“I was wondering if maybe we could tell Everly I quit?” Cassandra quips, her tone sharp and contained.
My heart rate increases as I repeat her words in my head before I can mutter them out loud. “Quit?”
“Yeah…” she responds, her eyes staring down at the floor. “I’d rather she think I quit than blame herself for getting me fired. She keeps apologizing about the accident today, and I know it’s breaking her little heart that she hurt me. If she thinks you let me go because of the pool incident, she’ll never forgive herself.”
I sit back in my chair, processing everything Cassandra has just said to me. She’s known my kid for one freaking day, and she’s willing to take the fall for her? I’m rarely speechless, but this situation makes forming a coherent sentence difficult.
I clear my throat. “Do you want to quit?”
“Not at all.” Cassandra’s round eyes lift to meet mine. The sunlight pouring in the windows behind me makes her eyes look greener than ever. “But I know that what happened today was terrifying for you and Everly. We were lucky you were here. I mean, I don’t think I was going to drown. I was getting up to the top of the water before you jumped in. But I fully admit that it wasn’t safe. Yes, it’s true I’m not a great swimmer. I mean, I think I can save my own life, but if something like this happened to Everly, I’d be terrified of what that could look like. And with how much time you want us to spend in the pool this summer, I realize this makes me unqualified for the job I accepted. Therefore, I take full responsibility and will tender my resignation, Mr. Fletcher.”
My head jerks back. Tender her resignation? That’s pretty official language for someone whose past employer involved making footlong subs. I inhale a deep breath and stand, propping myself on the edge of the desk. “Let’s take a breath here, Cassandra,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
She nods and tucks her hands behind her back, her chest jutting out toward me. I flinch as I recall the feel of her extremely full breasts in my hands. How is it possible to be completely fucking terrified and half hard at the same time? That’s really something I should talk to a therapist about someday. But not Josh’s wife, Lynsey. Patient confidentiality or not, I don’t need her to think I’m lusting after my kid’s nanny.
“The truth is, Everly is an excellent swimmer,” I continue, refocusing on the task at hand. “An incident like this never should have happened. Everly feels awful because she knows what she did was wrong. She usually has better impulse control than that, but I think she’s really excited about hanging out with you this summer, and she got carried away.”
“Hey, I’ve been there,” Cassandra huffs with a laugh, her hand pushing into her dark hair as she gazes out the sliders behind me. “I remember pushing my sister off the dock at the lake once. She whacked her ankle on the boat hoist and screamed bloody murder for hours. Even had to get stitches.”
I fight back a smile at that very random overshare. “Ouch.”
“Yeah…the whole lake heard her battle cry. It was Awkward City. I immediately regretted my life choice that day.”
I cringe knowingly, thankful for the turn in the conversation as the tension relaxes. “Kind of like your new boss regretting accidentally grabbing your chest as he attempted to save your life?” My shoulders lift with embarrassment.
“I mean, I was a kid, and you are a full-grown man, but I guess you can still relate.” She lets out a soft giggle, and the tension eases between us as I watch her with downcast eyes.
“Awkward what?” I frown and watch her curiously, wanting to know more about her.
“City. Awkward City.” The teasing smirk on her face makes it hard to keep scowling.
I click my tongue and sigh, trying to figure out the best way to resolve this. Giving up, I gesture awkwardly toward her chest, trying hard not to look at it. “Well…I am sorry about that.”
“It’s fine. My tits get in the way a lot.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have said that. Can we stop talking about my breasts now?”
“Please,” I agree because now I can’t stop looking at them and recalling how the weight of them felt in my hands. Fucking hell…Awkward City indeed.
“Okay then.” She pulls her shirt away from her chest as if she’s trying to conceal her completely un-concealable breasts. “So are you saying I’m not fired?”
I force myself to lift my eyes to hers, holding her gaze as I push away my indecent thoughts. “Correct.”
“Yes!” She thrusts a fist up into the air. “That is good news.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. Cassandra Barlow is unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.
“I should probably go check on Everly.” She gestures toward the door.
“Yes, you do that,” I confirm, my brows furrowing as I try to refocus my thoughts away from the nanny. I lower myself back into my chair.
She pauses at my door. “Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. I promise I will be extremely careful from now on whenever we’re at the pool.”
I nod and smile. “Call me Max.”
“Max?” She looks unsure. “You sure about that?”
“Anything but Big Daddy,” I reply with a grimace.
She snorts out a laugh. “That kind of slipped out.”
“It would have had to.”
She bites her lip and waggles her eyebrows. “Does this mean you’ll start calling me Cozy?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I think I prefer Cassandra.”
“Fair enough.” She taps the wall beside her. “I’ll let you get back to work. Thank you again…Max.”
I nod and turn back to my desk, hating how much I like the way my name sounds on her lips.
“Hello, Zaddy,” I murmur to myself the next morning as I stare slack-jawed at Max from the grass as he hoists himself out of the swimming pool. Sluices of water ripple down his washboard abs and disappear into his low-slung swimming trunks.
“Morning,” he says crisply as he notices me walking over to him. He grabs a towel off the nearby lounge chair and wipes it over his head, mussing his dirty-blond locks.
“Heyo.” I swallow the knot in my throat and rip my eyes off his very erect nipples as I stand before him. “You’re up early.”
“I like to swim laps in the mornings.” He wipes his pecs next. My eyes follow his movements for far longer than is appropriate. If there’s any length of time that would ever be appropriate for a nanny to look at her boss’s big, fat pecs.
Can pecs be fat? Probably man boobs are fat. Max definitely doesn’t have man boobs. They are mounds of firm muscle that I would really like to poke my finger into one to see what they feel like. I bet they feel like pound cake.
What is with me wanting to touch various body parts of this man? I am unwell!
“Swimming is nice,” I reply, hesitating awkwardly in front of him because it’s hard to walk away from such a fine specimen.
“For those of us who can swim.” The corner of his mouth pulls up into a teasing smirk like it did yesterday. It might be my favorite expression he makes, and I don’t even care that it was at my expense.