Nanny Behaving Badly (8 page)

‘Hi,’ Lyle said looking sexier than ever before.

His tie was loosened, collar undone. His crisp, expensive business suit did everything to make her tongue seize up, redundant. The slightly weary look and tired lines only added to his appeal. It gave her an urge to soothe him. To allow him to relax and unwind.

‘Everything okay?’ Lyle asked, throwing his keys on the dresser.

‘Fine. We’ve had great fun. Casserole ready when you are. You look tired.’ She ventured, ‘You do like casserole? I didn’t think to check.’

Lyle smiled and deposited his jacket on the chair back. ‘Love it. Though I need a very long appointment with the shower first.’ He rubbed behind his neck.

Argh. Not good to watch and notice these things so intently.

She itched to sway over and help loosen the muscle cord knots. To pull that discreetly striped silk tie and tug. To feel his firm chest flush against her breasts and give in to the longings that thrummed like a battery fresh from a charge.

Her voice was husky when it came and her eyes darted away. ‘Go, shower.’

Her brain immediately jumped to a Technicolor vision of Lyle with hair wet, flesh outlined through cubicle glass, smiling in welcome, immersed in hot sprays. Inviting her to freshen up too.

Lyle removed his tie then stretched wide and sighed. ‘Thanks. You’re amazing, my guardian angel and Mary Poppins combined. How do you do it?’

‘Years of preparation and dedicated study.’

Did Mary Poppins feel hot under the corset, imagining shared showers?

Lyle disappeared. Yet the marimba pulse jumping inside Maddie lingered. Perhaps she needed her head examining? Or her renegade hormones demanded solitary confinement.

‘Come and play in my room, read me a story,’ Josh beckoned, appearing with a bunch of toys in his arms.

Maddie shook her head. ‘Not yet, sweetie. Let me tidy the dinner things, then we’ll read a favourite story.’ Lyle was taking a shower and she had tasks to complete. Her brain cells to frogmarch into order. ‘Come and play in here at the table while I finish up. Maybe we could sing some songs?’

Maddie filled up the machine and flipped on the switch, heard the low hum as it kicked in. Then she flicked on the oven to reheat.

‘I’ve got a bed in my room the same shape as a racing car. It’s got a rally car bedspread. Come see? Then we can do a story about Ritchie The Rally Car. I can show you all dad’s trophies too if you like? We could play racing?’

Josh whirled around on the spot. Boy, this kid had turbo energy and enthusiasm.

Maddie skilfully deflected. ‘You’re one lucky boy to have such a special room. And a clever dad.’

‘Come now,’ Josh urged, grabbing her fingers and pulling hard on her arm. ‘Dad loves to get into bed with me, he says my bed’s better than his.’

An image of the pair sprinted through her brain. Both with hair soft and dark, snuggled and warm and adorable together by soft lamp light.

Just as a real father should be.

‘Come on, Maddie.’ Josh pulled her ever closer to the door.

The insider insights on Lyle caused her resolve to wither the nearer Josh dragged her to the hallway. Would giving in hurt so very much? She was here, after all, to forge a link. Not deflect and back off as her father had.

She raised her hands in surrender. ‘Okay. Okay. Show me this super bed.’

Josh raced up the sweeping staircase ahead of her. She’d noted over the past few days that Lyle clearly didn’t do things by halves. The whole house was completed in bespoke luxury all the way.

Josh ran off down the grand hallway towards his bedroom. She followed – then paused as movement caught her eye passing a doorway.

Whoosh
– the oxygen in her lungs expelled on instinct in one fell swoop just from glancing on autopilot. Six feet three of semi-clad gorgeous male arrested her interest and handcuffed it to the wall.

Lyle stopped drying his hair with his towel, inquiry in his gaze.

Then smiled and her heart bungeed.

Bare-chested, bronzed defined torso. A towel around his waist, inquiry in his eyes.
Super-hot daddy alert.

‘Okay?’ he asked, tossing the wet towel aside and finger combing. She gulped. His voice was soft but rough too. Just like the image before her. The dips and planes of his body made her mouth go dry. Her fingers itched to touch it. Smooth skin, rugged lines, velvet voice, edgy promise.

Moisture clung to skin. Droplets glistened on pristine pecs. An intriguing sweep of dark hair led her eye downwards to the towel’s bunched knot – Maddie skirted it all with a mental skid.

