Falling For The Nanny: The Billionaire's Baby SOS / The Nanny Bombshell / The Nanny Who Kissed Her Boss

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHEN Claire returned, she found Matt in the kitchen, making lunch. Bella sat in the high chair, banging a rattle on the tray. Matt stood at the grill beside the stainless-steel stove.

“Are those grilled cheese sandwiches I smell?”

“Yes.”

She shrugged out of her coat. “Really?”

He glanced over, then turned his attention back to his sandwiches. His voice was chilly as the ocean in January when he said, “I can cook. I wasn’t always rich.”

“Ah.”

“My stepfather was rich. And yes, I grew up in the lap of luxury, but I had to put myself through school. I got a job, lived in a rat hole of an apartment and paid enough tuition to put a new wing on the library just to get a basic bachelor’s degree.”

Unable to stop herself, she laughed. “Why would you want to live in a rat hole of an apartment if your family was rich?”

“I had a falling-out with my stepfather.” His voice wavered a bit, as if he didn’t want to answer, but he had.

She hung her coat across the back of a chair. Combining the conversation she’d had with Joni to this revelation, she knew it was time to tread lightly. She’d been pushing him to be sweet, to be nice, to be honest, for Bella’s sake, and it finally dawned on her how hard that might be for him. He was a guy so accustomed to getting his own way that he’d rather pay his tuition himself and live in a rat hole than make up with his stepfather. And here she was forcing him to buckle under for everything she wanted.

Of course, she was doing it for Bella.

She ambled toward the grill. She continually pushed him because Bella needed good care, but she didn’t have to be a shrew. She pointed at the sandwiches. “You wouldn’t want to share those, would you?”

“If my mother taught me anything, it was to share. I’m a great host.”

“I’d set the table as repayment.”

“I suppose that could be a deal.”

“Great.”

She rummaged until she found plates and cups, set the table and made a pot of coffee. He heated soup to go with the sandwiches and they sat at the table to eat, with Bella happily chattering in the high chair beside them.

“So how does a preppy boy survive living in a rat hole?”

He stopped his spoon halfway to his mouth. His lips quirked a bit. “Not easily.”

“I can imagine.”

“I don’t think you can. I’d never actually seen a bug indoors before, so cockroaches scared the hell out of me.”

She burst out laughing. “Good grief!”

“The walls of my apartment were paper thin. I froze in the winter and sweltered in the summer.” He smiled, almost wistfully. “It certainly taught me a lot about life.” He caught her gaze. “Real life. Not the sheltered existence I had as Cedric Patterson’s son.”

“I’ll bet.” She cocked her head. If he’d survived that, learning to care for Bella should be a piece of cake. But now wasn’t the time to remind him of that. They were making up after their argument and she would do her part. She would share a little about herself, too, so he wouldn’t feel he was always the one giving. “I actually did about the same thing.”

He frowned. “Really? You left the lap of luxury for a rat hole?”

“Maybe not the lap of luxury, but a very comfortable home. I was angry with my dad because he just never seemed to want me around, so I refused to take his money for tuition.” She shook her head. “Actually, that’s not totally true. I never asked him for money for tuition to see if he’d remember that I needed it. He didn’t. All the deadlines passed and suddenly I had a twenty-thousand-dollar tuition bill that needed to be paid immediately and no money. And I was too angry to ask my dad to please remember he had a daughter.”

Matt’s face softened as he said, “What did you do?”

“I went to the bank and withdrew my savings and paid it.”

“Ouch.”

“At least I had savings. I had the first semester’s tuition and enough for a good bit of the second semester, but I was furious. He never even considered that I’d need money. I was getting an allowance, but it wasn’t enough for tuition and books and the dorm. Just basics like one meal a day and shampoo. And I realized he didn’t even care enough about me to ask.” She swallowed back the wave of emotion that clogged her throat. “So I decided the hell with him and I went job hunting.”

“That’s when you became a nanny.”

“Yep. Changed my classes to night classes and lived in with the families I worked for so I didn’t have to worry about the dorm. And became my own woman.”

His brow furrowed. “So, we’re sort of alike.”

“A little, but my story doesn’t end as happily as yours.”

He sent her a look, encouraging her to explain. Unsure if she should, she sucked in a breath. But in the end, she decided that if she intended to push him past his boundaries, the least she could do was be honest with him.

“My dad died my third year at university. All the money he made, all the money that kept him from me, meant nothing. He had a heart attack when he was alone and, with no one to help him or even call an ambulance, he died.”

Matt reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “I’m so sorry.”

