was our nanny—and not look at her breasts. What an honorable employer would do was get up, say good night, and let her get on her way, but I was a damn nosy employer. I had a curiosity so strong, it was hard to swallow this damn water I kept drinking.