Awareness twirled as Maddie cursed her own impropriety. She should’ve stayed in the kitchen, out of harm’s reach. What had she been thinking? The unintentional yet unmasked voyeuse inside blushed crimson. The sensible ethical woman inside knew she’d crossed a very tricky line. But this time her tongue was glued. Her voice sounded croaky, as her body battled with the dizzy heat.

‘Just seeing Josh’s room. He insisted.’ Perspiring inside her clothes now, she felt his full force heat consume her.

‘You’re allowed to explore. It’s me who’s inappropriately dressed, I promise to do better in future.’

No involvements, no regrets. Remember that.

Maddie tried to push herself on. But somehow she couldn’t move, even though she knew that’s exactly what she should do. Fast. Their gazes fused. That look put some kind of optical zoom into action. Slow motion pulsing attraction. Tiny sparks of awareness made her hot and flustered as her nipples peaked against the cotton of her top in a physical betrayal.

These feelings would have embarrassed her had it not been such a surprising, full force reaction. Like turning around and finding you’d come up against a high seas wave assault. When all you had was a swim-float.

‘Sorry for intruding.’

Is this how a hot, too intimate to weather fling with the boss started? Inappropriate glimpses that led in unwise directions? Was this how her father had worked his magic?

‘I can hear Josh calling you,’ Lyle nodded.

Her heart thudded hard, her skin tingled and her body screamed positive response. Her brain yelled abuse for not staying in the kitchen. For not succeeding in making her pulse behave.

‘Come on Maddie, slow coach!’ Josh shouted from the room ahead.

‘Coming.’

‘You may take the stern route with me,’ Lyle smiled, ‘but clearly my son has you around his little finger. Maybe I should be taking lessons?’

Lyle flexed to reach for a fresh towel and the glimpse of taut muscles was gasp-worthy. He looked up and caught her watching.

‘Lessons in closing the door properly. The workouts you don’t need help from anyone with. You’ve been pulling trucks after all,’ she bluffed.

She saw him smile but Maddie knew her beetroot red blush wouldn’t fade with mere bravado. He’d seen the naked lustful nanny unveiled. He’d caused her to get flustered.

Where was sassy Maddie, the woman never without a quip?

She rubbed her brow with a trembling finger. For the foreseeable future she had to back off. If she didn’t, it would be the nail in the coffin of yet another job. Ethical suicide.

She’d just have to tread with care and keep her mouth zipped tight shut.

Lyle pounded the drive’s gravel. But solace was in short supply; midnight jogging was hardly a pursuit of the sane. Losing the brain in physical exertion via running, even at midnight, was far preferable to duvet-wrestling with a pillow that had lost all comfort spots.

Was he crazy? Overworked? Stressing? Or was the stalling look in Maddie’s eyes during their shower encounter the cause? Bringing on this new keep fit impetus?

She’d frozen like an Arctic snowflake at the sight of him in a towel. He guessed she probably figured he had exhibitionist tendencies. She’d no concerns, but how to tell her that?

Lyle upped his pace. Pounded, felt his heart pump, his veins throb with the effort. He was on his third circuit of the drive, gravel spraying at his heels, battering flesh.

It wasn’t just her shower shock that had him vibed.

Her absence from the café had left a gap. The flood of enquiries and fond regards to be passed to his fleeting but memorable waitress made her absence more marked. In a short space of time he had missed her sparky irreverence and energy too. He’d seen the odd raised brow when he explained her circumstances caring for Josh … oh yeah, he’d noticed those.

Two and two equals ten. With a lascivious undertone that irked him.

Whose business was it anyway? And why did the judgements bother him so?

Lyle stalled the running, wiped his brow and returned to the house. He removed his sports shoes at the back door, then noticed the pair of female hiking shoes that had been added to the shoe rack, the hot pink, daisy patterned wellington boots alongside.

He stifled further thoughts on Maddie or her footwear. He had to stop, stop, stop thinking about the woman who’d come here to make his life easier. Not jinx his ability to focus completely.

With her attention firmly focused on Josh, Friday came quickly and with it Josh’s playdate. When Maddie picked Josh up from nursery, he and his friend Lewis were kite-high with excitement, thrilled at the prospect of playtime fun.