“If he’d paid one whit of attention to me, I would have been there. He wouldn’t have died. But he’d treated me like an afterthought and I genuinely believed he didn’t want me around.” Bottled up feelings began to pop free, making her voice shaky and her eyes water. “But do you want to know the real punch line of this story? All his money came to me. All that money that kept him from me.” She paused to take a cleansing breath. “I didn’t want it. But I wasn’t so foolish as to flush it down a toilet.”

He barked a short laugh, one of acknowledgment, but with very little humor.

“I bought a new car and my condo and gave the rest to charity.”

He studied her from across the table. “You gave your inheritance to charity?”

“I didn’t want it. I took enough for a decent start on life, then let it go. I didn’t want the money that had stolen my dad from me.”

“And that’s why you’re not impressed with money.”

She inclined her head, not able to speak. Now she wasn’t just remembering her time at university. Memories of her lonely years as a little girl had also floated to the surface. Memories of how much she’d wanted her father’s love, and how stubborn she’d gotten as a teenager, staying out of the house on weekends that she’d known he’d be home because she feared he’d only spend his time working and ignore her. And she couldn’t handle the pain of his silent rejection anymore.

Tears filled her eyes and the lump of emotion came back to her throat. She missed her dad. But, then again, it seemed she’d spent her whole life missing her dad.

“That’s why you want me to be a good dad for Bella.”

She nodded.

He pulled his hand away and scrubbed it down his face. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Her voice broke. They were finally genuinely getting to know each other. He wasn’t apologizing for bringing up a sensitive subject any more than she was apologizing for getting hurt over his sniping at her. Their apologies were for their misconceptions about each other up to this point. All the same, it was the first time she’d spoken about her dad with anyone and emotions she hadn’t expected overwhelmed her.

“Sometimes I look back on the years I was in school being stubborn and headstrong over my dad’s ‘slights’ and I realize that if I’d pushed for his attention things might have been very different.”

To her embarrassment, her tears spilled over. She’d cried about her dad before, but never so honestly and certainly never with another person. But she could talk about this with Matt because she knew he understood. He hadn’t gotten along with his stepfather any better than she’d gotten along with her father. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. It also didn’t take away the guilt. She’d been twenty-one when her dad died. Surely, she could have been mature enough to go to his house and say, “Let’s have dinner?”

Fresh tears erupted at that and she rose from the table to get something to wipe her eyes. After a few seconds of searching for tissues, her frustration with looking collided with her frustration with her life and her tears became full-scale sobbing. “Is there a box of tissues in this room that seems to have everything but tissues?”

Panicked by her tears, he bounced off his seat. “That’s a good question.” He roamed around the room, fruitlessly seeking tissues, and in the end ripped a paper towel off the roll by the sink.

But when he reached her, she wouldn’t look at him again, reminding him of how she wouldn’t look at him after he’d yelled about not wanting to know his family. Regret filled him, along with intense longing to be kind to this woman who’d had a childhood far more difficult than his.

Rather than hand the paper towel to her, he rolled it in a ball and lightly dabbed it along the tracks of her tears.

That brought her gaze to his and he swallowed. She was so beautiful, but right in that moment it wasn’t her beauty that called to him. It was something more, something deeper, something so important he didn’t dare let himself examine it.

But he also couldn’t ignore it. With their gazes locked and tears welling in her eyes again, that “something deeper” inside him wouldn’t let this moment slide away. He lowered his head, watching her eyes darken. With fear? With curiosity? He couldn’t tell. He only knew that if he didn’t kiss her right this second, he would be sorry.

Softly, slowly, he let his lips graze hers, telling her with his actions that he understood and wanted to comfort her.

And every bit as slowly her lips rose to meet his, answering him, accepting his comfort.

The kiss grew as they experimented with the feel and taste of each other’s lips. Arousal surged through him, along with the knowledge that she wasn’t like any other woman he’d ever known. Not even Ginny, a pampered princess who might have had to fight alongside her second husband for success, but who didn’t understand suffering. Sadness. The feeling of not quite living up to the expectations of the person who meant the most to you.

Claire understood. She was a real person. A real woman. Someone with problems and goals, who knew life didn’t always turn out the way you hoped.

She suddenly pulled away from him. “What are you doing?”

She stepped back, gaping at him as if he were crazy. “You told me you’re a mean, coldhearted playboy. Somebody I should stay away from. Why the hell would you kiss me like that?”

Like that. She hadn’t spelled it out, but he knew what she meant. Why had he kissed her like he meant it? Like he had feelings for her. Like they had connected.

His breath caught in his chest and seemed to knot there. What the hell was he doing?

“I need to wash my face.” She took another step back, then turned and raced out of the kitchen.

