Chapter Twenty-One
Jake
I felt like a teenager again. I’d forgotten the strange and juvenile impulses that came with being a young adolescent and discovering that your body had urges and desires you couldn’t always control.
But it was more than just desire. It was the increased pulse every time she walked past. It was the way I looked up excitedly when she walked into the room. It was the way my mind landed on her every time I had a moment to myself.
The first few days after we’d slept together, I had been scrambling around trying to find someone competent to replace Janet. Kristen had picked up a lot of the slack for me when I worked from home. Thankfully, a few days ago, she had sent me over this list with contact numbers of all the best babysitters and nannies in San Diego. It had been an extensive list with details about every person on it. It had taken me eleven meetings and three second interviews, but I’d finally found someone I was happy with.
She was an older woman named Elaine Bennet, she was fifty-two years old, and she was a primary school teacher for fifteen years before she went back to school to study child psychology. After that, she’d decided she wanted to look after children on a smaller basis. The catch was that she wasn’t a live-in and wouldn’t be on call twenty-four seven. She had made that abundantly clear to me. She was willing to come when I needed her to, but insisted on at least a day’s notice beforehand.
It wasn’t ideal, but I decided that desperate times called for desperate measures. The list Kristen had given me also offered choice. I decided that in times of emergency, when Elaine was too busy to come, I would call my second-best option—Emily was in her twenties, young and too bubbly in my opinion, but enthusiastic and willing to come at the last minute if I happened to need her. I didn’t like the idea of alternating between babysitters, but at the moment, I couldn’t afford to be picky.
With that problem taken care of for the time being, I had gotten back to work, hoping to make a dent in all the work that had piled up over the last week, but unfortunately, that was proving to be difficult.
Especially because Kristen kept walking into the office every hour with files, notes, and paperwork needing my attention. It didn’t matter what she wore; I was instantly attracted to her. Every time she bent over, I would catch a glimpse of her cleavage and the boy in me did cartwheels. Every time she turned away from me, I found myself checking out her ass as she walked away.
I realized how hard up I had been before. The difference was that I hadn’t been made aware of exactly how hard up I was. Now that the sexual being in me had been awakened, I didn’t quite know how to put him back in the box.
Still, I knew I had to control myself. Sexual desire was one thing, but emotional readiness was another thing altogether. I still thought about that moment the morning after we had slept together and the fact that I’d referred to Kristen as Daphne. It told me that I needed to figure out a few things first before I let sex cloud my judgment. Which was exactly why I wanted to get to know Kristen before sleeping with her again.
All this time, she’d been my secretary. I didn’t know anything about her or her personal life, but now she was this new and exciting woman I was dating. And, it was important to me that I find out who she was before I let myself get invested.
Just then, there was a knock at my door.
“Come in,” I called.
Kristen walked in with a thick yellow file that made my head spin. “Sorry to disturb you,” she said. “But this just came in from New Zealand—details of the new contract.”
She was looking lovely today. She was wearing a nice black skirt, a blush pink blouse that brought out the hazel in her eyes, and her auburn hair cascaded down one shoulder. She looked out of place in my office actually, almost as though she belonged on a runway somewhere.
“Geez.”
Kristen smiled at me sympathetically, eyeing the massive file. “The meeting’s set for the end of October.”
“A month away?”
“A little under three weeks,” she corrected.
I sighed. “I actually thought I’d have a little more free time after I closed the deal with the Japanese.”
“It’s a good thing,” she said. “You’re doing well. Everyone says so.”
“Who’s everyone?” I asked with one raised eyebrow.
“The people in this division,” she said. “Apparently, this company was badly mismanaged before you came along.”
“Is that why the board of directors are so happy now?”
“Apparently so,” Kristen smiled.
I glanced at my watch. “It’s lunchtime…”
“Oh right,” she nodded. “Sorry, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Uh wait, Kristen,” I called out after her, surprised that she had taken that as a dismissal.
“Yes?” she turned to me questioningly.
“Why don’t you bring your lunch in here and we can eat together?” I suggested.
She seemed surprised but happy at the prospect. “That sounds nice, but won’t it look a little strange to people?”
“Why should it?” I asked. “You’re my secretary, I’m behind on work, so we’re working and eating at the same time. That’s completely innocent.”
“If you say so,” she nodded.
