Chapter Five
Wayne scrolled through the internet as he looked through toys to buy for young boys. There was so much that he didn’t have the first clue what to pick. Action figures, stuff from recently released movies, cards, games, guns, little bricks, all kinds of stuff.
Timothy played with cars and trucks. He’d watched him doing it.
Tapping his pen on the desk, he began to put several items into the online shopping basket. The contract on his desk needed his undivided attention, but right now he couldn’t seem to stop. In fact, over the past couple of days since watching Temperance with the little boy, he’d found it harder and harder to pretend to forget about him.
He hadn’t.
There had been so many times where he’d been sitting in a meeting and he’d wondered if the boy was all right. If he’d cried that day, or if he was afraid.
I want to get home earlier.
Now that thought scared him more than anything else. He’d never gone home early on the job. He’d always worked eighteen-hour days, survived on little sleep, and rarely had time for a social life.
Within the past week and a half, he’d enjoyed more home-cooked food and looked forward to his few minutes with Temperance. In fact, during the day he’d even began to make a list of possible topics he could begin where she’d stick around longer for them to talk.
Pitiful.
Most women were happy for him to smile in their direction.
Temperance didn’t give anything away other than to smile his way. No flirtatious looks, nothing.
Frances stood at the doorway. “Have you signed the contract? I’ve got everything ready to get it sent off today.”
Wayne shook his head.
“Is there something wrong with it? You’ve had it on your desk for three hours.” She entered his office, notepad and pen already poised to make notes on revisions.
“I’ve not even taken a look at the contract.” He pointed at his screen and groaned, leaning back.
Frances frowned and moved closer. “Kids’ toys.”
“He’s not even mine, and already I can’t think straight.” For the first time in years, he began to chew on his thumbnail. He’d not done it since he’d sat for his exams when he was a boy and all he wanted to do was get the best grades, back when no one gave a fuck about him.
Timothy had no one right now.
No parents.
No uncle.
No aunt.
Just him and Temperance.
“Is Miss Michaels not doing her job properly?” Frances asked.
He shook his head. “She’s doing an amazing job. Honestly, anyone who got rid of her was a fucking idiot. She knows how to communicate with kids, and Timothy’s thriving with her. You know the first day she was hired, she took him out shopping. Made his entire room this adventure land. Got him new clothes and stuff. I never felt more like a monster in my life.”
“Like you said, he’s not yours.”
“But that wasn’t right for me to react the way I did, was it? Let’s face it, I was a complete and total asshole. He’s just a boy.”
Frances didn’t say anything, but he saw her trying not to laugh at him.
“You’ve got kids, haven’t you?”
“I did. I’ve got children, and grandchildren, and I hope one day that I will have great-grandchildren, and that I’ll at least live to see them. They’re … a lightness, Wayne. They really are.”
Wayne stared at his computer screen, thinking about what she’d just said.
“You know, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be with him, or wanting to care. He’s been placed in your hands to treasure.”
Wayne groaned. “What happens when they realize that I’m not his father?” He didn’t want to get attached to a boy that would be taken away from him. “They’ll take him, place him with someone else.”
“If there’s no one else they’ll put him in foster care.”
His gut tightened. The thought of that little boy being treated like a zoo animal, having people come and stare at him, giving him hope of a home. Would people care as much as Temperance even when he wet the bed?
Running a hand down his face, he wanted to glare at his PA. She’d not helped him once.
“I pay you to encourage me to work,” he said.
She chuckled. “In a way, I am. I thrive with having a family. They are my rock. They surround me with love and care, and sometimes, I see that all you do is work. I love it. I always have a job, and you give me the holidays to spend with my family. I wish you could see what having a family that loved you would do. They make you want to go home.”
Frances had been his PA for years. Wayne always respected her input, and of course, she’d been there to help him when he still worked through illness. Nothing seemed to faze her. Not women throwing false pregnancy allegations or children appearing out of the blue. She was the best PA in the world.
“No one would think less of you if you decided to work from home a few days a week, or if you weren’t here on a Saturday.” Frances placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let me know when you’re finished with the contract. I can get an extension if you need it.”
She left him alone, and Wayne lifted the contract in his hands. Yet another acquisition to add to his long list of projects he’d already purchased and torn up.
He tore businesses apart and remolded them to make them better. Most of the times they were better. He went through each one, getting rid of the people that brought a company down, and only hired those that had the love and spirit to see it thrive.
Purchasing the toys, he closed down the site, even though he’d also been looking for something to buy Temperance. She never wore any jewelry, and the women he was used to loved something like that.
