Chapter 7

Summer

I felt him; I definitely felt his body hard for me when he caught me in the kitchen. It wasn’t his hand or his leg, it was his desire for me; there was no doubt about it. I wanted him just as badly as he wanted me.

When we went to pick up the kids, I couldn’t stop smiling as I glanced down at his lap and tried to see if he was still hard for me. There didn’t appear to be any evidence of him still wanting me.

My mind was a whirl as I thought about what things could be like with this delicious man. Tyler had it all. He was smart, sexy as hell, and a great father. I hadn’t found anything wrong with him, and normally I found something wrong with pretty much everyone. Yet, I didn’t feel the vibe from him that he wanted to move things forward. Despite his obvious bodily reaction, Tyler was keeping his distance.

We drove in relative silence and got into the line to pick up the kids. It all felt like old hat after being there in the morning, but as we pulled up to the front, the kids weren’t out there.

“So this is where it gets tricky,” Tyler said with a smile. “If the kids aren’t here, or just one of them, you’ve got to drive around again and get back into the line.”

“Do they know to wait for me?”

“Yep, they will wait until you come back around. It’s a normal process. You just can’t be stopped up front.”

“Where was it that I could park if I want to go get them?”

“That parking lot around to the side. If you think it will be easier, you could park there. It’s just really hard to get out once you’re in there.”

I nodded my head in understanding as we went back around and got in line again. Tyler was an old pro, though, and he had us back to the front of the line in no time, and both the kids were there waiting this time.

On the drive home, Faith and Thomas were super chatty, and I could hardly keep what they were saying organized. They wouldn’t even finish what was being said before they continued with the next thing. It was as if they were all hyped up on sugar or something.

“Are they like this all the time after school?” I asked Tyler as he turned up the music so the kids could listen to it and not talk for a little bit.

“Yep, normally they have soccer, dance, or music lessons, so that helps get some of the energy out. But today, we are just going to go home, and we can all make dinner together.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

I was looking forward to getting to know the kids a little better and liked that Tyler was going to stay around. Even just a little more time with him around was going to be helpful. My nerves were getting the best of me after the whole mud thing the other day.

Even though Tyler had been nice about the whole mess, it was still a bit of a disaster, and I felt like I wasn’t showing I was any good at this job. The truth was, I really wasn’t all that great at being a nanny, yet. I was positive this job was for me, though, and I could get better at it.

“Okay, so let’s get the meat ready,” Tyler said as soon as we got in the house. “We are going to barbecue. How does that sound?”

“Can we make hot dogs?” Thomas asked.

“No, we are making ribs. Summer, do you eat ribs?” he asked.

“I love ribs. This is exciting.”

Neither of the kids looked all that excited about the ribs, but neither of them complained either. That was a really good sign for me. I was a horrible kid around my parents. If they were making something I didn’t like, I’d just whine and complain until they agreed to make something else. I was starting to see that I was a bit of trouble for my parents.

Tyler showed us all how to marinade the meat, and then we set it back into the fridge while we started to work on the salad. At first, the kids were all in the kitchen working together, but they slowly peeled off and moved to the television, leaving Tyler and me to cook.

“Do you know how to make pasta salad?” he asked.

“No, I hardly know how to make a simple salad. I’m sorry; I promise I will work on learning more, though. I know the kids will want something more than fast food.”

“Actually, the kids would be fine with fast food every night.” He laughed. “But cooking is a good skill to have. You can always make yourself something and save money. As you get older, saving money is important.”

“I’m starting to realize that.”

We started by boiling some noodles, and then Tyler showed me the spices he liked to add along with oil and vinegar. We cut some tomatoes as well as small pieces of cheese. It was a lot of fun to cook with Tyler, and I was feeling more and more comfortable with him.

We put the salad into the fridge and then made our way outside to get the grill going. With the sun starting to move behind some clouds, it was getting a little cold outside. I grabbed a seat across from the grill as Tyler showed me how to start the grill and prepare it for cooking.

“Are you tired of those shoes yet?” Tyler asked as he flashed me a smile.

“Actually, my feet are killing me.”

I flipped my shoes off and set them gently next to me as Tyler watched. There was no denying his gaze was a primal one, and I liked it. I liked how he oozed sexual chemistry just standing there looking at me. I’d never met a man who could do that so easily to me.

“You have nice Louboutin shoes.”

“What?” I said in absolute shock that he knew what brand my shoes were. No guys knew that. None that I’d met at least.