She retrieved her lunch and joined me at my desk. Feeling as though my desk was creating a formal barrier between us, I walked around it and sat next to her. I noticed that she was fumbling a little with her lunch and realized she nervous.
“So, how’s the new nanny?” Kristen asked.
“Remains to be seen,” I replied. “So far, she seems to know what she’s doing, and she seems to like Noah a lot, too. That helps. I’ve got another babysitter on speed dial, in case of emergencies.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Elaine won’t come without notice,” I explained. “But Emily will; she’s younger and more flexible. I need that with my work schedule.”
“Right,” Kristen nodded. “Has Noah met them?”
“He’s met Elaine a few times now, and he’s met Emily once,” I said. “I’m hoping not to use Emily as much… But I have no idea how this is going to play out. I really need Mary Poppins right about now.”
Kristen smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll find her.”
“You sound sure.”
“Hey, there’s bound to be someone out there,” she said comfortingly. “And, I suppose until then, Elaine and Emily will just have to do. But if all else fails, I’d be more than happy to step in.”
“You’re offering up your babysitting services?”
“I am,” she nodded. “And best of all, I won’t charge you a penny.”
“Wow, you like me that much?” I teased.
“Actually, I like Noah that much,” she corrected me.
We laughed, and I reflected on how nice and easy it was for me to talk to her. She looked so sexy, sitting there with her blouse slightly parted at the neckline and her hair cascading down her breasts. I imagined what it would be like to take her right here on my desk, but I had to suppress the urge. I had promised myself that sex would have to wait until we knew each other better.
“Kristen?”
“Yes?” she said, looking up at me.
“I really like spending time with you.”
She blushed slightly and looked down for a moment. When she looked back up at me, I saw that there was an edge of sadness in her eyes that I couldn’t quite understand.
“I like spending time with you, too,” she replied.
“I know we haven’t got a chance to do that much—”
“Hey, you have a demanding job and a child,” Kristen said. “I understand that. You don’t have to worry about explaining that to me. I’m not one of those girls who’s scared of being neglected. I don’t mind playing second fiddle to Noah. In fact, I expect it.”
I smiled. “Thank you for saying that.”
She nodded. She looked like she wanted to reach out and touch me or kiss me...but I wasn’t quite sure which.
“Jake,” she said before I could continue. “Can I ask you a kind of personal question?”
“Shoot,” I said willingly.
“Well, I guess I wanted to know…if you were still in love with your wife,” Kristen asked tentatively. “And, remember that there’s no wrong answer.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You wouldn’t mind if I said I was still in love with her?”
“No,” she said quickly, and then she stalled a little. “Well…maybe I would mind a little, but that would be purely selfish on my part. I would understand, of course—at least I would try to.”
I knew it was an important question, and I wanted to be fair to her, as well as honest about my feelings. “I will always love Daphne,” I said at last. “But I think I’m starting to realize that she’s my past, and I need to start focusing on my future.”
Kristen listened carefully. She looked conflicted again, and I wondered if I saw fear in her eyes for a moment.
“Thank you for answering honestly,” she replied finally.
“I don’t come with a clean slate, Kristen.”
“I know that,” she said. “And, I don’t care.”
“You might care later.”
“We all have pasts, Jake,” she told me gently. “I understand that your wife was an important part of your life. And, I know she’s still an important part of your life. How can she not be? You have a wonderful child with her. But I just need to know that there’s room in your life for…someone else.”
I smiled. “I think there is,” I replied. “And, that’s something I realized only recently. Actually, you were the one that helped me realize it.”
“Really?” she asked. “When?”
“Around the time you kissed me for the first time,” I said. “The night we had sex.”
She blushed. “That night was very special to me,” she said, in an almost shy tone.
“It was for me, too. I like you, Kristen,” I said. “I want to get to know you better. But I also think I need to take things slow, for obvious reasons.”
“I understand.”
“I’d like to have dinner with you this weekend,” I continued. “But…let’s take sex off the table.”
I saw a glimmer of surprise in Kristen’s eyes, but I also noticed that she looked pleased. “I’d love to have dinner with you,” she agreed.
I hoped I could hold out and keep my hands off her at the end of the night. I knew it would be a challenge, but I wanted to see this through because I wanted to put my past behind me. Finally, after three long years, I was ready to move on.