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As much as I should have hated to say it, I had been enjoying this little thing that we had going on between the two of us. There was something so carefree and relaxing about it. There was nothing forced between us. When we laughed, it was genuine. When we flirted, it was genuine, even if I knew it shouldn’t be.
Our relationship was unconventional, yet, for some reason, it worked for us. However, we didn’t need to flirt. We didn’t need to be friends. All we needed to be was work colleagues. And we were acting like so much more than that.
As much as I enjoyed the time that I spent with Quinn, I didn’t want to be with her for two reasons. She worked for me, and Paige liked her too much for me to just go and fire her. But that was the only way that I could date her, and more than that, I didn’t even want to have a girlfriend.
My last wife had been the love of my life. And I couldn’t stop the feeling that if I dated someone else, it was like I was shitting all over her memory. She had been perfect. She was everything that I had wanted and more. And I couldn’t just get over her. I couldn’t just let her go and find someone else. It didn’t work like that, in the slightest.
I believed in soulmates, and she had been mine. I could never love another woman, and, more importantly, I didn’twantto love another woman. Even if that woman happened to be Quinn, who was the most amazing woman I’d met since my wife.
When my phone started ringing, I knew who it was before I even looked at the caller ID. Quinn. She’d been calling me every couple of days to give me an update on her mother. I knew that I shouldn’t care, yet I did. I hung onto every word she told me in these short phone calls.
“Quinn,” I greeted her, my voice gentle and sweet, a way that she wasn’t used to and hadn’t experienced before she’d left.
“Ezra.” The way she said my name was so relieved as if talking to me was the best thing that had happened to her today. She sounded a bit stuffed up, and I knew that she’d been crying. For a moment, I wondered if today was the day that her mother had finally passed, and everything inside of me wished that wasn’t the case.
“How are you?” I asked. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s actually doing good,” she told me with pure joy in her voice. “She surprised all of the doctors because she should actually make a full recovery.”
“I’m so glad to hear that, Quinn,” I let out a deep breath. I really was happy about her mother. There was nothing I wanted more than for Quinn to be happy, and I knew that this was contingent on her mother, as of late. Now that her mother was doing well, she could be okay too.
I was here to do nothing but support her even though I knew that I shouldn’t. I wasn’t her boyfriend. I was the man she’d slept with twice just so that she could get me out of her mind. I was the man that had hired her. And I was going to be the man that did something much, much worse.
“I should be coming home within the next couple of days,” Quinn said. “My mother’s doing so well, but they’re only keeping her here for another two or three days for observation. Then, she’s going to be released. Once she is, I’m going to make sure she’s settled into her nursing home, and happy. Then I’ll come back, so should be within the next week.”
“Oh, that’s good.” Except that it wasn’t. It was far from good.
“The doctors are coming in now, so I’ll talk to you, later.”
“Goodbye, Quinn.”
“Bye, Ezra.”
When the call ended, I felt my heart drop. I felt terrible about the decision that I’d made, but I couldn’t change it, now. I knew that it was for the best, and it was. After Quinn had kissed me, I knew that this was going to be a problem, and for the last two weeks, I’d been wrestling with thoughts of what I should do.
And I finally had an answer, but it wasn’t one that she would want to hear. I didn’t have any option other than to fire her. Our relationship was becoming so much more, and that wasn’t something that I could handle.
A part of me thought that I should have told her the truth over the phone, but that would have made me the cold-hearted bastard everyone thought I was. And I couldn’t be that person, not to Quinn.
How much would it have broken her heart to have had this good news about her mother and then me squashing all of that because I was a selfish man who was unable to put her needs above my own? I had always been the selfish one, a very selfish man, and I couldn’t change that, not even for Quinn.
I didn’t want to hurt Quinn. In fact, that was the last thing that I wanted to do. But it was out of my hands. This thing between us, it wasn’t normal. And how much longer would it be until we ended up in bed together once again? And then what would that make us? Would she be considered a nanny with benefits?
It wasn’t like I was heartless. This was hurting me, too, even if I was the one making the decisions. I was going to miss Quinn, more than I knew, but that didn’t mean that she could stay. She was a temptation that I couldn’t have in my life. I wasn’t leaving her with nothing, either.
She would get a fifty-grand severance check, and I had found her an apartment and would pay her first two years’ lease. She could keep the car that I’d bought her, and I would hook her up with some secretary job with one of my colleagues where she would make a similar paycheck as she made with me.
I was being more than generous with her, and that was what made me okay with all of this. And she was going to be forced to be okay with all of this, as well. The only person that I was concerned with was Paige. And as much as I didn’t want her to be sad, she would get over it, eventually.
Ginny and Paige got along well enough, and Ginny, quite frankly, reminded me of Mary Poppins. She did the job that she needed to do, and best of all, there was no way that we would be involved in any kind of relationship that wasn’t strictly professional. And that was important to me.
I never should have involved myself with Quinn sexually. And maybe I had nobody to blame but myself. It definitely wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t fair that she was getting the repercussions. But at the end of the day, it was my money, my job, and my decision, even if it was one that I didn’t like.
The doorbell rang, and I sighed. I already knew who it was, unfortunately. I was quickly growing tired of Klaus dropping by without any warning. It didn’t matter how many times I’d told him that it was unacceptable. He did it anyway because that was the kind of person that he was. Klaus got everything that he wanted, and he didn’t care what he had to do to get it. That was one of the things that I’d always despised about him.
“I’ve got it,” Ginny said, and she was opening the door before I could tell her not to. When I didn’t want Klaus here, I just didn’t answer the door, although that hardly stopped him. He could be quite the insistent pest when he wanted to be, and he wasn’t exactly the guy to accept ‘no’ as an answer, not caring who he inconvenienced.
“Thanks for letting me in, Ginny,” he told the nanny. “Ezra! Long time no see, brother.”