He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck as he sat at the table again. Vibrating with confusion, he stared at his soup. He couldn’t argue her logic. Didn’t want to apologize. How could he? What would he say? Hey, we connected. Why not kiss? He wasn’t like that. He didn’t want to be like that! He wanted to be left alone.

Yet she needed him. He more than sensed it. And something inside of him surged with longing to be the one to fix whatever was wrong.

It was absurd. Not just because he’d never wanted to be a great “fixer” of people. He was an iceman. But also because he didn’t know how to fix anybody. Hell, he couldn’t even fix himself.

Racing up the stairs to the makeshift nursery, Claire just wanted to roll up in a ball and die. She didn’t know what was worse, exposing her secrets to a virtual stranger, or accepting his comfort when she knew deep down inside he didn’t mean it.

Oh, for a few seconds she thought he had. The sweet, sensitive way he’d kissed her made her believe her story had touched him. And maybe it had, but it didn’t mean anything. He was who he was. And by God, she’d promised herself and Joni she wasn’t going to try to change him.

Yet, the second his lips touched hers, her common sense fled out the window!

What the hell was she thinking? They might have a lot of things from their pasts in common, but how long had she known this guy? Twenty-four hours? Only an idiot didn’t learn from her mistakes. And she’d made a huge mistake at university with Ben, a professor she barely knew. She would not make that mistake again. Especially not with a guy nicknamed Iceman.

She stepped into his bedroom and closed the door with a sigh. They had a huge house at their disposal yet they were virtually sleeping in the same room. Sharing a bathroom. Spending twenty-four hours a day together. Telling secrets they hadn’t told another soul. Was it any wonder they were acting out of character?

She splashed water on her face and looked at her reflection in the mirror around the waterfall. This was the danger Joni had warned her about and she’d fluffed off thinking she was strong enough to resist him.

Well, maybe she wasn’t.

Loneliness made her vulnerable; longing for a family had made her take a foolish risk with Ben. Being with Matt seemed to bring out her loneliness and her longing and wish for things in him that absolutely weren’t there.

Unless she wanted to make another mistake, they had to stop having personal conversations. She had to take this time together and make it all about baby lessons again. No more watching his feelings. No more friendly overtures. Nothing but baby lessons.

When she returned downstairs, he was happily playing with Bella, who still sat in the high chair. As she entered the kitchen, his eyes clouded with regret, which only made her feel worse. If she hadn’t blubbered on about her dad, he probably wouldn’t have kissed her.

“You’re back.”

“I told you I just needed to wash my face.”

“Look, I’m sorry—”

She stopped him with a wave of her hand. “We’re fine. Talking about my dad upset me and I took it out on you.”

His eyebrows rose. “Took it out on me?”

“I normally don’t freak out when someone kisses me.” She drew a breath. “But…” She waited until he met her gaze before she said, “Our circumstances are unusual. We’re virtually sleeping in the same room. We’re playing house with a baby. I think we need to use a little common sense and not do things like talk about our lives and kiss.”

Looking incredibly relieved, he nodded.

They fed Bella as if nothing had happened and carried her back to the nursery. Focusing on the baby, Claire’s calm, confident demeanor returned. As Matt went to the dresser for clean pj’s, Claire opened Bella’s little jeans and stifled a laugh over the sight he’d made of her diaper.

“I should have given you a diaper lesson before I left.”

He sniffed. “Maybe.”

The tightness in her chest loosened a bit. This was what they needed to do. Focus on Bella. Forget about kissing. Forget about talking. Stop trying to be friends.

She considered offering to give him diaper lessons now, but didn’t feel comfortable with them standing so close when they were only a few minutes off a kiss and an argument. Instead, she let him go downstairs for a fresh bottle.

A few minutes later, with Bella asleep in the crib, Matt led her into the office/den. Walking to his desk, he peered back at her. “While you were at your office, I took the liberty of calling a nanny service.”

She could have been insulted, thinking he was trying to get rid of her. But after that kiss she wanted to leave.

“Not giving me a chance to hang up on them this time?”

He smiled. “Exactly.”

As he sat in the chair behind the desk, she sat on the one in front of it. “So?”

“So…since you’re here, I thought I might skip the temporary nanny and I talked with them about hiring someone permanently. They emailed a bunch of résumés and I printed them out.”

He reached behind to the printer on the credenza, pulled out a stack of papers and handed them to her. “I’m giving you first right of refusal. Knowing me the way you do, and also knowing Bella, you probably understand better than anyone who won’t fit with us.”

She took the résumés. “I can weed out the prospective nannies I think won’t work.” She glanced up at him. “But you can’t choose a nanny from a résumé.”

“I’d intended to interview them.”

She nodded. “Good.”

He pointed across the desk at the papers she held. “You pick the ones I should interview.”