He had a feeling if he even tried to buy her some, she wouldn’t take it. She wasn’t a greedy woman.
Wayne had gone through all the references that she’d provided him, and the people he’d spoken to had nothing but good things to say.
The first job she’d been moved from, the parents had seen that their boy was developing feelings for her. Temperance hadn’t seen it, so they had felt it was time for her to move on, rather than their boy get his heart broken. It hadn’t been Temperance’s fault.
She was known for being nice, caring, considerate, and always bringing the best out of children.
He’d not spoken to Robert as he already knew why they had gotten rid of her.
Temperance was a beauty in ways that had completely stumped Wayne. When he’d opened the door and seen the raven-haired woman, he’d been speechless. She didn’t wear any makeup, ever. He’d seen her early in the morning and at night. She always tried to tame her hair, which had a natural curl to it as well.
His cock thickened as he recalled the jeans she wore that molded to every single curve, and made him want to peel them down to her knees, bend her over and fuck her.
Without even trying, Temperance had gotten under his skin. Their conversations were always very brief, but he found certain things that she said or did that always drew him in, her smile, her laugh, her wit.
They had next to nothing in common, yet neither of them argued.
There was a knock at the door, and he looked up to find Frances there. Lifting the contract, he smiled. “I’m looking through it now.”
“Robert Thompson would like to see you.”
This made him pause. “Send him in.”
He opened the drawer and placed the contract inside. His business was his own, and he didn’t like to look through contracts when someone who wasn’t part of his company was there.
Robert entered. They shook hands and Wayne waited for him to sit.
“I’m curious as to what I owe the pleasure.” From James, his friend, he’d expect random visits. Robert wasn’t much of a friend but more a friend of a friend.
“Look, I know I gave you Temperance’s details, but … she’s not answering any of my wife’s texts or calls.”
Wayne didn’t even know they’d been calling her. “You are aware that I’ve hired her.”
“We’re aware. We want to re-hire her.”
He sat back in his chair. “And Temperance hasn’t answered your calls.”
“No. We really need her back. Catherine took the wrong damn twin to get a filling done, and no matter how much Ryan told her, the damn woman wouldn’t listen. The file Temperance had made of all appointments had been burned. Catherine decided she could do everything on her own.”
Wayne couldn’t help but smile. He’d seen the organizer under a magnet on the fridge of plans for Timothy, what she expected of him, and also any appointments that had been made.
She’d asked if it was okay to have a doctor give him a check, just to make sure they had all of Timothy’s history, along with a dental and an eye check. The woman was thorough, and everything had come back perfectly.
“I’m not going to fire her,” Wayne said.
“Yeah, but that kid’s not yours. So it’ll be gone soon, and she’ll be out of a job. We want her before someone else does. Temperance is never out of work. Someone is always trying to take her from you. Believe me, we’ve tried.”
Wayne didn’t have anything to say to that. It was true what Robert had told him as it was the same thing that he’d said himself.
Only he’d never really thought of Timothy as a person until that moment.
He finally understood the disappointment and sadness Temperance showed him. She already saw a person, where everyone else just saw a problem that needed to be fixed.
****
Another amazing, fun-filled day had Temperance smiling. She’d taken Timothy to the water park. He’d admitted he’d never been, and that his mother always wanted to take him but she’d been busy every single day so there was no time for play.
The water park within the city was only a small one, and never boasted large rides or anything crazy.
It was just a fun place for kids to get used to the water and slides. Temperance had a lot of fun, and she’d even gotten her costume out, and was thankful to see that no moths had eaten it or left giant holes in it.
Of course, she was tired now, and the noise from the kids had given her a headache. Taking a few pills to help ease the pain, she sipped at her water and sat on the sofa, resting her head back. Timothy was already sound asleep. The newspaper in her lap didn’t hold the key to an impending new job.
Taking care of Timothy was a dream. He always did as she asked, holding her hand and never arguing.
She also liked that there was no one else to change the schedule just to suit them. Wayne listened to her, and she had found her first assessment of him wasn’t exactly accurate. She still believed him to be quite cold, but there was more to him than that. He was a businessman. He didn’t deal with feelings, and thousands of people relied on him to make the right decision.
Temperance also believed that he wasn’t wrong or deluded. If he said Timothy wasn’t his, then he wasn’t. Wayne wouldn’t have been so irresponsible to let a woman get pregnant. The night Timothy had a nightmare, he’d been there, caring.
