Irresistible (Cloverleigh Farms #1)(25)

I wanted to die.

“Right,” I said, glad the lights were off so he couldn’t see how mortified I was. “Okay. It didn’t happen.”

“Good. We agree.” He sounded relieved. “And now that it’s out of our system, we can just go back to the way it was before. ’Night.”

He was out the door before I could even say it back.

Confused, hurt, and embarrassed, I crawled back into the bed, which smelled like him. Curling up on my side with a pillow in my arms, I fought off the lump swelling in my throat.

Then I was angry.

Grow up, Frannie. You wanted to be treated like an adult? Free to make your own mistakes? Here you are—a great big plate of THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE, served cold with a side of humiliation. And it won’t do you any good to cry over it.

What, did you think he was going to confess his undying love just because he gave you a couple orgasms in the middle of the night? Did you think you two would be a couple now? What a joke.

Sometimes sex is just sex, and you’re acting like a teenager, sniveling into a pillow in the dark. No wonder he thinks you’re too young for him. You knew your feelings for him were pointless from the start, so don’t pretend otherwise.

Only a child believes in fairy tales.





Mack





I hurried out to the couch and stretched out, tossing the blanket over my legs.

Jesus, that had felt good. Even better than I’d imagined—and I’d imagined it a lot. Everything about it had been really intense—the heat, the chemistry, the connection. I hadn’t felt that in years, if ever. Maybe it was the whole forbidden aspect, maybe it was the fact that I’d been fantasizing about her illicitly for months, or maybe my dick was really that starved for attention after a year of celibacy, but honest to God, I could have wept after that orgasm.

For a moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like if I were younger and didn’t have kids. If I were free to pursue her. Win her. Keep her. Christ, I’d fucking spoil her rotten all the time. She was that perfect combination of sexy and sweet—it drove me crazy in the best possible way. In another life, I’d have done everything possible to make her mine.

But as it stood, I’d meant what I said. As good as the sex had been, we couldn’t do it again. She was still too young, she was still the boss’s daughter, she was still the nanny, and I was in no position to pursue anyone.

Thank God she agreed with me that we should just pretend it never happened and go back to the way things were.

I really didn’t know what I’d do without her.





*



In the morning, the girls came down in their pajamas and asked where Frannie was.

“She’s in my room,” I told them, yawning and pulling the blanket over my shoulder. “It was too cold out here, so I told her to take the bedroom and I slept on the couch.”

None of them batted an eye. “Can we wake her up now?” Felicity asked. “We want to make the monkey bread.”

“No. Don’t.” Reluctantly, I sat up. Scratched my stomach.

Winifred giggled. “I saw Daddy’s hairy belly.”

“Ewww!” the older two chorused.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing Winnie and throwing her across my lap. “I do not have a hairy belly.”

“Yes, you do,” squealed Felicity. “And some on your chest!”

“Hey, listen. Where I come from, a man should have some hair on his chest. And I’m a man.”

But for a second, I wondered what Frannie had thought of my body. I wasn’t in my twenties anymore, and while I was physically fit, I didn’t have one of those carefully groomed, perfectly smooth, manscaped male bodies. She hadn’t seemed to mind, and I’d been too turned on to give a fuck about it last night, but now I hoped she hadn’t been disappointed … I found myself saying a quick prayer. Please, God, let it have been even half as good for her as it was for me.

Shoving last night out of my head, I rose to my feet and threw Winnie over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Be quiet now, and we’ll go find something for breakfast.”

They whined and protested, but they followed me into the kitchen and watched as I began opening the fridge, the freezer, and multiple cupboards. Of course, they rejected everything I offered them—waffles, oatmeal, pancakes, eggs, toast, cereal, granola bars.

“Come on, guys. You have to pick something. It’s going on eight, and I have a lot of snow to get rid of before we can go anywhere.”

“But we want monkey bread,” Felicity insisted.

“Well, I don’t fucking know how to make it.”

That’s when I heard my bedroom door open, and then footsteps on the dining room’s creaky oak floor. Frannie tiptoed into view, hair mussed, arms crossed over her chest. “Morning,” she said.

I wasn’t prepared for the sight of her. My heart skidded. My throat went dry. My dick twitched in my pants.

I moved behind the island and cleared my throat. “Morning.”

“Daddy doesn’t know how to make anything good for breakfast,” Millie complained. I felt like pinching her. “Can you make breakfast?”

Frannie smiled at her. “Sure. Let me just get dressed real quick, okay?”