AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He smiles. “You do good work, and I pay for good work.”
“Th-thank you,” I stutter, not knowing what else to say.
“Do you need some help moving?” he asks, and I shake my head, not wanting to put him out.
“I just have clothes and a few things,” I admit. “I should be moved in by tomorrow.”
Derek nods with Eli on his hip.
“Does Kenna come back tomorrow?” Eli asks hopefully, hiding his face in his dad’s chest.
Derek pats the little boy’s back. “She’ll be here every day for a while, buddy.”
“Sleeping over?” Maggie asks from the couch, and I think I hear a hopeful tint to her voice, as well.
I can’t help smiling. Everything is turning up Kenna, and it feels nice.
5
DEREK
Kenna gets all moved in the next day, and the rest of the week goes by in a blissful blur. I’m able to get plenty of work done and spend time with the kids after work, because Kenna always disappears into her room after I get home.
It’s perfect. It’s exactly what I wanted, and Kenna doesn’t try to make too much conversation and make me feel anxious and awkward. She does her job and she’s wonderful with the kids and it’s everything I could have hoped for.
There’s only one small problem. Miniscule, really.
I find myself more and more attracted to Kenna Lodge.
She’s a beautiful young woman, too young for me, really, and there’s the little problem that she’s my employee and my ex-wife's niece. There’s no way that I should be attracted to her, but I am.
It started on the second day, when Eli woke up and barreled into her room, asking her to play with his trains. She got up, yawning, her blonde hair mussed from sleep, blue eyes glassy. She was wearing a pair of yoga shorts and a tank top and I could see her nipples through the thin fabric.
I looked away almost immediately, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I can’t stop looking at the line of her ass and thighs in the shorts she wears around the house in the summer, but I can’t very well tell her what to wear. It isn’t anything inappropriate, and she’d been caught off guard the other day.
It isn’t like I can complain that a beautiful woman, who’s great with my kids, wears shorts around my house, which is alsoherhouse, at least for the duration of her contract.
I’m thinking more and more that this could be a long-term, permanent thing, if Kenna’s interested. I’m willing to offer her more money, more time off, anything she wants. I just have to keep my dirty old man eyes in my eye sockets.
It’s disgusting, really. How old can she even be? Twenty? Twenty-two?
I’ll be thirty-nine in December, and I can’t be going after young girls. It has to be that I haven’t been with a woman since Suzanna. I’d tried to turn off that part of myself, tried to lock it away, because falling in love certainly hasn’t done me any favors.
There’s just something about the way Kenna looked that day, fresh out of sleep, that does it for me. I just need to keep my head down and treat this like a professional relationship.
Friday, her last day before her two days off, Kenna wakes up early and makes breakfast for everyone. The kids are still fast asleep, but I smell bacon and follow the scent downstairs. I don’t get many home-cooked meals, usually opting to eat out or worse, eat some of the kids’ food like dino chicken nuggets and fries. As a single parent, you eat what you can, when you can. At least that’s always been my philosophy.
The one meal of the day the kids don’t complain about ever is breakfast, and Kenna’s already figured out that Eli loves his waffles and Maggie loves bacon and scrambled eggs with cheese. She knows so much about them already, and I can’t ask for a better nanny. They already love her and they’ve been anxious about her leaving this weekend.
“She goes away tomorrow?” Eli asked with a big pout and wet eyes.
“Not goes away,” I say comfortingly. “She’s just going to have a couple of days off.”
“When is my day off?” Maggie asks, and I snicker.
“Day off from what? Being sassy?”
“I’m a hard worker, Dad,” she says with no small amount of attitude, and I smile at her.
