I already know my opinion is neither asked for nor desired. I’m not even a big drinker, so this could very well backfire on me. All of this could. He has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to his children and their safety and with this request, I could be pushing him over the edge and then I’ll be out on my ass with nothing. Panic slips through me, but in my gut, I know the children need this.
“Worried about something?” he deadpans, and I choke on my sip.
I flip back around to face him, wiping the spittle of bourbon from my lips. “Yes. I am.”
I’m speaking to him in English. No way I can do this in French. Too many things to think about all at once.
“Are you leaving us?”
I shake my head. “No.” I’d swear there is relief in his expression, and that emboldens me. That, and the shots of bourbon. “Your Majesty?—”
“Sebastian,” he cuts in sharply. “I prefer it when you call me Sebastian.”
“All right, Seb.” I smirk and he grunts but doesn’t correct me. I retake my seat, rolling the crystal between my hands. “First, I want to say that I adore your children. They’re so much fun. I wasn’t sure how I would take to suddenly becoming a nanny, but they make it easy. They’re sweet and thoughtful and loving and adventurous and funny and so smart. You’ve done a fantastic job with them. So, while I do realize I have only spent a short time with your family, please understand, this all comes from a place of love.”
“Love?” he questions, testing the word as if it’s completely foreign to him.
“Yes. Love.”
“That quickly.”
“Don’t be a jerk just to be a jerk. You know this is difficult for me, and I have something important to say. I love your children, yes. You know I do.”
A harrumph. “Fine. Continue.”
“Your children are incredible, and I love being with them. I connect with them. I feel their pain and understand it as my own since I lived through their kind of loss myself. I want nothing more than to help them through it and see them come out stronger on the other side.”
His eyes penetrate my barrier for a few long, tense moments, and I let him root around, my expression open and honest. Have none of the other nannies taken to the children? I know Althea and the kids mentioned something to that effect my first night here, but I find that impossible to believe.
Or maybe they just had all the wrong people before.
I won’t lie and say it’s easy all the time, because it’s not, but you can’t help but crave more of them.
“Forget all the bullshit buildup and just tell me already?” he growls.
“Okay.” Here goes nothing.
15
SEBASTIAN
My day ended like shit. A video call with Samil and his cabinet that interrupted my movie time with the children lasting what felt like forever only for him to push the other people off at the end so he could ask me how things were going with Bellamy. I didn’t answer him, choosing to reply with my expression alone.
“If you’re not planning on fucking her, no harm in someone else tasting her instead.”
And that made me postal. The idea of someone elsetastingthe woman I already considered to be mine. No, I haven’t tasted her. Yes, we’re on a good track of being amicable. She’s still my nanny and she’s all but stopped flirting with me. Most importantly, my children are happy. A word that holds so much power over my heart. It’s all I ever dreamed for them and feared they’d never have.
“I could call her and ask her out,” he threatened. “She is a young, single woman, is she not? You can talk all the shit you want, but you have no right to keep me from her. Your children, yes. Her, no. If I want to fuck her, I will, and you can’t do anything to stop it.”
I hung up on him then and there.
He’s right. I have no real claim on her. She is my nanny and technically nothing more. I cannot keep her from men if she were to want their affection and attention. But the thought makes me fucking twisted with jealousy. As inpunching a wall in my office, wanting to toss my laptop out the window just to watch it crashjealous. I can’t have her, but I can’t let him have her either. He can’t. I’ll lose my mind.
At first, when she started flirting with me, I knew what it was. It wasn’t real. It was an act of defiance for forcing her hand here. I assumed she’d be like the others. I’d find her naked in my bed, or she’d try to seduce instead of simply flirt.
But she never did.
She took her job seriously. Put her whole heart into it. And little by little, I started to believe our moments were real. It’s not something I’ve had in my life with anyone else, and day by day, week by week, month by month, not acting on that is breaking me apart.