Glancing at the clock, she saw that Wayne would be arriving home any minute. She’d already gotten the steak out of the fridge to get to room temperature, and the fries had been partially cooked once. All she had to do was finish the fries, cook the steak, and make a peppercorn sauce.
He’d been eating cold food for some time now, and she wanted him to know what a warm meal was like.
Washing down the counters and the fronts of the cupboards, she tried not to think about Wayne and her reaction to him. No man ever got under her skin.
She wasn’t some virginal woman who’d never been with a man before. She had. Boyfriends never really stuck with her, though. They didn’t like her commitment to her work.
Still, no matter her reaction to Wayne Myers, he was still her boss, and any attraction she thought she had for him had to be nipped in the bud.
The front door opened and quietly closed.
She smiled, as the first night he’d seemed to slam it. Now that he knew Timothy slept, he always took the effort to close it without making too much noise.
There was a sweetness to Wayne underneath his frosty exterior.
Preheating the large pan, she dropped the fries for their last few minutes of cooking. Seasoning the steak, she looked up at Wayne, offering him a smile.
“What’s all this?” he asked.
“I thought you’d like something warm for a change. I hope you don’t mind. I like to cook, but I’m not a qualified chef. Just what my mother taught me, and this was something she always did for my dad as a treat.”
Wayne took a seat at the counter, loosening his tie. “That’s the first time you’ve ever spoken of your parents.”
“It is?” She frowned. “We’ve not really spoken about our parents at all.”
“You had a good time with yours?” he asked.
“Yeah. They had me really late in life, and I think they were terrified having a girl growing up, hitting puberty and all that. I wasn’t a wild child or anything. Kept my head down, completed school. My mom was a homemaker, though. Nothing was bought from a box, and everything had to be homemade. She’d even have these jars of pre-made mix, but they were all made by her. She’d spend one Saturday every single month preparing her pantry with staples that would help her throughout the month.” Temperance didn’t know why she was talking about herself.
Thinking of her parents made her happy even with a tinge of sadness, but overall, happy.
“She sounds like a lovely woman.”
“She was. Every Christmas Eve we’d go around the streets dropping off cookies. From like five in the morning for days we’d get up, and just make so many different kinds of cookies.” She didn’t realize how much she missed that. How she’d wanted that for herself, and in a way, being a nanny, she got that. If there was ever a playdate organized, she’d be the one in charge.
Temperance loved taking care of people. It had been born in watching her mother.
“Maybe I’ll get to try one of those delicious cookies?” he asked.
“Perhaps.” She had all of her mother’s recipes. They were treasures to her, and when she felt unending sadness, she’d get the recipe book out and simply read through, recalling every single memory.
There wasn’t a chance of her being around at Christmas, and that thought saddened her.
She placed the steak on the hot pan and grabbed the cream out of the fridge.
While she worked, Wayne remained silent, and it took every single ounce of restraint not to keep on looking at him.
All the while, she was aware of his gaze on her. Ignoring it, she kept on working. Within ten minutes, his food was complete and she urged him to sit at the table where a cool beer already sat.
“You’re trying to get me drunk?”
“Dad would always have it with a beer. Sorry. It’s habit.” She went to take the beer, but he stopped her, reaching out and taking a sip.
“Delicious.”
She chuckled, taking a seat at the table near him.
“What did you and Timothy have?” he asked.
“Pasta with meatballs. It’s his new favorite, and it’s a lot of fun to make.”
“So, Robert came to see me today.”
“Robert Thompson?”
“Yeah. He said that you’ve been ignoring his and Catherine’s calls.”
Temperance sighed. “They have been calling me, and per their agreement, when I was let go I had to cease all communication with them.”
“They want you back. Catherine made a mistake, and they’d be happy to re-hire you.”
She thought about that, and even though she’d love to go back and take care of their brood, there was no doubt in her mind this would be her last nanny job. She got too easily attached, and the one thing she had to keep remembering, she wasn’t sticking around. She would be moving on when the family did.
Tucking some hair behind her ear, she smiled. “I’m working for you and Timothy now. Part of your agreement is not disclosing who I’m working for, and I don’t break any rules, ever.” Remember that when he features in your fantasies.
“There are not a lot of women like you,” he said.
“The world is full of women like me, Wayne. You’re just not looking in the right places.”
He finished his food and sat back. “You’re a damn good cook.”
She smiled, but the happiness of moments ago had disappeared. All that remained now was the knowledge that she had to start looking for work. Timothy wouldn’t be around forever, and neither would this job.
The clock was ticking, and she had to move before once again her heart was broken.