Page 3 of Played By my Grumpy Boss

“Hello to Mary-Beth,” said Kayla with a fake smile.

“Don’t be facetious,” snapped Alex.

“I’m too stupid to know what that means, Kayla spat back, “according to you.”

Alex sighed and rubbed his forehead, clearly stressed. “For the last time, I did not call you stupid. And thanks to you telling your mom I did, I’m now getting the whole you’re not a suitable parent thing from her the whole freaking time.”

“You said it was stupid to think I could put a metal baking tray in the microwave.”

“Yes, it was stupid. Not you are stupid. You wrecked the tray and the microwave, and you could have burned the whole place down.”

“Bet you made a pretty delicious cake, though,” I said. I couldn’t resist. I thought she’d laugh, and we’d magically bond or something, I don’t know. But instead, she just fixed me with the kind of glare that elderly peasant women use to curse tourists in movies. It actually made me shudder.

I turned to Alex for rescue and saw that he was giving me the curse-glare too. Clearly it was a family talent. At least there was something they both agreed on – the awfulness of me. They looked like they wanted me gone as soon as possible. Well, they’d messed up there. I wasn’t going anywhere. Not now that everything was arranged. Not when I had no other option.

Kayla folded her arms. “I don’t need a nanny,” she said. “I told Mom.”

“And you also told your mom I never have time to do anything with you when you’re here. So, she’s insisted I hire one, or she’ll have me in court over your welfare,” Alex said angrily. “Which will get in the papers and could ruin my career, never mind that it’s not true.”

Kayla looked at me with thinly-disguised contempt. “Well, I don’t want her.”

“Well, I don’t either, but, thanks to you, we have her.”

“Excuse me, I am here and I’m a person with feelings.” If they thought they could treat me like this, they’d soon find out otherwise. In fact, they’d soon find out that hell hath no fury like an exhausted single mom scorned.

Kayla just rolled her eyes, but Alex looked startled for a moment. “I’m sorry-,“ he began, but I didn’t stick around to hear the rest. I felt that familiar sensation again – anger and tears at once – rising up in me. I was never this emotional before I had Mads. “I have to make a call,” I said. “Please excuse me for a moment.” At least I could be well-mannered, even if I was the only well-mannered person in the room.

I pulled my phone from my bag as I strode back down the hallway to the apartment door. I stepped outside, leaned on the wall and took a few deep breaths. Don’t mess this up, for Maddy’s sake if nothing else, I told myself sternly, as I tried to get my emotions under control. What the hell was I doing here? And what the double hell had I gotten myself into?

2

ALEX

I didn’t sleep much last night, and I’m taking some deep breaths to get the oxygen going through my system as I take a brisk walk through town to meet Jason, my best friend. I’m painfully aware of the fact that he’s now my new nanny’s father, too. We’re meeting at some new gastro pub place he’s interested in investing in. He’s always got new projects and deals on the go – he loves to be busy.

I’ll have to make sure I don’t show any of my thoughts or feelings about Mary-Beth in his company. Oh my God, he’d probably just kill me dead on the spot. I’ve only just got back in touch with him over the last few years, when he started coming to New York on business – overseeing the complete refurbishment of a huge iconic art deco building in the South Bronx that he’d somehow managed to acquire. So, at least I didn’t know her as a child. And at twenty-two, at least she’s a fully-fledged adult and even a mom now. But still – her Dad’s best friend thinking like this about her? That’s pretty bad.

If it was Kayla at twenty-two, I’d be reaching for the shotgun too, I can tell you. That’s a joke, by the way. Although, again, it’s kind of not. Fortunately, Mary-Beth’s bristly personality and her incredibly loud demon child are going to ensure that my feelings don’t last long. It’s just that first response thing. That chemistry which you can’t help. Which means absolutely nothing.

It’ll wear off, and I’ll get used to her. And then life will move on, and after a decent amount of time, maybe when Kayla’s new term starts in September, she’ll leave, and that will be the end of it. And I will never, ever agree to anyone who isn’t Lana Del Rey or Blake Lively coming to live with me. Not as a favor for any friend, however close we are.

Yeah, so I didn’t sleep easy. Usually, I was out as soon as my head hits the pillow, even off-season. I train pretty consistently with Kent, my trainer, and so when the end of the day came, I’d be done. We worked on strength and conditioning all year round. Being one of the oldest players in the NFL now, there was a danger that I’d get slower and less mobile if I didn’t keep up the pace. So, yeah, I usually slept well. But not last night. Last night I laid awake and thought about Mary-Beth and resisted jerking off, and wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

Jason, her dad, is such a good friend – we’ve been buddies since college, when we were both in the football program at Oregon, playing for the Ducks. He didn’t go pro – he bumped around a few teams for a while, but then he got into business. That’s his real passion and forte – property mainly. He advised me on investing in the old general store, and I appreciate it. I told him that my nightmare ex-wife Clarissa was on my case about Kayla having a more enriching experience during her time with me, whatever the hell that means, and he suggested Mary-Beth come and nanny for her, and well… It sounded like a great idea at the time.

But as I laid there down the hall from her last night I had so many doubts. And, luckily, it’s a huge apartment, and a very long hall, by the way. Lucky because Maddy seems to have only two passions in life – putting her sticky hands on valuable antique furniture and screaming the place down. Any closer to their room and I wouldn’t have slept at all. It was cute, though, seeing her little face light up when Mary-Beth brought her up last night, and moved her into the cozy bedroom just off hers that would be a dressing room to the master suite when I sold the place.

Mary-Beth had that room now – it made sense, because it had an en-suite too, and a little kitchen area, so she had some space just for the two of them. I don’t know how she did what she did in only a couple of hours. The cot bed was up, and bright abstract paintings in vibrant greens and pinks, yellows, and blues were propped up against the walls, like a wildflower garden. Little pom pom fairy lights glowed all around the room, too. I’d gone down there and hovered awkwardly in the doorway, to see if she needed anything, just as she was putting them on, with Maddy in her arms.

As the room lit up, with a soft yellow glow as dusk gathered outside, Maddy had squealed in delight and clapped her sticky little hands. I couldn’t help smiling at that – it reminded me of being with Kayla at that age – there had been so much fun, so much love, so much possibility. Nothing had gone wrong by then. It was so hard to work out quite how I’d got to where I was now, divorced from Clarissa and with Kayla barely speaking to me, except to ask for money and rides to places. That made me so angry whenever I thought about it. Like I hadn’t given her an AmEx and an unlimited Uber budget. What the hell more did she want?

So last night I was thinking about Mary-Beth. In a way that I definitely shouldn’t have been, as her employer, and as a man twenty-four years older than her, and as her dad’s best friend. I was thinking about the way her breasts swelled under the fabric of her simple blue linen dress as we looked at the bookcase, about her full lips and her cascading ponytail and her cheekbones… I wanted to stroke down them with my fingers. Or even better, to crush them into mine as I held her tight and made her come hard, my cock deep inside her…

Oh, my God, get your mind out of the gutter, I told myself sternly. Last night, I’d turned over and put on a sports performance podcast about neurology and electrolytes – that would take my mind off that steaming train of thought. That’s why I’d had to walk abruptly away from her earlier, saying I’d go and get her a drink. I was worried that what was going on in my groin and belly would show on my face.

Desire, pure and simple.

I wanted Mary-Beth with a feral hunger I haven’t felt since I first met Clarissa – you know, before she turned into the anti-Christ. That was another joke. Kind of. But also, kind of not. I just don’t understand how things got so bad, so fast. Emotionally, I was still reeling from our divorce two years ago. My finances were still reeling, too.

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