A Manny for Christmas

My new live-in manny is many things: indecently hot, annoyingly competent, partial to walking around shirtless… you get the picture. He’s also my ex. That is correct.

Which means I know exactly what he’s packing under those worn-in jeans, and he remembers precisely how to care for me when I’m sick. What’s the problem, you might ask? He sounds perfect. He really is.

Except for one minor detail. He’s the ex I walked out on twelve years ago because he never, ever wanted kids. In my defence, I’ve been desperate for childcare.

Before Max swaggered back into my life, it was all flaky ex-husband, messy kitchen, grimy (if gorgeous) kids, pre-dawn alarm calls for my job as a pastry chef… and no nanny.

This seemed like a practical solution, as long as I could ignore those loud alarm bells. He needed a place to stay for Christmas, and I needed some help. But now the lines are blurring – and fast.

It’s bad enough that he acts like a jealous boyfriend when I go on dates, and warms me up in bed when I’m too cold to sleep, and gropes me convincingly enough to put the mean-girl mums’ noses out of joint.

But far worse, he’s bewitching my little girl and saving my son from school bullies, and we’re all falling hard. Is he just “mannying up”? Doing his job?

Or has he changed his mind about that family he claimed never to want?