Chapter 4 Roman
FOUR
ROMAN
Someone knocked on the door of my home office, and before I could tell them to go the fuck away, the door opened. I looked up from my laptop to see Monica walking toward me.
“I didn’t tell you to come in.”
“I didn’t ask. You’re lucky I gave you a warning.” She came to a stop in front of me.
I arched an eyebrow. “You feel like looking for a new job?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, jutted out her lip, and rolled her eyes while scoffing. “Please. Are you going to fire me? Who’s going to do everything around here?”
I tightened my hand into a fist. I knew she was right, but damnit, it didn’t make me feel any better. I missed the days when she used to fear me. “What do you want?”
“I’ve hired a nanny. Would you like to meet her before she leaves?”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “No.”
“Alright, then I’ll have her move in right now. Don’t jump down my throat later when you bump into a stranger in the hallway.” She turned to leave.
“No, wait,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose as annoyance surged through me. “Bring her in.”
“I thought you’d see it my way,” she said, carrying on toward the door.
I opened my eyes as she stepped out, the door softly clicking closed behind her.
I pushed my chair back and turned to pour myself a drink from the cart in the corner of the room.
If I had to give a fucking interview, I needed a stiff drink.
I walked to the cart where I uncapped the bottle of whiskey.
There was a quick tap on the door before I heard it open. I didn’t bother to turn around. I picked up a glass and started to fill it.
“Have a seat,” I said.
I put the cap on the bottle, and I turned to walk back to my desk with the drink in hand. I took my seat and wheeled up close before I looked at the new nanny that my personal assistant had apparently hired. My eyes met hers, and I froze.
I knew those eyes. The sparkling green was familiar, and it tightened my stomach when I looked into them.
It wasn’t just any woman sitting across from me.
It was my late wife’s younger sister. Only she’d grown since the last time I saw her.
She’d changed, grown into herself. The last time I saw her, at the funeral, she was just a teenage girl.
Short, too skinny, and in serious need of a makeover.
It was easy to see how much she’d blossomed over the years.
Her height hadn’t changed much, but she did seem to be proportioned better.
She had curves where there had been none before.
She had definitely filled out in her chest, and thinking about it made my stomach sick, but even I had to admit she’d turned into a really beautiful woman.
She was nothing like Chloe, though. Beautiful, yes, but she didn’t look a thing like her sister.
I always thought it was strange how opposite the two were.
Chloe was tall with blonde hair and blue eyes.
Sasha was short, with raven-colored hair and green eyes.
Even thinking her name caused my entire body to tighten like I had to hold myself back.
I wished it were a good thing, but all it did was anger me.
The two of us sat there, staring at one another for what felt like forever.
She didn’t speak, and neither did I. She watched me with just as much interest as I had.
She didn’t look nervous under my gaze. She held her chin high, her plump lips were pursed together, and those green eyes were slightly narrowed, almost like she knew she couldn’t completely trust me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I finally asked, clenching my jaw the second I got the words out.
Another way the two sister were different was in their personalities. Chloe was soft spoken, shy, and sweet. Sasha, however, was outgoing, loud, and smart-mouthed for the most part. At least she had been when I’d known her.
When I asked my question, she didn’t shy away from my harsh tone as I had hoped. She just quirked a brow and crossed her arms over her chest. “You need a nanny, and I need a job. Seemed fitting.”
“You don’t know the first thing about caring for a child.”
“I know more than you,” she threw back.
“Yeah, well… She’s my daughter.”
“She’s my niece.”
“Exactly. Daughter trumps niece. You have no standing here. She’s my child, this is my house, and I’m the one who has the overall say in who gets hired around here.
Not you. You wasted your time coming here today.
You can leave now.” I turned my head away from her, going back to my computer, but when she didn’t move, my eyes moved right back.
“Your personal assistant already told me that you’ve burned through more nannies than you have available.
They’ve been talking, and nobody wants to put up with you.
