“No. Tonight is yours, and I’m so proud of you. I don’t want you to share your accomplishment with our engagement. We’ll know when the time is right.”
“Wow, that sounds…mature. Did we grow up or something?”
Gabe made a funny face. “Allegedly. C’mon. Let’s go home.”
I sang along with Nat King Cole as I checked the locks. My mind teetered somewhere between exhaustion and my natural state of mulling over the day and planning the next one. But something stopped me.
This was a moment. Right here, right now. We’d turned a page and begun a new chapter…together. As I laced my fingers with Gabe’s and pulled the door shut, I couldn’t help thinking that this really was a magical time of year. And a perfect night to be out for the holidays.
Meet Lane Hayes
Lane Hayes loves a good romance! She’s the bestselling author of the Out in College, Starting From, Better Than, A Kind Of, Right and Wrong, and Leaning Into Series! Lane loves red wine, chocolate and travel (in no particular order). All things she can find in sunny SoCal where she lives with her amazing husband in a not quite empty nest.
It would be a Christmas miracle if he loved me back.
Hiring Paul is the best thing I’ve done for my small family. With love, care, and ruthless organizational skills Paul has taken care of my children, Anna, AJ, and Aden, with me as part of the deal. He always told me he’d only stay two years and that he wanted to travel the world, but it didn’t stop me falling in love with him. I never told him, because who am I to steal his dreams? Now he’s handed his resignation to me so I have a decision to make. He’s leaving us and I can either tell him I love him and ask him to stay, or watch him go.
The photo I couldn’t stop staring at was innocent enough. It was of Paul, my manny for two years now, sitting on the sofa in our front room, my three babies all curled up around him fast asleep. The triplets had only been eight months at that time; Anna had been teething, Aden and AJ had spent an hour wailing in sympathy, and Paul had been up all night, alongside me, soothing and rocking and loving the three of them. I’d snapped a photo of him and the triplets asleep, because in all the chaos created by my beautiful children, that’d been a rare moment of peace.
Maybe I’d fallen in love with Paul on that night? I didn’t know for sure but it could have been that day when the first seed had been planted of my wanting Paul as something more than my children’s nanny.
For two years, Paul had cared for the triplets with a gentle touch, and me alongside that. Somehow, I’d continued to hand my heart to him in tiny pieces, until at Thanksgiving the words I’d held inside spilled out. The children were in bed, the day had been busy, we’d had nothing to do but watch a movie and drink chocolate, and he’d fallen asleep, slid sideways and slept against me.
I didn’t take a photo but I did whisper the words that were in my heart. I love you.
It was the only time I’d been honest with him, and myself. Even a month later I couldn’t say the words out loud for a million reasons that used to make sense. This meant I was alone in my office and I couldn’t focus on anything but the letter perched on the corner of my desk. That damned piece of paper was the reason my chest was tight with the crushing inevitability of my heart breaking. Across the front of the envelope Paul had written my name in beautiful cursive and the edges of it were ragged where I’d opened it, thinking it was nothing more sinister than one of his homemade Christmas cards, like the ones he made with the children. But it wasn’t a card covered in glitter, or embellished with feathers, it was his resignation letter. Even though I’d known that the two years he’d promised me were almost up, I’d ignored the fact because maybe if I refused to acknowledge he was getting ready to leave, then it might not