Jasper doesn’t come near me today, and though Ross skulks around, shooting daggers my way. He doesn’t approach me, so I’m guessing Jasper is keeping an eye on him.

On both of us.

I came in expecting stupid drama and theatrics. I thought Jasper would take the excuse of me being late to tear me a new one. That he’d be waiting for me, force me to my knees and make me apologize to Ross. Kiss his boots.

Or his goddamn ass. Whatever.

But he doesn’t, and yeah, I’m grateful it hasn’t come to this, not yet anyway. I’d hate to lose this job, it pays good, but no way will I be apologizing to that freak Ross. It’s been a couple of fucking bad days, and my patience... What patience?

It’s just unexpected, that’s all. The lack of yelling and punches thrown. The goddamn quiet.

Leaving way too much space inside my head. Way too much fucking time for my warped, twisted thoughts to take over.

“Ross wants your balls on a stick, and Jasper is sulking,” Evan says as he emerges from under the hood of an old Audi sedan, a smudge of grease on his chin. “You scored a real hit there.”

I arch a brow at him. What the fuck is he talking about?

“Ross.” Evan eyes critically the engine he’s been working on. “It was about time someone called that asshole out on his bullshit and put a stop to his bullying.”

“Are you saying Jasper believes Ross did it?”

Evan gives me a startled look. “You’re surprised? He’s Ross’s father. Knows him better than any of us. Knows he’s a bully through and through.”

Yeah.

I glance at Jasper’s office, the grimy windows. “Has he been bullying girls?”

“Ross?” Evan snorts. “All his fucking life.” He shoots me a sharp look. “When you say girls, do you by any chance have a specific one in mind?”

I shrug. “Octavia.”

Evan nods, eyes narrowed as if doing complicated mental calculations. “Of course, Octavia. She was his favorite target.”

“Was?” I latch onto that word.

“Yeah. At school. Now he lost his favorite toy, and apparently thought to try it with you.” He tsks. “He picked the wrong person to annoy, it seems.”

Does it? Sure, I can deck him easily, but is it enough? The thought of him torturing Octavia sends my pulse roaring in my ears. Anger boils in my chest.

That stupid motherfucker.

“Anyway,” Evan goes on blithely, returning to his engine. “I bet you got the message home with that punch. Or maybe it was because his old man was listening in? You didn’t get another message since then, did you?”

I frown. Well, I did. There was that one message when I got back home yesterday, but Ross must have stuck it there earlier, before he came back here, to the workshop.

So does this mean it’s over? I could sure do with a respite. With Cole’s stunt this morning, and Octavia last night…

Hell. Octavia.

Soon I’ll have to drive back home. She’ll want to talk, probably just to tell me that she won’t be coming back. She’ll also want an explanation for last night, and quite frankly, I don’t know if I have one.

I wanted her, that’s for damn sure.

Have wanted her all along. Still want her. So fucking bad I can feel it in my bones.

But last night I freaked out and acted like the asshole I am.

Because I want more than that. Having her spread underneath me isn’t enough. I freaked out because I want her beside me, I want her in my house, with my kids.

Christ, I’m fucked either way. I thought I had more control over myself, but when it comes to her, I have none.

So what more is there to talk about?

* * *

The porch light is on when I park in front of the house. The windows are lit from inside, a golden, warm glow. It looks like… a home.

I sit in my truck and stare, fighting the tug in my chest, the fucking burn in my eyes. This… not the house, not the windows but this feeling reminds me of the past. Of how I used to feel.

A feeling I forgot.

So of course I fight it. The warm feeling, the relief and wonder, the goddamn memories of a time when I used to be happy. I slam my fist on the wheel, smash my elbow into the truck door. Welcome the pain.

This isn’t real. The lights, the warmth, the feelings. This isn’t my home, I lost that years ago. Sure, my kids are in that house, but not my wife, not my girl. And she’s leaving, anyway.

Yeah, this is reality.

Jumping out of my truck, slamming the door shut, I head down the path, climb the porch steps and take a second to rejoice at the lack of knives stuck to the front door.

Then I take a deep breath and open.

The smell of something mouthwatering hits me instantly, that of a cake fresh from the oven. Vanilla, sugar, butter.

Goddammit, the illusion runs deep. Maybe I’m still asleep—only in my dreams I never see the good times. No, I always revisit the bad and ugly, and see all the ways I have and could have failed my family.

My stomach growls like an angry bear, and how’s that for a greeting?

Octavia is standing in the middle of the living room, looking right at me, a faint smile on her face.

“Someone’s hungry,” she says.

Okay, what the fuck? Maybe I entered some fucking alternate universe? I’d consider the possibility if not for the trace of pain in her eyes. They’re red-rimmed, as if she’s been crying.

Fuck.

“Daddy!” Cole jumps up from his spot on the carpet and runs to me, grabbing my knee. “Tati made dinner. And cake!”

Mary who’s still kneeling on the carpet grins and waves at me, and makes her doll wave at me, too.

I blink.

And then my traitorous stomach growls again—probably because it caught another smell under the cake, like chicken and sauce.

“Chicken and mushroom casserole,” Octavia says. “Cake for dessert. That okay?”

I nod dumbly, not sure what I’m supposed to say or do at this point. Okay? Hell yeah, it’s okay, and yet it sends dread through me.

We sit at the kitchen table, and this time I have Mary beside me, a napkin tucked under her chin, her hair in pigtails.

I’m still shaking my head, trying to clear the cobwebs. “Where did we get chicken and mushroom and…” I gesture at the pot Octavia just placed on the table. “All of this?”