Tyler turned back toward the girl with a smile on his face. He seemed to be enjoying shocking me a little bit. But I wasn’t about to let him get away with things that easily. I got up and stood behind him, close behind him. Not touching him, but close enough that the electricity was clearly vibrating between the two of us.

“I’m a worldly man,” he finally answered.

“I don’t believe it for a minute. Don’t tell me you are a shoe fetish guy?” I said accusingly.

“No!” he denied right away and spun around. “My partner’s ex-wife used to love those, and he would force me to go with him to the store to pick them out for gifts. It’s served me well to know them, though. I also know they are really expensive,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

“I got them as a gift,” I replied.

“Oh, so you had a boyfriend buy them?”

“No, why do you assume it was a boyfriend? It could have been my parents.” I lied; it was totally a guy who had bought the shoes for me.

“I’m a man, right?”

“Yes.”

“I know darn well those shoes weren’t bought by your parents. Excuse my French, but those are fuck-me shoes,” he said laughing.

“Fine, it was a boyfriend that got them for me. But not because we were sleeping together,” I replied defensively. “Some men just give gifts because they really like someone. Haven’t you ever given a gift to someone you liked?”

“Not someone as beautiful as you,” he said almost under his breath and quickly turned back toward the grill and didn’t look in my direction again.

It wasn’t until the meat was done that Tyler made an eye contact with me again. His gaze was still full of lust and making me want him more and more. I couldn’t help my feelings for this guy. The longer I was around him, the more I was convinced the two of us were going to end up in bed together.

As we set the table and prepared for dinner, I made sure to put myself next to Faith and Thomas. I wanted to spend my time and attention on them as much as possible, despite this lust growing between me and their father.

“I normally sit there and Thomas there,” Faith said as she moved things. “You can sit on that side with Daddy.”

I smiled politely as they put me and Tyler in the two chairs opposite of the kids. At least I wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes during dinner. That would be really hard.

Dinner with Tyler English and his children reminded me of my childhood. My father and mother loved having family dinners, and as I got older, we stopped having them, so this was like a short walk down memory lane for me.

Faith and Thomas talked about their day at school while Tyler asked them more and more questions. They all seemed so darn happy – now this was something new to me. We hadn’t been all that happy when I was younger. Even though my father had money back then, he was always working so much that my parents fought a lot. I had to wonder if Tyler and his late wife had ever fought. He didn’t strike me as the kind of husband who would have argued about much.

“Can you pass the pasta salad,” Tyler asked and leaned toward the bowl.

As he leaned over, I felt his hand glide over my thigh. At first, I froze in total shock, and then all I could think about was that this was his sign to me that things were going to move forward in that direction. I was fine with it. It didn’t bother me at all if he and I had a sexual relationship while I worked as his nanny. Maybe it should have, maybe I should have been worried about what would happen down the road, but I just wasn’t.

I handed him the pasta salad, and then we continued our dinner conversation. It was lighthearted and fun up until one fateful moment.

“Okay, so what do you think of me being your nanny, guys? Do you think I can handle it?”

“I think you are going to do great,” Faith said.

“Should be fine,” Thomas said.

“If you get rid of those darn hi-heels,” Tyler joked.

Then I’ll do it. I didn’t mean to do it, or maybe I really did mean to. I reached my hand over and gently squeezed his thigh as I laughed at his joke. It was meant to be playful, something lighthearted. But then he grabbed my wrist and held it for a minute.

“Summer and I will be right back,” Tyler said as he let go of me and motioned for me to follow him.

Were we going to screw right then and there? Was he so overcome with a sexual desire that he couldn’t even wait until the kids went to bed? I had no idea what was going on, but I dutifully followed him into his office.

“What was that Summer? What are you doing?” he said with an angry scowl on his face.

“I don’t know,” I replied in total shock.

“You are here for the kids, not for this, got it?” Tyler said firmly. “I don’t know what you think might happen here, but it’s not. Understand?”

“Yeah,” I said as my face turned red with embarrassment.

“And, I’d suggest you wear more child-friendly clothes,” he said as he motioned up and down my body as if something I was wearing wasn’t appropriate.

“Okay,” I responded, not quite sure what he was talking about.

“I’m going back to dinner. You can come back and join us whenever you’re ready,” Tyler said and stormed out of his office and back to the kitchen.

For at least five minutes, I stood there trying to figure out what the heck had just happened. Had I totally been misreading what was going on between the two of us? He had been so angry and really mean to me. I wasn’t expecting that to come from him, and I started to well up in tears.

