Billionaire and Nanny Secret by Lauren Wood
Ezra
Why was I missing Quinn so much? She had only been gone for two weeks. I shouldn’t have cared enough about her to mind her absence, yet I did. It was driving me insane, not just my worry about her, but the fact that I cared. A good majority of my day was spent wondering if she was okay and how her mother was doing.
And the worst part was the fact that I wished that she was here with me or that I could be with her to support her because I knew that she didn’t have anyone else. I wondered how lonely she felt and what thoughts were going through her mind. I hadn’t cared this much about a woman since my late wife.
How weird was all of this? Quinn was the woman that I wanted so badly to forget about, yet she had imprinted my mind so strongly that I couldn’t get her out of it, regardless of how hard I tried. What was it about her that made me lose my mind, that made me push away all of my inhibitions?
Not to mention that kiss that we had shared before she left. She had surprised me. Her lips against mine were quick, and she knew exactly what she wanted. Even though I knew I should not have kissed her back, I couldn’t stop myself.
I was kissing her back and holding her against my body before she pulled away and left. When she left, I knew that it shouldn’t have happened, that it complicated our relationship even more than it already was.
Why was this happening to me? I was so attracted to her that it was ridiculous, that it could easily occupy my mind for hours, on end. And they weren’t just sexual thoughts. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. Yes, I wanted to fuck her, but I also wanted to make love to her. I wanted to kiss her every day, several times a day. I wanted to please her and hug her and wake up to her beautiful face every morning.
Was there something wrong with me? Was I finally losing my mind?
Briefly, I remembered how I used to be, what I used to feel when I was in love with my late wife. And some of those feelings were being mirrored to me. I was beginning to experience them again with Quinn. I knew that I shouldn’t, that I couldn’t be in love with her. And to be fair, I didn’t think I knew her well enough for me to be in love.
But I definitely cared about her way more than I should. Way more than an employer should care about their employee. And that wasn’t something that I was okay with. I didn’t want to care for anyone other than my daughter.
After I finished dressing, I went downstairs and saw Ginny, our substitute nanny, setting the table. She wasn’t really like Quinn, and one way was because she preferred not to eat with us, for whatever reason. I never asked her exactly why it was a problem to her.
“Good morning, sir,” she greeted me with a very kind smile. She was older than Quinn. She was in her forties, and her brown hair was showing signs of white. Her skin was beginning to wrinkle, and she wore far more makeup than she needed. She did her job well and was incredibly professional, which was exactly what we needed.
“You don’t have to call me sir,” I reminded her for the umpteenth time, and she simply nodded me off.
“That’s my preference.”
Ginny reminded me what this relationship was supposed to be like. Quinn and I were so unprofessional that I hadn’t even noticed until I had hired someone else. And I was just now realizing how much of a potential problem that was.
To say that Quinn and I were getting too close was an understatement. We needed some serious distance between the two of us. Lately, all I had wanted was her, to be with her, and even I had to admit that I’d noticed the changes in our relationship, that I’d noticed our budding friendship.
As much as I should have hated to say it, I had been enjoying this little thing that we had going on between the two of us. There was something so carefree and relaxing about it. There was nothing forced between us. When we laughed, it was genuine. When we flirted, it was genuine, even if I knew it shouldn’t be.
Our relationship was unconventional, yet, for some reason, it worked for us. However, we didn’t need to flirt. We didn’t need to be friends. All we needed to be was work colleagues. And we were acting like so much more than that.
As much as I enjoyed the time that I spent with Quinn, I didn’t want to be with her for two reasons. She worked for me, and Paige liked her too much for me to just go and fire her. But that was the only way that I could date her, and more than that, I didn’t even want to have a girlfriend.
My last wife had been the love of my life. And I couldn’t stop the feeling that if I dated someone else, it was like I was shitting all over her memory. She had been perfect. She was everything that I had wanted and more. And I couldn’t just get over her. I couldn’t just let her go and find someone else. It didn’t work like that, in the slightest.
I believed in soulmates, and she had been mine. I could never love another woman, and, more importantly, I didn’t want to love another woman. Even if that woman happened to be Quinn, who was the most amazing woman I’d met since my wife.
When my phone started ringing, I knew who it was before I even looked at the caller ID. Quinn. She’d been calling me every couple of days to give me an update on her mother. I knew that I shouldn’t care, yet I did. I hung onto every word she told me in these short phone calls.
“Quinn,” I greeted her, my voice gentle and sweet, a way that she wasn’t used to and hadn’t experienced before she’d left.
“Ezra.” The way she said my name was so relieved as if talking to me was the best thing that had happened to her today. She sounded a bit stuffed up, and I knew that she’d been crying. For a moment, I wondered if today was the day that her mother had finally passed, and everything inside of me wished that wasn’t the case.
“How are you?” I asked. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s actually doing good,” she told me with pure joy in her voice. “She surprised all of the doctors because she should actually make a full recovery.”
“I’m so glad to hear that, Quinn,” I let out a deep breath. I really was happy about her mother. There was nothing I wanted more than for Quinn to be happy, and I knew that this was contingent on her mother, as of late. Now that her mother was doing well, she could be okay too.