Unless you pick right now to decide to be a father to that little girl, you'd better reconsider. If I walk out that door, you’re screwed. You’ll have to be a parent.”
Anger rushed through me. “And who says that I haven’t been a parent this whole time?”
She rolled her green eyes. “I know it’s been a few years since you’ve been around my family, but you do remember where my mom works, right?”
I couldn’t remember. It’s not like it ever mattered to me anyway.
When I didn’t answer, she replied with, “She works for the largest staffing agency in the state. She can see every single nanny you hire and fire. Did you even know that your nannies came from a staffing agency?”
I clenched my hand into a fist as it rested in my lap. If I were being honest, I’d say no. But I didn’t want to be honest. I didn’t want to talk to her. Period. All I knew or even cared about was that Sophia was taken care of. I worried about nothing else.
“You’ve been marching from person to person to take care of Sophia.
You have to know that that isn’t good, right?
A child needs stability, and never knowing who’s going to walk into her room today isn’t stable.
If you don’t give a shit about her, you may as well let someone who does take care of her. ”
“I do care about her,” I threw back.
“You sure do have a funny way of showing it.” Her hands moved to the arms of the chair, her black nails biting into the wood. “Where is she anyway? Is she here?” she asked, looking around.
“Of course she’s here. Where else would she be?”
Her brows arched, and she shrugged. “Who knows with you. I’m surprised you haven’t shipped her off to boarding school in Switzerland or wherever they do that. But, oh wait… They probably have to be potty trained first, right?”
“Get the fuck out of my office.”
She rolled her eyes. “Gladly.”
She stood and glared down at me. “I don’t know what my sister ever saw in you. You’re letting her down, you know that?”
I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t move. I froze as I looked up at her. Maybe part of me knew that she was about to deliver an assault, and I needed to feel the pain of the jabs she was about to take.
“She married you because she thought you were a good man, someone who would love her, someone who would support her and the family she wanted to have. She thought you were a decent person, the best person, her damn person, but she had it wrong. You’re nothing but another worthless, absent father that’s causing more generational scars than you can even understand in that self-centered head of yours.
” She turned and walked across the room, her hips swinging.
I wanted to scream at her that she didn’t know shit.
That she didn’t know what it was like to lose the person you loved, but then I realized she had.
She and Chloe had been exceptionally close.
I couldn’t count the number of times I’d come home to find them snuggled in bed together, giggling with face masks on and watching romcoms.
Sasha grabbed the knob, pulled the door open, and then lifted her foot to step out, but she stopped and turned to look at me from over her shoulder.
“How does it feel to know that you’ve let down the only person in this world who still loves you?
Because that’s what you’re doing, you know?
Sophia is the only one you have left, and every day that you push her away, every time you toss another stranger at her, you’re just letting her down again and again.
She’ll grow to hate you one of these days.
I hope you’re prepared for that.” She stepped out and pulled the door closed behind her with a little too much force.
It slammed shut, and my body finally relaxed for the first time since she walked into the room.
If it was possible to hate myself more than I already did, I felt it.
It sat on my chest like a weight, making it hard to draw a deep breath.
It felt as if my heart were struggling to beat against the pressure, nearly threatening to stop.
I grabbed my glass and brought it to my lips, pouring the contents into my mouth and swallowing it all in one big gulp.
The heat raged down my throat to settle in my stomach.
It only doubled the fire in my blood, and it felt like I was burning up from the inside out.
It pissed me off that she had the audacity to say those things to me, but what made it worse was that every single word was true.
I knew that I was letting Chloe down. I knew that I wasn’t the man she’d married.
I knew that I was being a shit father. But I didn’t know what to do.
I couldn’t even look at my own daughter.
Every time I did, it brought tears to my eyes.
All I could think about was how badly I was going to fuck her up.
I couldn’t parent that girl on my own, so I hired nannies to do it for me.
Losing my wife fucked me up. I hadn’t been the same since, and I knew I never would.
Fuck her, I thought, my mind on Sasha.