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My physical reaction is instant. I feel the rush of blood to my cock, the throb of arousal as I watch her veer back towards the house. I’m rock-hard before I even register the sensation, the memory of those perfect hips and firm ass under my hands enough to make my palms itch. Everything about her was—is—perfect.
I feel another sharp jab of guilt for ogling her. Just because I’ve had her in my bed, just because I know every inch of her intimately, doesn’t mean I have the right to look at her that way now. Especially when that part of our relationship is supposed to be over.
I gave her everything she wanted. I taught her how sex is supposed to feel. I showed her all the ways she should expect to receive pleasure. And I made sure that her first experience of having a man inside of her was one that she would remember in only the best ways.
After that, this was supposed to be over. Done. She was supposed to just be the nanny again.
And I was an idiot to think that was possible.
I groan, pressing the heel of my hand against my cock as I watch her disappear around the side of the house. It throbs under my hand, reminding me that it’s been days since I’ve so much as jerked off. I used to go weeks, sometimes months, without touching myself, my libido all but dead in the wake of losing the one person who had meant the most to me. But Bella has made me feel alive again in a number of ways.
This is the most inconvenient one, considering our current situation.
I have half a mind to go back into the office, lock the door, and give myself the relief I so desperately need. But the last thing I need is someone seeing me through the windows—and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the desire Bella rouses in me, it’s that a quick, furtive stroke will do nothing to ease my arousal.
Instead, I grind my heel against the base of my stubborn erection once more, willing it to go down, and stride back uncomfortably toward the house.
There, I’m at least distracted enough to take my mind off of it. Bella is nowhere to be seen—Agnes tells me that she went upstairs to shower after her run, an image that I quickly banish from my mind, and I go up to shower as well. Once again, I do everything in my power to keep from thinking about her, or else my shower will turn out to be a longer one than I meant for it to be.
It’s pointless, anyway, I tell myself, ignoring my erection as I scrub myself clean and towel off. Nothing satisfies my need for Bella except the woman herself. And even then, I could go all night with her, in a way that I haven’t been able to with anyone in a long time. I can fuck her as many times as she wants me, over and over again. All it takes is a look from her, a sound, to make me hard.
Desperately trying to shove all thoughts of Bella—and what it is about her that arouses me—out of my head, I put on a pair of jeans and a black linen t-shirt and head downstairs. I’m greeted by the smell of herbs and cooking meat, and I walk into the kitchen to find Cecelia setting the table; the kitchen is noticeably cleaner than it was this morning, although there are still all of the things that need to be repaired. I also notice a number of bright sticky notes taped to a variety of surfaces, which makes me smile.
“What are those?” I ask, and a voice that makes all the hairs on my arms stand up as prickles run over my skin answers from just behind me.
“We wrote down all of our ideas and put them on the notes, so we can come back tomorrow and start looking for what we want to actually do,” Bella says, walking into the room with an ease that makes me think she looks right at home here. Most of the tension seems to have drained out of her, and she looks utterly beautiful in a pair of dark blue jeans and a sleeveless eyelet tank top, her chestnut hair pulled up into a high ponytail. I blink, thinking what looks like earrings are a trick of the light, but then I see that it isn’t. She’s replaced her usual rose gold jewelry with a pair of gold earrings made up of a handful of thin chains that brush the side of her neck as she moves.
I grabbed a pouch of what looked like jewelry when I packed for her. Clearly, she’s decided to put it to good use. The sight of the swaying earrings makes me think of running my own finger down the length of her neck, and all of the blood in my body immediately rushes south again.
I sink down into the kitchen chair at the head of the table, looking anywhere except at those damned earrings.
“This place is going to be beautiful again with a little TLC. I just know it,” Bella continues enthusiastically, going to the counter to scoop up a large wooden salad bowl and bringing it to the table. She moves through the kitchen with a confidence that I’ve never seen in her before, and it’s mesmerizing to watch. “Agnes and I got really excited today, making plans.”
“Me, too,” Cecelia chimes in, bringing a plate of sliced sourdough bread and a crock of olive oil with herbs to the table to set down next to the salad—which I see now is mixed greens, with peaches and soft, crumbled goat cheese that’s undoubtedly from the estate itself sprinkled over the top. “Bella and Agnes are letting me pick out color schemes.”
“She’s got a knack for it,” Agnes says, joining the rest of us as she brings a china platter that I recognize as being from my mother’s wedding set to the table, an herbed roast chicken surrounded by potatoes and vegetables sitting in the center of it. A moment later, Aldo comes in, sinking down next to his wife as she sits down primly and hands me a carving knife.
“You might have a future interior designer on your hands.” Bella grins at Cecelia across the table. “Her first project can be right here at home.”
Something squeezes in my chest, a tight band of emotion that makes it hard to breathe for a moment. This is what I’ve been missing for years. I can feel it here, right now, in the way Bella is looking at my daughter and the way Cecelia is smiling back at her, in the peace among the six of us at the table, as much a family as anyone ever was.
I want to keep this. This feeling, this moment, I want to freeze it in time and never let it go. But I know I can only ever keep it for a little while.
Bella will leave, eventually, when this matter with Igor is over, and she’s safe again. She’s happy here now, but one day, she’ll feel safe enough to seek out a different life, a life of her own. She’ll decide on a career she wants—maybe pursue photography for real now that her father is no longer holding her back. She’ll meet someone. And she’ll leave this job, and this family behind, a starting point on the way to a better life than she would have had otherwise.
The thought should make me feel good. It’s what I set out to do for her. But the idea of losing her makes my chest ache in a different way. And the thought of someone else with her, touching her, doing all the things to her that I still imagine and dream about at night, makes me feel a jealous possessiveness that I’d forgotten I was capable of.
But she’s not mine. And I feel sure that if I tried to make her mine, I’d only disappoint her in the end.
I push the thoughts away as we start to eat, focusing instead on how excited Cecelia is to tell me about the house and their plans for it, about the color palettes that she likes, her ideas for paint or wallpaper for different rooms. Her enthusiasm warms me—I like the idea that even once this place belongs to someone else, it’ll still have my family’s mark on it. Not only my parents’ contribution to it, but my children’s, as well.
I’d meant to break the news about the plans to sell to everyone over dinner. But seeing the excitement on Cecelia and Bella’s faces about the renovation makes me not want to say anything just yet. I can already imagine how their faces would fall, how the tone of the dinner would change. I know the explanations I’ll have to go into and the conversation I’ll have to have about the reasons for the sale. And I don’t want to kill the moment.
I also don’t want to mar the one thing that seems to be bringing Bella happiness right now, distracting her from thinking about all of the possibilities of what could happen once Igor retaliates. And I know he will. I have to find out how to defend against it, how to ensure he doesn’t harm anyone I care for again—and I also want to keep those fears as far from Bella as possible, in the meantime.
When dinner is done, and the table cleared, I see Bella start to leave to take the children upstairs. I know I should just let her go and end the night, but I put out a hand instead, touching her arm.
She goes very still, glancing over at me, one eyebrow raised questioningly.