She looked down at the résumés. Now that their relationship had returned to something more businesslike, her goal for being here—making sure Bella got the best care—guided her again. “If you want, I can help you with the interviews.”

“That would be great.”

She began reading the résumés, looking specifically for nannies with experience with babies. They called the agency and set up interviews with six of the candidates for Friday.

“So if all goes well,” Claire said, rising from her seat. “You should have somebody on Saturday.”

Matt tossed his pen to his desk. “Yeah.” And then she would go. And then he could stop feeling these odd things he always felt around her.

That was good.

Very good.

Very good for both of them.

She made a few marks on the résumés, and he remained in his seat, not really sure if he should stay or go. Luckily, Bella’s little voice tumbled from the baby monitor.

He bounced off his seat. “I’ll get her.”

Claire rose, too. “I’ll help. I think it’s time for the diaper lesson.”

A laugh bubbled up, but he stopped it before it could escape. Even when she was mad at him, she could be funny. And he liked that—a lot more than he cared to admit. But she’d had a rough childhood, and she deserved a good life with a nice guy. He didn’t fit that bill. So he had to stop responding to her. Stop laughing. Stop telling her things. In fact, maybe it was time to let her go. He knew a lot about caring for Bella and he wasn’t an idiot. Now that he was comfortable with the baby, he could figure out a lot of the rest of it himself. And she’d chosen the best candidates for his nanny. He’d interviewed people before. Surely, he could hire his own nanny.

They walked up the stairs and entered the nursery to find Bella sitting up, her face tearstained, her lips turned down in an angry pout.

“Oh, sweetie,” Claire said, lifting Bella from the crib. “You’re all right.”

Bella nuzzled into Claire’s neck, and clung to her, causing Matt’s heart to somersault. For as much as he wished he could let Claire leave so he could stop having these “feelings” about her, Bella needed her.

Still, he had to get Bella beyond this. She was his child to raise and he would step up.

He walked over, took Bella from Claire. “Hey—” He almost said kid, but wondered if the reason Bella was so slow to bond with him was his direct manner with her. So he said, “Sweetie,” as Claire did. “How about if Daddy changes your pants this time?”

She sniffed and turned to Claire, reaching for her, but Claire stepped back as if she understood Matt’s intention to spend more time with Bella and speed up the bonding process. “I’m right here. But Daddy’s going to change you.”

Bella yelped. Matt just kept going. He walked to the bed and set Bella down.

Claire said, “We should have ordered a changing table.”

He peeked back. “What’s that?”

“It looks like a chest of drawers for a baby but the top is made in such a way that you can change her on it. It’s higher so changing her is easier.”

“Sounds like we should order one when we get back downstairs.”

She nodded.

Remembering more of the things he’d seen Claire do, Matt tickled Bella’s tummy. “So did you have a good nap?”

She yelped again.

“Not much of a happy riser, are you?”

He unsnapped the crotch of her pajamas, undid her diaper and froze. “Damn.”

Standing behind him, her lips pressed together to keep from smiling, Claire only raised her eyebrows when he peeked at her.

“Can you get me a diaper?”

“Yes. I was going to get one before you asked, but decided it was important for you to realize lesson one of diaper changing. Get the clean diaper before you take off the dirty one.”

Once again, he had to stifle a laugh. He turned his attention to Bella. “While we wait for the diaper, anything you want to talk about?”

She giggled.

“You know, once you get past that grumpy, first-waking-up stage, you’re actually a very happy kid.”

Claire handed him the clean diaper. “It’s taking less and less time for her to respond to you.”

He slid the diaper beneath her and pulled the sides together.

Leaning over his shoulder, Claire said, “You should wipe her bottom with one of these cloths,” she offered him a container of baby wipes and he took one. “As you clean her, check to make sure her bottom’s not red.”

“What do I do if it’s red?”

She showed him some creams and ointments in the diaper bag and explained about diaper rash. They pronounced her bottom fine and she took the used wipe from him, tossed it in the trash and turned his attention back to the diaper.

“Attach the strips tighter this time. That prevents accidents, but it’s also more comfortable for her not to have her diaper sliding around every time she moves.”

He pulled the tabs tighter. “Got it.”

Finished, he snapped her sleeper and lifted her from the bed. “Playtime?”

Claire nodded and headed for the door. “First, though, we’ll order the changing table.” She paused and smiled at him. His heart did the weird thing again, part squeeze, part roll. He loved it when she smiled. But he also knew they were bad for each other and she hadn’t meant anything by the smile, except her intention to get along with him while she taught him.

“And a few toys. Things that require a little more of her attention than the bear and the rattles. Things that can actually keep her busy or give you something to do while you play with her.”