Page 44 of Vicious Temptation
A while back was nearly a year ago. It felt like a lifetime now, a different Bella, who had worn a sundress and high heels and flirted with the cute waiter who had brought us our burgers, and joked about how she wished she could leave her number for him. A girl a million miles removed from me now, overheated in my sweater and heavy boots, feeling sick every time a man looks my way.
“Fancy burgers sound okay,” Cecelia concedes. “Do they have ice cream?”
“They do,” I promise her, and then we’re off again, as I look up the walking directions to the restaurant on my phone.
Cecelia is, as I expected, immediately charmed by the interior of the restaurant. It’s all a retro fifties theme, with black and white checkered tile, red leather booths, and mint-colored stools at the bar located at the far side of the restaurant. The menus are all themed similarly, and Cecelia brightens up as the hostess takes us to one of the booths.
“I’d have loved it immediately if you showed me a picture,” she says enthusiastically, and I laugh as I slide in opposite the two of them.
“I thought the surprise would be fun.” I nudge one of the menus towards her, and the three of us start to peruse them; Cecelia thoroughly excited at the long list of milkshake flavors. I promise her and Danny each one as long as they finish their burgers and fries.
Danny ends up wanting the Elvis burger, which has peanut butter on it, and won’t be dissuaded no matter how many times I tell him that he’s probably not going to like it. Cecelia opts for a burger with balsamic mayo, caramelized onions, goat cheese, and arugula on it—probably the most sophisticated choice on the menu, which doesn’t surprise me at all, and I get the Hawaiian burger and a cherry cola. I order a basket of parmesan truffle fries for the table, and I watch the two of them eagerly dig in, Danny dipping them in ketchup and Cecelia calling him a barbarian as she sticks to the lemon aioli that came with them.
I can’t help but think, as I watch them fondly, how much this job has changed my feelings about having kids in just a few short weeks. It had always been presented to me as a duty, a necessary part of the life I was expected to live, rather than something I could want, or not. I really never bothered thinking about my own feelings, because it felt like too awful of a possibility to realize that I didn’t want them, and be chained to having to have them anyway. But now I can see that I had nothing to worry about. In fact, in the event that I can’t escape the future that my father has planned for me and have to agree to marry his choice eventually, at least?—
The thought gives me only a brief moment of relief before everything else about it slams into me with the weight of a ton of bricks. There’s the ever-present problem of how children are made, the fact that I’d have to allow someone to touch me intimately, and not just someone, but a man I don’t love and probably won’t even like, a thought that takes any scrap of appetite I had and dissolves it in an instant. And then there’s the rest of it, the fact that I’m beginning to love these two kids, that I’m realizing it will break my heart if I ever have to leave them, and they’re not even my children. They’re Gabriel’s, with his late wife, and no matter how long I care for them or how much I love them, I’ll always just be the nanny. Someone who will eventually no longer be needed. I’m not their mother, to keep taking care of them when they’re teenagers and dealing with all the struggles of older adolescence, or to provide the comforts and love of home for them when they come back from college, or to see all their big milestones as they grow up. I’m impermanent, and I was always meant to be that.
You’re also being maudlin, I tell myself as our food comes. This is a job. You’re being ridiculous. It’s good that you’re happy, and you love them, but you can’t get so attached.
Luckily, I’m quickly distracted by the fact that Danny absolutely does not like his burger, and I quickly flag down the server and order a replacement, a much more normal cheeseburger. Danny apologizes, looking like he’s on the verge of tears, and I shake my head, pushing the remainder of the fries towards him.
“Does this mean I don’t get a milkshake?” he asks, looking upset, and I shake my head again.
“Of course, you can still have a milkshake. You tried something new and didn’t like it. That’s not a bad thing. It just means you know now,” I reassure him, and he brightens immediately, wolfing down his new burger as soon as it arrives. Cecelia is very pleased with her choice, and I pick at my burger, eating as much of it as I can manage. I don’t want to give Cecelia the wrong ideas about my eating habits—that it has anything to do with weight—but I obviously can’t tell her the real reason for it either, and I don’t want to lie. Fortunately, she hasn’t asked, but I try to eat as much as I can in the meantime, just in case.
We order dessert—Cecelia asks if we can both get peppermint milkshakes, and I readily agree—and Danny gets a chocolate malt. I hand over Gabriel’s credit card when the bill comes, still feeling a little dizzy with the responsibility of having so much free reign with his money, and then we head back out into the sunshine, full of lunch and with a few hours left to explore.
Cecelia wants to go to a bookstore, so we do that, and then to a pet shop so that she and Danny can coo over the puppies. It turns out to not be the best idea—I have to explain to them that Gabriel’s carte blanche with the card doesn’t extend to bringing home a living, breathing animal, and that they’ll have to talk to him about it when we get home—and by the time we visit a few more shops, it’s starting to get late enough that we need to head home.
Jason collects us, and we all collapse into the car, exhausted and happy. Gabriel is in the living room when we get home, and both children immediately run to him, talking over each other as they relay the events of the day.
When they’ve both talked themselves out and shown him all their purchases, Gabriel shoos them upstairs and tells them to put their toys away. I hang back a little, in case he has any questions for me, and he gets up from the couch, walking over just in time for me to remember that he probably wants his card back.
“Here you go.” I fish it out of my wallet, handing the heavy black metal card back over to him. “I tried to be responsible, but they were very excited.”
“I’m glad you let them enjoy themselves. I’ll admit they’re both probably a little spoiled, but I can’t help it, after—” Gabriel pauses. “It doesn’t seem to be harming them any, so as long as they stay sweet, I don’t mind spoiling them.”
“They were both so happy,” I assure him. “Cecelia was blown away by the store. She wants to take you back there.”
“She didn’t buy out the whole place already?” Gabriel chuckles. “What did you get yourself?”
It takes me a moment to respond, I’m so startled. I’d convinced myself that he just said that to be nice, that he didn’t actually mean I should buy myself something with the credit card, that he would never seriously tell the nanny that she should spend his money on herself. But the look on his face isn’t teasing or joking or sarcastic, as if he’s expecting the answer to be, of course, I didn’t buy myself anything.
He looks expectant. Like he’s genuinely curious and thinks I got something for myself.
“Nothing,” I say quickly, too startled to think of any other response. “I—I didn’t think you were serious.”
Gabriel frowns. “Really? You didn’t believe me?”
“No, I mean—I didn’t think you’d want me to spend money on myself. I work for you, after all?—”
“Exactly. So I gave you instructions, and you’re supposed to obey them.”
He says it in a light tone, and I know it’s meant to be teasing—but his green eyes meet mine as he says it, and something snaps taut between us as a jolt of electricity tingles over my skin, and my heart starts to race.
There’s something else in those words. Something that has nothing to do with credit cards and foolish purchases. A promise of something dark and erotic that I’ve barely even begun to imagine, a tantalizing image of the kinds of instructions he could give me, that I could be expected to obey. It sparks something deep inside of me that I didn’t know existed, heat flaring in my belly, and my breath catches.
I’m suddenly very aware that we’re alone. That it’s just me and Gabriel in this room, and I have to struggle not to let my gaze drop to his hips, to see if there’s any sign that he’s affected by this, too, that this flickering desire isn’t all one-sided. But I don’t, because I’m not sure which would be worse—to see that he wants me, too, or to see that he doesn’t.