I was here to do nothing but support her even though I knew that I shouldn’t. I wasn’t her boyfriend. I was the man she’d slept with twice just so that she could get me out of her mind. I was the man that had hired her. And I was going to be the man that did something much, much worse.
“I should be coming home within the next couple of days,” Quinn said. “My mother’s doing so well, but they’re only keeping her here for another two or three days for observation. Then, she’s going to be released. Once she is, I’m going to make sure she’s settled into her nursing home, and happy. Then I’ll come back, so should be within the next week.”
“Oh, that’s good.” Except that it wasn’t. It was far from good.
“The doctors are coming in now, so I’ll talk to you, later.”
“Goodbye, Quinn.”
“Bye, Ezra.”
When the call ended, I felt my heart drop. I felt terrible about the decision that I’d made, but I couldn’t change it, now. I knew that it was for the best, and it was. After Quinn had kissed me, I knew that this was going to be a problem, and for the last two weeks, I’d been wrestling with thoughts of what I should do.
And I finally had an answer, but it wasn’t one that she would want to hear. I didn’t have any option other than to fire her. Our relationship was becoming so much more, and that wasn’t something that I could handle.
A part of me thought that I should have told her the truth over the phone, but that would have made me the cold-hearted bastard everyone thought I was. And I couldn’t be that person, not to Quinn.
How much would it have broken her heart to have had this good news about her mother and then me squashing all of that because I was a selfish man who was unable to put her needs above my own? I had always been the selfish one, a very selfish man, and I couldn’t change that, not even for Quinn.
I didn’t want to hurt Quinn. In fact, that was the last thing that I wanted to do. But it was out of my hands. This thing between us, it wasn’t normal. And how much longer would it be until we ended up in bed together once again? And then what would that make us? Would she be considered a nanny with benefits?
It wasn’t like I was heartless. This was hurting me, too, even if I was the one making the decisions. I was going to miss Quinn, more than I knew, but that didn’t mean that she could stay. She was a temptation that I couldn’t have in my life. I wasn’t leaving her with nothing, either.
She would get a fifty-grand severance check, and I had found her an apartment and would pay her first two years’ lease. She could keep the car that I’d bought her, and I would hook her up with some secretary job with one of my colleagues where she would make a similar paycheck as she made with me.
I was being more than generous with her, and that was what made me okay with all of this. And she was going to be forced to be okay with all of this, as well. The only person that I was concerned with was Paige. And as much as I didn’t want her to be sad, she would get over it, eventually.
Ginny and Paige got along well enough, and Ginny, quite frankly, reminded me of Mary Poppins. She did the job that she needed to do, and best of all, there was no way that we would be involved in any kind of relationship that wasn’t strictly professional. And that was important to me.
I never should have involved myself with Quinn sexually. And maybe I had nobody to blame but myself. It definitely wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t fair that she was getting the repercussions. But at the end of the day, it was my money, my job, and my decision, even if it was one that I didn’t like.
The doorbell rang, and I sighed. I already knew who it was, unfortunately. I was quickly growing tired of Klaus dropping by without any warning. It didn’t matter how many times I’d told him that it was unacceptable. He did it anyway because that was the kind of person that he was. Klaus got everything that he wanted, and he didn’t care what he had to do to get it. That was one of the things that I’d always despised about him.
“I’ve got it,” Ginny said, and she was opening the door before I could tell her not to. When I didn’t want Klaus here, I just didn’t answer the door, although that hardly stopped him. He could be quite the insistent pest when he wanted to be, and he wasn’t exactly the guy to accept ‘no’ as an answer, not caring who he inconvenienced.
“Thanks for letting me in, Ginny,” he told the nanny. “Ezra! Long time no see, brother.”
“It’s been a week,” I reminded him. “I wouldn’t exactly call that a long time.”
“Well, I would. I’ve missed you.”
“Alright, you’ve come, you’ve said hello, now leave.”
“Well, there’s more to it.”
“What, Klaus?” He was so aggravating.
“With Quinn still being out of town, I figured that you might need a little fun,” Klaus smirked at me. “So, how about you and me hit the bar, for old times’ sake? I’ll have you know that I went the other day, and the women there have only gotten hotter since you last left. There was a redhead, and ooh, brother, she was beautiful. Off the chain.”
“I’m not going with you to the bar.”
“The strip club?”
“Absolutely not!” I exclaimed and looked around to make sure that Paige wasn’t around. Thankfully, she seemed to be in the kitchen with Ginny. “Just go by yourself, isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks?”
“It’s not as fun when it’s not with you.”
“That’s a bummer,” I said, evenly. “But it’s not my concern, unfortunately. Go by yourself.”
“Like a loser?”
“Then take a friend.”
“I don’t have many friends.”
“I wonder why,” I said, sarcastically. “Besides that’s a personal problem, deal with it on your own, Klaus.”
He sighed. “Fine, then it looks like I’m not going.”
“Then don’t go,” I told him. “Just leave my house.”
“How are you and Quinn?”
I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean, after you hit that. Are you guys dating now?”
“You already know the answer.”
“But you’re banging her?” He nodded. “Which is why you wouldn’t let me?”
“I’m not actively banging her.”
“You have in the past.”
“Klaus.”
“Fine, fine.” He put his hands up in surrender. “Don’t tell me. I already know that it was good.”