I was a tough girl. It wasn’t that I couldn’t take someone who was angry with me, but I felt like he had started all this. He was the one who had a raging hard on when he caught me in the kitchen. He was the one looking at me like he wanted to devour me all the time. I just couldn’t figure out what was going on. How could I have been so off base with what was happening?

“I’m going to head up to bed,” I said from the hallway. “I’ll see you guys in the morning.”

“Dad, she didn’t even eat dinner,” Faith said in only the way a child could.

But I didn’t care about the dinner. I was humiliated by what had happened. Obviously, I’d thought something totally different was going on, and the way he was so angry just hit me hard. I hurried up to my room and locked the door behind me as I climbed into a nice warm shower.

There was nothing I liked better than a warm bath or shower when I was stressed out. Even if I’d already showered for the day, I just loved letting that water pound down on me and force me to relax.

I stayed in the shower as long as I could before I felt myself getting tired. It had been a really long day, and I knew I needed to get up and make kids their breakfast and get them to school. I wasn’t about to let this thing between Tyler and I throw me off. This was the right job for me, and I was going to make it work.

Before crawling into bed, I pulled out a pair of workout pants and a tank top. I paired it with an oversized cut-off sweatshirt and pulled out a pair of my tennis shoes. I could dress more casually if that were what he wanted. Hell, I would put my hair up and not style it, and it would save me time. I could go without makeup too, that would just save me more time. I had to stick to this job for a month, and that was what I was going to do. No matter what happened, I could last for a month.

Plus, Tyler was going to be working most of the time, and it would just be me and the kids. We got along great, and I wasn’t worried about having the two of them around. I just had to make it through the times that Tyler was home and hope he wasn’t going to scream at me like a maniac again. There was a knock at my door just as I was crawling into bed.

“I left a list of things for tomorrow by the refrigerator,” Tyler said through the door.

“Okay.”

“The keys for the car are down there as well.”

“Okay.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Okay,” I said again, just hoping he would leave my door already. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” he finally responded.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard him going back downstairs. What was it about Tyler that had me so on edge? It wasn’t just that he was good looking. I’d been around hot guys before and not felt like this. It didn’t matter, though. Obviously, he wanted this to just be a work thing without any other sort of relationship. That was perfectly fine with me.

I closed my eyes and tried not to dwell on the mess of a day we had together. Tomorrow was going to be better. I would make sure of it.

***

My alarm went off at 6 a.m., and I hurried downstairs to get breakfast started. I wasn’t exactly sure what the kids would like, but I knew how to make pancakes, so I went with that. I also made up some scrambled eggs and poured orange juice for the kids before I went into their room to get them up.

“Faith, it’s time to get up,” I said softly, but she didn’t move.

“Thomas, it’s time to get up.”

Neither of them moved at all, but I was determined to do this without the help of Tyler. In fact, I wanted to get the kids fed and out of the house before he got up if that was at all possible.

“I’ll get them up,” I heard Tyler say from behind me.

His body was close to me but not touching me. I felt his breath near my neck, and it sent tingles throughout my body. It took every bit of self-control to take a step away from him.

“Okay,” I said and turned to leave the room.

I waited for Tyler and the kids in the kitchen. The look of surprise on their faces was exciting for me to see. Faith and Thomas dove right into the plates I’d made for them, and I just let Tyler grab his own.

“Did you eat yet?” he asked.

“No, I’m not hungry.”

“Here,” Tyler said and made me up a place, obviously not hearing that I said I wasn’t hungry. “You missed dinner last night.”

“I’m fine,” I said as I pushed the plate away.

Even though I was actually hungry now that I had the food in front of me, I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of bossing me around. That wasn’t how this working relationship was going to work. He could tell me what to do when it came to his children – that was fine. But when it came to my body, I was in charge.

I sat quietly and felt he was staring at me while we all ate. But I wasn’t going to let him bully me around. I stood my ground, and when the kids were done eating, I let Tyler go get them dressed and waited for them by the door. I wanted to get to the school early so I had time to figure out the route and get in line the right way.

“Ready?” I said without looking at Tyler and just looking at Faith and Thomas.

“Yep,” Faith replied.

Tyler pulled the car out of the garage and helped get the kids loaded into their seats. I sat calmly waiting in the driver’s seat until everyone was loaded up.

“Have a good day at school guys. I’ll see you when I get home from work.”

“Bye, Dad,” the two kids said in unison.

As soon as Tyler was out of the way, I gently pulled the car out of the driveway and made our way to the school. I was so excited to be ahead of time and couldn’t wait to get the kids dropped off and prove I could do something right.