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“Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?” I ask as Kate bats her fake lashes at me.
“Dinner?” she asks, pretending to be surprised as if she hadn’t been trying to work me for an invite for the past five minutes. “Yes, sure! When?”
“How about tonight?” I answer, tossing her my cell phone. “Add your number and I’ll text you for your address. Pick you up at eight.”
Kate grins and feverishly types in her details. Meanwhile, I can feel Tabitha glaring into the side of my head as if her eyes are shooting lasers at me.
“Thanks for babysitting,” Kate smiles at Tabitha before she turns to leave. It’s almost a subtle dig, and Tabitha is practically turning red with jealousy in front of my eyes. But why would she be jealous? She made it very clear that she wants to identify strictly as my nanny. She can’t have it both ways.
Later that evening, as I am getting ready to go out on my date, Tabitha comes to knock on my door. I am just in the middle of buttoning up my shirt when she comes in.
“So, were you just planning on leaving Teddie here alone?” she asks with indignance resting on her face.
“What?” I ask as I tuck my shirt into my pants. I notice her eyes follow my hands down to the waist of my jeans.
“I suppose you justassumedthat I would babysit while you’re out on your date, right?”
“Yeah, I did. You are the nanny after all,” I say, tossing her own words back at her.
“You hired me to take care of your son while you were atwork.Notwhile you were going out on dates.”
“Is there a difference?” I ask innocently. I know damn well that there is.
“I didn’t sign up to be on call at all hours of the night,” Tabitha frowns.
“Well, I suppose I could call and hire a babysitter to come here for the evening. One that is probably just old enough to drive, which will mean you’ll likely wind up being in charge of two kids instead of one if the house burns down.”
“I almostdidburn down the house myself the other day,” she mumbles irritably under her breath.
“What?”
“Forget it.” Tabitha waves her hand in the air dismissively and turns to walk out of my room. “I’ll take care of Teddie tonight. But this is a one-time freebie. The next time you use me as a date night babysitter, you can add another zero onto my salary.”
Something about the way she shoots back at me makes me want her even more. She’s toughened up a bit since we were together, and it suits her.
“I already am paying you a small fortune.”
Tabitha turns to look at me right before she steps through the doorway.
“That’s okay, you can afford it,” she says before leaving.
I’m not sure if she came in my room to give me shit about going on a date and leaving her behind with Teddie, or whether she was trying to give me something to think about while I am out. She’s succeeded in both, and I can already tell that I’m going to have a hard time concentrating on Kate at all.
Chapter Seven
Tabitha
By the time I walk back into my room, I need to put my hand over my chest to steady my heartbeat.
Oh my God, he looks so hot tonight.
If he’s trying to kill me with his sexy swagger look—it’s working.
I hadn’t timed my showing up at his room to coincide with him getting dressed for his date, but I guess the universe just really wanted to stick it to me, as if I wasn’t already jealous enough. I couldn’t even stop my eyes from trailing his torso as he was tucking his shirt into a pair of well-worn jeans that looked so soft that they were nearly a second skin—definitely snug enough to accentuate the bulge between his thighs.
It was all I could do to keep breathing and not imagine throwing myself at him. This entire thing is starting to unravel and prove as being areallybad idea. Obviously, I already knew that I would be watching over Teddie while he went out on his date. I had strictly gone there to make a point that I wasn’t some on-call sitter and to try and make him feel guilty for going out on a date with some rando woman that he just met at the park whilewewere on a picnic. But it all backfired because Hunter ended up making me feel even more jealous and filled with a lustful restlessness instead. If this is a game of strategy, he is definitely winning.
Even though I am seething with jealousy, I try to put on a show of being positive and nonchalant as he reaches across the kitchen table—where I am sitting with a glass of wine while Teddie plays on his tablet—for his keys.