Lewis was a sweet boy. Easy to please and he seemed to keep Josh’s vivacious enthusiasm at a gentler tone. There had been minimal toy squabbles, and their time together passed quickly. Perhaps, she mused, this was because she’d prepped a space theme. Making astronaut men from dough and silver painted space rockets had kept them completely enthralled. It wasn’t exactly original, considering she’d once worked at Junior Play Space Station. She’d simply customised cardboard tubes and cereal boxes. Before she knew it the familiar sound of keys in the lock told her Lyle was home from work.

‘Wow,’ he remarked, when his dark head and heart-stopper smile appeared around the door frame. He watched her sitting on the floor of the playroom with the boys. ‘I hadn’t pegged you as a rocket scientist, Maddie. The hidden accomplishments just keep stacking up. I can see you’ve all had a blast.’

‘By blast, I take it you mean one that causes extreme mess.’ Maddie chuckled and collected the debris together. ‘No comparison to NASA. Or winning rally awards or opening cafés to great acclaim.’

He shook his head and semi-amused grey eyes bored into hers. ‘I think you could probably turn your hand to anything. You were pretty great at café work. I just chose to redirect your talents quite selfishly – the café’s loss is my gain.’

Maddie pretended to bat off the compliment. ‘I liked working there. But I enjoy this too, it’s what I’m trained for.’

‘Couldn’t train me up to rival your skills, could you?’

Just as the boys had finished their scale model creations of spaceships and were about to ‘zoom’ around the house at rocket launcher speed, the doorbell sounded.

‘That’ll be Lewis’s mother,’ Maddie stated, rising from picking up all the craft materials strewn about the floor. ‘I’ll get it.’

Lyle put a stalling hand on her elbow. Tiny jolts of heat radiated and jumped from the contact point on her skin. She gulped at the awareness of their proximity, her heated skin prickled just from feeling his breathing close by. Moments like this did everything to emphasise that she had to maintain distance. Lyle’s tone was gentle, intimate. ‘I’ll get the door, you’ve done plenty. I’m pretty indebted for your efforts. Technically you clock off tonight. Tomorrow’s your free day, remember?’

Maddie busied herself gathering together Lewis’s things: jacket, shoes, assorted craft creations. She could hear Lyle greeting Lewis’s mom, welcoming her into the house.

‘He’s had a great time, eaten all his supper. They’ve run off steam and played really well,’ she heard him confide.

But when she walked through into the hallway, the smile of satisfaction at how things had gone was short-lived. Maddie felt her ego crumple and her heart fill with hard, cold iron.

Her first instinct was to run, hide. Protect herself from the raw reality, instead she stood stock still and everything inside fisted hard.

‘Hello,’ said a familiar female voice. A voice that made Maddie start. A voice that caused assaulted emotions. A voice that belonged to a woman as opposed to a chance encounter as she was.

Nadia Gordon: the woman who’d caused her furious walkout from her last job. The voice of her ex-boyfriend’s lover.

As her pulse reached crescendo in her ears Maddie forced a reply. ‘I wasn’t expecting a reunion so soon.’ Even her hands shook as she handed over Lewis’s backpack. Maddie forced a neutral expression but all her features clammed rigid.

Nadia didn’t maintain eye contact. ‘I’d no idea this was your new job.’

The evidence that Nadia was a mother was almost as big a bombshell as the encounter. But then Nadia had only been Play Space Station’s secretary for the past six months; she’d worked quickly to get her talons into Tim. Her famously aloof, keep-things-professional manner hadn’t applied when it came to love affair liaisons. With Maddie’s boyfriend.

‘I’d no idea you had a child.’

Nadia opened her arms to hug Lewis and focused on making a fuss of him. Maddie felt a tinge of satisfaction that the woman who’d driven her to walk out of her job was clearly remorseful now.

Why shouldn’t she be? She’d been sneaking around, treating Maddie like a fool.

‘You two are acquainted?’ Lyle asked.

They nodded but in a strained silence. Lyle seemed to think it was his duty to intervene. ‘Their good time is wholly down to Maddie’s expertise. Glad he could come, hope to see him again soon.’

A grave Nadia only nodded. Maddie noted her perfect make-up and pristine glossed claret lipstick. She could see how Tim’s head had been so easily lured by styling that contrasted starkly with her own casual approach. Could she really compete, did she expect a man to resist the temptress at the opposite desk?

And how exactly could Maddie explain the atmosphere?
Lyle, meet Nadia, the woman who was entertaining my ex-boyfriend behind my back and under my nose. She’s great at overtime – especially the horizontal variety. Excuse me if I don’t rush to hug her.