neck, no idea at all how to respond. “I installed it,” I say weakly. Well, technically I paid someone to, but the nuances of that seemed unimportant to explore with a six- and a three-year-old.
Maria joins the conversation. “Maybe she wants more than the occasional hello,” she suggests. “She’s been very kind to the girls.”
I look at my housekeeper in surprise. Seeing my glance, she just clucks her tongue and shakes her head, turning back to plating. Her expression makes it clear that I’m being slow.
All right then. I clear my throat. “Would you like it if Bella came over for dinner tomorrow evening?”
Both girls cheer, Evie going so far as to break into a little impromptu dance, wiggling her butt.
Apprehension makes my stomach knot. The last thing I want is for them to get too attached to someone who isn’t permanent. Lord knows their mother had already done enough damage on the trust front.
“I like it too,” Maria says. “I’ll make something special. I like having guests to cook for.”
“Steak?” Evie asks hopefully. For some reason, she’s gotten it into her head that steak is her favorite food, even though she only ever eats a few slices. It really is mine, though. Perhaps that’s why she’s adopted it too.
“Maybe,” Maria says. “Or perhaps we’ll make homemade pizza? You can all make your own? And afterwards you can show Bella your dance recital, Haven.”
The girls launch into feverish practice at that suggestion, so energetic that I have to tell them off when it’s time to get seated for dinner. They’re still excited when I put them to bed, even as I read them their favorite stories and stay for ten minutes extra to make sure they’re truly out for the count.
And then I let my mind stray to the one thing it had wanted to obsess over since that morning. The memory has been nonstop knocking on my mental door, and now I let it in, reveling in it.
Bella, naked and smiling beneath me in the treehouse.
The feel of her body under my hands, the expanse of fair skin, smooth and rosy and freckled and dear God, the slick heat of her… The mental image makes my body ache with need. If only I could’ve buried myself inside of her and felt her arms around me, her body shuddering…
What had come over me? I’d practically mauled her in my children’s new treehouse, for Christ’s sake. The more I think about it, the more aroused I get, and the more aroused I get, the more the guilt grows.
So when the house is quiet, when I’ve made sure everyone is asleep, I softly shut the door to my bedroom and give her a call.
She answers on the second signal. “Ethan?”
“Hey,” I say. “Sorry for calling so late.”
“It’s not late. It’s not even nine o’clock.”
“Right. I suppose I’m on a different schedule,” I say. “Everyone’s asleep here.”
She gives a soft laugh. “How’d it go after I left? Did they play in it the whole day?”
“Yes,” I say. “I had to convince them not to sleep in it, too.”
“You were right.”
“I usually am.”
Her breathless laughter sounds indecently husky to my ear. “So humble, too.”
“The humblest,” I say. “But Bella, about earlier…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know what came over me. Just yesterday I told you I wanted to take you to dinner, and today I practically attack you.”
“You didn’t,” she protests. “I was equally involved.”
The image of her absolutely unreal body rears its glorious head again. I think it might keep hitting me in regular intervals from now on, for the rest of my life, never lessening in potency.
There are worse fates.
“You were,” I say. “I’m glad we were interrupted about as much as I hate that we were.”
“I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
“I wouldn’t have stopped,” I vow.
Bella’s sigh is a tad shaky. “What are you doing now?”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“I’m lying on my bed. I’ve just put two very excited children to bed. I’m actually on the phone right now.”
“Oh, you are?”
“Yes. With my neighbors’ young, ridiculously hot niece. She’s moved in for the summer.”
“Is she nice?”
“Very,” I say. “Too nice, actually. She comes over with baked goods and helpful ideas and is very understanding about my role as single dad. It’s almost too much.”
“Gosh,” Bella says. “She sounds awful.”
“Oh, she’s the worst,” I agree. “I keep hoping she’ll have some flaw, something humanizing, but I come up short every time.”
“No one’s that perfect. You’ll just have to keep digging,” Bella suggests.