I should've felt relaxed, calm, or at the very least, less guilty. But I didn't. "You accept my apology?"
She nodded.
I might not be all that great with women, but I knew enough to know that a simple nod could mean a million different things. "Do you forgive me?"
She sighed and turned to me with red eyes, a devastated expression on her face. "Do you want my forgiveness, Xavier?"
That question felt like a trap, which once again reminded me why I opted out of relationships.
"It's a pretty simple question, Xavier. Are you saying all this because you mean it or because you're worried I might quit and you'll have to learn to care for Violet on your own until you find my replacement?" She folded her arms and watched me carefully.
I had no fucking clue how to respond to that. "I feel bad for snapping at you the way I did. It was uncalled for, and that's not me."
She snorted and rolled her eyes.
That was fair. "Okay, fine, it's not who I want to be. I want to be—no, I need to be—better for Violet."
"Right." She turned her back to me but only for a second before she turned back with a big, steaming pot and set it on the table. She did it again before she took her seat. "Here's a tip, Xavier. If you want to be better for Violet, try getting a handle on your emotions so you don't treat people like crap and then apologize. Try justnottreating people like a burden."
"You're not a burden," I insisted, rubbing my chest as her words smacked against it.
"I'm not important enough to you to be a burden. I'm the help," she said simply, as if that's all she thought she was to me.
"That's not true."
She scooped up a heaping spoonful of buttery mashed potatoes onto her plate and then ladled some brown sauce over them before she returned to our conversation. "Itistrue, Xavier, and I don't need you to sugarcoat it for the sake of my feelings. I'm well aware of who I am and what I am to you, but I am still a person and I deserve basic respect."
"You deserve a hell of a lot more than that."
She laughed, and the sound was bitter and brittle. "I'm sure that I do, but I'm not sure you're capable of more, so just treat me like I'm a human being. That's all I ask." She took a few bites of the food that teased my nostrils, but she didn't seem to enjoy it, and I was sure that it was my fault.
Again.
"You don't have to worry about me quitting. I plan to fulfill the terms of my contract, so let's just stop whatever this is." Her honey-brown gaze stared at me, studied me as if she was trying to figure me out, but eventually, she just gave up with a heavy sigh and a shrug. "Please."
Her words should have pleased me—she wasn't quitting, and that was good news—but they didn't. They held a hint of finality, as if she was closing the door on everything. Our friendship and us, everything but her job as a nanny. "I hope we can still be friends."
She dropped her spoon and glared at me with the intensity of a sworn enemy. "We were never friends, Xavier. I thought we were at one point. I thought you were opening up to me, maybe seeing me as something more than the hired help. I even thought that maybe we could be more than friends, but that was just wishful thinking. I was nothing more to you than a convenience, and I've accepted that. You need to as well." She pushed away from the table and shook her head. "I'll clean this later," she mumbled and then left the kitchen.
I felt like a complete asshole. I sat there and apologized for snapping at her when I was in pain, completely ignoring the time before that when I treated her badly.Like a convenience, she'd said. It wasn't true, but it was accurate.
My feelings for her had shocked me and pissed me off. The truth was, they scared the hell out of me, and I reacted terribly. If you asked my brother, he'd say I reacted the way I always do—by retreating—and he would be right. "Fuck!"
I had to make this right.
No, fuck that. Iwouldmake this right.
I had to make her see that nothing about the way I was starting to feel about her was convenient. Not at fucking all.
Chapter 22
Rosalee
When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I noticed was the smell of bacon permeating the air. I inhaled deeply and smiled, and the smile slowly turned into a frown. Why does the house smell like bacon? I jackknifed up to a sitting position before I jumped out of bed and rushed to the kitchen, where I found Xavier at the stove—shirtless—talking with his daughter, who was fenced into a small part of the kitchen far away from the stove, babbling as if they were carrying on a real conversation.
"Yeah, I know it smells done, but it's not crispy, which means it's not done. You'll learn," he told her.
My gaze was glued to the wide golden expanse of his back, perfectly smooth other than the bunch and flex of the muscles when he flipped the bacon or stirred the scrambled eggs. He was absolutely beautiful, and a shallow breath escaped.He's not yours, I reminded myself and took a step back from the adorable scene.
