Page 10 of Forbidden Fruit
It never does.
When I get back to the living room, all four of them are cooking at the kitchen island, Livia perched on Vanessa’s hip and Anton on his knees balanced on a high chair.
“Anton! What did I say about the high chairs?” I bark, annoyance lacing my tone. His eyes latch onto mine, and I hate the unease I read in the blue depths, but he knows how dangerous it can be. If he falls and cracks his skull…
“I’m so sorry, Mr Marquesi. It’s my fault,” Vanessa chimes. “I told Anton he could stay on the chair if he was really careful. I should have asked you first.”
My mother purposefully keeps her back to me. She knows the rules and could have implemented them, but she decided to overrule them. Worse, she let them be overruled by the stranger in my house. I grind my molars to avoid saying something I’d regret in front of the kids. Vanessa has been here for sixty minutes, and already, the carefully crafted order of my life iscracking and threatens to crumble like the broken glass she laid at my feet a few days ago.
“Anton, just because Vanessa is new to our rules, doesn’t mean you get to play her. You know I don’t want you on them. It’s dangerous.”
“But I really wanted to cook and I’m too heavy for Vanessa to carry me for too long,” he whines. I understand his plea, but if I concede now, everything will fall apart. Rules are here to protect them.
Before I can retort and break his spirit even more, Vanessa speaks with a calm yet firm voice. “Your father is right, Anton. It wasn’t very safe for me to let you stand here. If you fall, you could really hurt yourself. But you know what we can do? We can look up online if there are stools made for kids. Maybe your dad can get it and then we’ll cook together. Would you like that?”
He nods and slowly climbs down from the chair and I let out a sigh of relief that he’s safe. That’s when my mother decides to finally intervene and gives him the task of setting the table for the five of us.
“Vanessa won’t be having dinner with us, mamma,” I inform her.
Her lips part, and her face is so open, I can read the disappointment clear as day. Her shoulders slump, but she nods, her chin quivering. I turn and walk to my office to avoid the raw emotion hitting me in the chest. “Follow me,” I instruct over my shoulder, expecting her to come with me.
The office space is simple, painted white, with metallic shelves lining the walls and a black standing desk in a corner. There’s only one chair, so I stand in the middle of the room and wait for her.
When she enters, she sucks all the air out of the room. She picks at her hand with her short painted nails, rubbing it raw,yet she smiles and I hate it. I know it’s fake when everything I’ve seen so far has felt like pure honesty.
“It’s not often that I introduce Anton and Livia to new people and they seem quite taken with you already.”
“They’re angels. It’d be hard not to like them when they’re so enthusiastic about everything,” she tells me, beaming with what I already realise is her true smile, the dimples of her cheeks indenting the corners of her mouth like beacons of light.
“The hours will be from eight in the morning until six in the evening. I might need your help some evenings, but I will notify you the day before, forty-eight hours in advance if I can,” I say before my mind fully registers what I’m doing. “I’ll pay fifty percent extra for those hours. The pay is based on the average of the industry. I’ll have my lawyer draft a contract. Can you start tomorrow?”
Her eyes widen. At the amount of work or the little pay, I’m not sure. I’m not stingy by any means, but I also know from what Alana told me that Vanessa’s experience as a nanny isn’t coming from work experience, as I would have preferred. I’m desperate enough to give her a chance and convinced enough that my babies will be comfortable with her for the time being.
Eventually, I’ll need to find their mother. The perspective of having to beg and plead for her to take care of our children fills me with dread. Suddenly, I’m tired and I just want to be with my kids, without anyone around. Not Vanessa, or my mother.
“Yes, yes. Of course I can start tomorrow. Will you need me on weekends?”
“On an ad hoc basis. At first, probably not. I’d like you to understand that this position is temporary. Anton and Livia’s mother is away, but she’ll be back.”
“I’m happy to help while your wife is away, sir.”
The last word glides off her tongue like the most precious sound. I shouldn’t like the thrill it sends through me, but Ihaven’t felt anything for so long that I latch onto it, replaying it in my head before I answer without thinking, “Ex-wife.”
Vanessa shifts on her feet before clearing her throat, dispelling my sudden frozen state. I guide her to the front door and call her a cab.
While we wait in the cold winter air, she rubs her arms up and down like she’s trying to create warmth. I act before thinking, which seems to be coming a habit around her, taking off my suit jacket and laying it gently over her shoulders, careful not to touch her.
She blinks up at me, then pulls it tightly around her. I nod and turn my eyes away, satisfied that the extra layer can protect her from the wet wind coming from the sea.
I stand in my cotton shirt, the mist dampening it slowly, trying and failing miserably to ignore the effect the woman at my side is having on me.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asks, looking me up and down while she shivers and her teeth chatter to the point where I can hear them. I almost offer to step closer to offer some warmth when a car’s headlights illuminate the gates of my home and I let out a sigh of relief because the last thing on my wish list is to be sued for inappropriate behaviour by my new employee.
“My blood runs hot,” I answer absent-mindedly as I wait for the cab to make its way onto the grounds, the metal doors slowly opening.
“I would have never guessed,” she mumbles under her breath, but I catch it anyway.
“Excuse me?”