“I had Gigi shop for us at the grocery store on the Main.” At my questioning look, she says, “Gigi is my sister.”

Right. Did I know her sister’s name? Or that she had a sister at all? All these days, weeks she’s been working for me, have I ever asked her a single question about herself?

“I’m gonna go shop tomorrow,” I say as she serves us food. “Thought I saw a Walmart just out of town.”

“Two towns down,” Octavia says.

But who’s counting? “I’ll head out early. And let me know how much you paid for all this.”

She nods. “You guys need to eat,” she says, stroking Cole’s hair. “Them. And you. Proper meals, not only sandwiches and take-out pizzas.”

The kids ratted me out, huh? This is just another reminder of how much I suck as a parent, but I forget to get pissed when I take the first bite and discover just how hungry I am.

Fuck, this is good. And I’m starving for the first time in ages. I stuff my mouth and inhale my food, losing track of time.

I surface from my eating trance, still chewing and swallowing, to a silence so thick you can cut it with a knife.

“What?” I mumble, frowning at my kids and nanny.

All eyes are on me. What, do I have sauce on my face? I pass my forearm over my mouth and beard, just in case.

“Daddy,” Mary says in a reprimanding tone, her dark, serious eyes so much like mine. “You didn’t use your knife. And you eat like a pig.”

“Pig!” Cole yells, his mouth full of food.

“Eat your food,” Octavia says to him, but she looks like she’s trying not to laugh.

For some reason, my mouth twitches, too. “This is what pigging out is like,” I say solemnly. “Watch and learn.”

Mary giggles, and it turns into laughter. “Daddy is funny,” she says.

Cole laughs, too, spitting food everywhere. “Funny.”

I freeze with a forkload halfway to my mouth. “I am?”

Octavia says nothing, forking a tiny amount of food into her mouth. Her eyes sparkle, though, and I’m left staring at her, my food suddenly forgotten.

There’s something in the way her lashes curve over her eyes, the way her lips part that has me fucking breathless. She’s not looking at me, but I can’t look away.

Fuck me with a rusty fork. I can’t help myself when she’s right in front of me. My dick is hard and my skin prickling all over. I want her.

With my kids at my sides, at the kitchen table, on the night she’s leaving us.

Jesus Christ, Matt.

And you, dick. Down. Haven’t we been over all the reasons why this won’t be happening again? Why it was the mother of all bad ideas in the first place—and look where it’s led us. To Octavia leaving.

Easier said than done. Then again, what’s new?

The dinner has gone to ashes in my mouth. I put my fork down, unaccountably depressed. “So… is this like the last supper? Farewell dinner and cake?”

She laughs, covering her mouth with her hand.

It wasn’t meant to be funny. What’s funny about it? I’m asking in all seriousness, and I hate how tight my chest is. Because I fucked up badly, and I know it.

Still… Reasons, Matt. You know it’s for the best that she goes. You knew it’d be for the best if she’d never set foot inside the house, but you let her in anyway.

Like I said. Can’t help myself.

Can’t now, and couldn’t then.

Dammit.

* * *

The kids take their slice of cake to eat in front of the TV, squabbling about which program to watch. I can see them from where I’m sitting in the kitchen, their little heads bent together as they fight over the remote control.

I grin.

Strong-willed, cute little shits.

Reminding me so much of their mom.

And not only. It hits me as I look back at Octavia. It hits me every time just how much she reminds me of Emma.

Which is sick. Which is why I said no to her the first time—and the second, and the third. Why I told her not to wear dresses, like Emma liked to do. Not to be around my kids, act like their mom.

It scared me. I can’t replace Emma. Can’t let myself fall for a girl because she reminds me of my dead wife.

But she’s not a mirror image of Emma, is she? The more I get to know her, the more different she seems, in so many fucking ways. She’s more innocent, more fragile. Emma was tough like nails, tougher than she should have been at that age.

Octavia is softer, sweeter. More fragile. Easier to break. I can’t bear to be the one to break her.

My chest squeezes again. What the fuck am I thinking?

There’s a thick slice of cake on my plate, a pretty girl across from me, and I just… can’t do this.

Needing to punch something to feel better, or stop thinking, I push my chair back and prepare to storm out, find my poison and drink it up.

“Matt.”

Her soft voice stops me in my tracks. I sit back down. “What?”

“You said… you said your kids have the best nanny already.” Her eyes seem too bright. I can’t read her expression.

“That’s right.”

She pokes at her cake. A frown draws her brows together, then fades. A smile flits over her mouth and is gone.

Is that a good sign? Damn, I wish I could read her better.

“Look,” she says quietly. “My mom… we have some debts. I need the money.”

Of course she does. What was I thinking? That’s why she’s still here. It makes me feel like shit, and I deserve it. “I get it.”

“But I also love your kids. I love this job.”

I watch her face. Determination tightens her fine features, that core of steel of hers shining through her gaze. “Yeah?”

“Let’s forget what happened last night,” she says quietly. “You need a nanny. And I need a job.”

“All right.”

What am I doing? Letting her go would be the smart thing to do.

I guess I’m not that smart. And as for forgetting… maybe she can, but I’m coming to realize I can’t. Not the damn hot sex, nor the fact she came to look for Cole with me, that she stayed with my kids today despite my assholery, cooked us dinner and made up her mind to stay.

Yeah, I can’t put it behind me and erase the traces. But I nod anyway, because she was right the first time.

I don’t just need a nanny.

I need her.

Whatever that means.