How To Wife Your Nanny A Billionaire Single Dad Romantic Comedy- Melinda Minx Page 0,11
her walking away from me a lot.
I glanced over toward Naomi. The kids had found a way to cheat and pull all the fish out of the little mechanical pond with their fingers. I waved at Naomi and smiled, as if my apology was getting anywhere at all.
Lacey was walking toward the cafe now, so I followed her.
She was making a big deal of not looking at me, which made it all the more obvious she was trying to avoid my gaze.
“Stiff neck?” I asked, coming up behind her in line.
“I just don’t want to look at you,” she snapped. “It’s as simple as that.”
“I can talk to the back of your head. No problem.”
She had Naomi’s books tucked under her arm, and her wallet was in her other hand. “Or you could just not talk to me. I’m going to sit down and sign these, then I’ll give them to Naomi. You don’t actually have to stay during Reading Hour either. A lot of parents like to just catch up on work. Or sleep. Whatever.”
“I came here for Reading Hour.”
“Are you a toddler?”
“Maybe I just like watching you read.”
She turned around now. She pressed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and looked up at me. “What are you trying to do, Mr. Black? I don’t get it.”
I didn’t want to tell her that I wanted to make her Naomi’s nanny. Not just yet. When a woman was mad at you, the first thing you had to do was fix that. You never asked for what you wanted when a woman was still mad at you.
“I just wanted to explain. To apologize. And to try to make it good.”
“Are you going to offer every employee from Panda Press a new job? Pay them back for all the damage you did over the last five years?”
“They accepted my buyout.”
“They? You think they had a vote?”
I frowned. “Look. It’s business, but I’m interested in making it good with you. Not with Panda Press. Panda Press wasn’t exactly paying you a fortune.”
“And why do you care about me?” she asked, her voice cracking on the last word.
The tension between us thickened. There was gravity between us in that moment. Her hate was nearly boiling over, and it may have been a while since I was as much of a player as Silas, but I knew when a woman was into me, and I could feel Lacey’s hate just about to shift into something else. I was so close, but fuck was she making it harder than it needed to be.
I watched her lips as I thought how to answer. My eyes wandered to her ear. I remembered how it felt to touch her, and how her body had reacted to it when I did. Before she’d realized that she was supposed to hate me.
Rather than saying anything to her, I reached into my pocket. I grabbed her earring out of it. I’d untangled it from the pig mask when I’d gotten home last week. I figured she didn’t really want me to keep her earring, so I’d brought it back with me today. She wasn’t wearing any earrings today, so I reached right up and brushed her loose bangs behind her ear. She froze like a statue as soon as my hands came near her, and she didn’t make any move stop me from touching her.
I unhooked the earring and moved my hand toward her ear. I gently gripped just above her earlobe where the piercing was, and I ever so carefully moved the earring through the hole. I leaned in close to her to make sure I didn’t miss. The last thing I needed to do was poke a new hole in her ear right now. I slid it shut, backed up, and smiled at her.
Her cheeks were flushed red, and I couldn’t help smiling at that. Yeah, she still liked how it felt when I touched her. She could hate me all she wanted, but she still wanted me, I just had to get her to admit as much.
She reached up to her other ear. “You want me to just wear one earring? I don’t have the other one with me.”
“It looks good,” I said. “Leave it like that. You look like some kind of runway model making a statement.”
“I’m wearing a flannel shirt from a thrift store, and a skirt from Target. My panty hose…” she trailed off.
“Yes?” I said, grinning wide. “Pantyhose?” I looked down at her