Xavier
A damn annoying, nosy woman with her constant prodding and poking. Who did she think she was to keep pressuring me to do things I didn't want to do? Furthermore, what damn business was it of hers if I opened the damn envelope or not?
None, that's what. It was none of her damn business, and I'd just have to remind her whenever she forgot and stepped over the line. It was my choice if or when to look inside, and I wouldn't be pressured to do it before I was ready. I'd left the corporate world for that very reason, and I wouldn't let some nanny force my hand in my own damn home.
She'd already driven me out of the cabin to chop more wood because I would need more now that the other two rooms were occupied. The cabin was on the grid with running electricity, but nothing beat the fireplace on a cold mountain evening. Chopping wood calmed me. The constant overhead swing was relaxing and helped clear my mind.
And the sound of my phone ringing in my pocket shattered that calm. "What do you want?" I growled into the phone.
"Wow, your mood has gotten significantly worse since we last spoke. Does that mean you spoke to Mom?"
"No," I bit out. "She hasn't called. Thankfully."
"Then what's got your panties in a bunch?" Count on Nate to get straight to the point.
"I don't know since I don't wear panties. Something you need to confess?" I tapped the speaker button and went back to chopping wood. "Did you call for a reason other than to piss me off?"
"Yeah, how's the little bundle of poop and slobber?"
The swing missed the block of wood, and I dropped the axe before I ended up losing a toe, or a whole damn foot. "She's fine. Still pooping and slobbering. Crying a lot less, though."
"Have you figured out who the baby mama is yet?"
I groaned. "I really wish you wouldn't say it like that."
"One-night lover?"
"No," I grunted. "I don't know who the hell J is, and no matter how much I try to jog my memory, nothing is coming to me." I could've opened the envelope, which probably contained answers, but I wasn't ready yet.
"Dinner!" Rosalee's voice rang out through the kitchen window, punctuated by a distinct slam, which meant I probably needed to apologize for my bad behavior.
"And just who is that?" Nate asked with far too much amusement. "Are you holding out on me, baby brother?"
Without chopping wood to distract me, I dropped down on the chair where I usually sat to enjoy the sunrise with my morning coffee or the sunset with a cold beer and sighed. "Nothing to tell. It's the nanny." I gave him a quick rundown of Rosalee's dramatic entrance into my life and my cabin.
"Oh, the nanny, huh? She sounds sexy. Is she hot?"
I said nothing at first and pinched the bridge of my nose as I searched for restraint. "None of your damn business," was what I'd finally come up with.
"Wow," he guffawed loudly. "She's that hot, huh? Interesting. Did you order her from some type of sexy nanny catalog?"
"I called the number you gave me, Serenity Woods. Now, drop it." Why his teasing was pissing me off more than usual, I couldn't say. Then again, I was a grumpy asshole most of the time, so Nate wasn't bothered.
"Well, now you've piqued my curiosity even more, and I can't wait to meet her."
"Dammit, Nate." My hands shook with anger. "This isn't a joke. It's my life."
Nate sighed heavily. "You think I don't know that? I told you Triple Horn would eventually lead to trouble. You'd have been better off just hiring a pro. Or having a one-night stand like normal people do."
"Yeah," I growled at the point he'd made regularly since I told him about my monthly trips to the sex club. "Well, most one-night stands just want a quick missionary or doggy style." And unfortunately, I needed more than that to get off.
"If you want it rough and kinky, then maybe consider, I don't know, a committed relationship where you can get that whenever you want it. With strangers, there's always this risk. Besides, I thought only the people who ran the club knew your private information."
I sat up taller at Nate's words. "I hadn't thought about that." I hadn't been with the owner, Samantha, or any of the girls who worked at the club, so how did this person find me?
"You ever considered that someone knows who you are and this is a money grab?"
"Not until just now." Until that moment, I'd been confident that my identity, and therefore my wealth, was a secret. "Shit. Rosalee found an envelope underneath the baby's carrier."
