Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
I ris bolted upright in bed. An unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room. She rubbed her eyes and pushed her hair out of her face. The room was only partially dark, thanks to the streetlight shining in from the road. The walls were bare, the bedspread was a generic navy blue. There was a single nightstand with a single lamp. And nothing else.
If Iris didn’t know better, she’d think she was in some sort of monastery situation. Or nunnery? Cloister? She didn’t really know the right word and considering it was … she glanced at her phone … 1am, her brain wasn’t really working, but the room definitely looked like it belonged to someone who’d taken a vow of chastity, or a vow of really sad decorating.
Eventually, she remembered that she was in her new room at her new job and that she had to wake up in five hours and take care of a small child that she barely knew. But that was fine.
The crash she heard seemed less fine, though.
She swung her legs out of bed, avoiding the pile of bags she hadn’t had time to unpack yet, and crept toward the door. She didn’t know if this nannying gig included protecting Olive from night-time intruders, but she figured she should go investigate anyway. For safety’s sake.
The hallway was dark when she stepped out of her room, but a night light glowed from the bathroom. She paused, hearing more noise coming from the kitchen. Was someone cooking in the middle of the night? Considering Archer’s bedroom door was open, she had a pretty good idea of who it was, but she was curious and nosy and maybe wanted to get a peek of this famous chef in action, so she tiptoed the rest of the way down the hall and peered around the corner.
Archer was in the open kitchen furiously whisking something in a metal bowl. His brow was furrowed in concentration and his forearms flexed with the motion. Iris’s mouth went dry. The man was dressed in a tight white undershirt and a pair of gray sweatpants, which, as far as Iris was concerned, was the same as a woman cooking in lingerie. She should go back to bed. It was not her business what the eccentric chef man did in the middle of the night.
Spying on him cooking with all his sexy chef muscles on display was not in her job description. Or in her best interest for that matter. He was obviously off limits. He was her boss for one thing, and for another she was living with him and taking care of his daughter. Bex wasn’t totally wrong, this was a bit of a sticky situation, and she couldn’t make things stickier by thinking she could have anything to do with this man.
Right. So. Back to bed.
She had every intention of leaving, she really did, but right as she went to turn around, Archer lifted his head.
The bowl clattered to the counter, spraying some kind of batter all over his shirt.
‘Jesus!’ he hissed, clapping a hand to his chest. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Sorry! Oh God, I’m so sorry!’ Iris hurried out of her hiding place, scanning the kitchen for paper towels. ‘I heard a noise and I thought I should come and check, you know just in case someone was trying to kidnap Olive, and I didn’t know you were … you were…’ She gestured to Archer and his chest and his arms and damn it she was staring at him again! Where were those stupid paper towels?
‘Kidnap Olive?’
Iris heard the incredulousness in his voice, but she was no longer looking at him and instead stooping down to the shelves below the island in her search for towels.
‘Here they are!’ She stood, holding the roll in her hands to find Archer staring at her like she was a crazy person. Which she clearly was. ‘Uh … here you go.’
He took the offered paper towels and swiped at the mess on his clothes. So much for not making things stickier. Iris bit down on an ill-timed laugh.
Do not think about making your boss sticky!
‘Is there a reason you think Olive is in danger of being kidnapped?’ he asked, with a raised eyebrow when he met her gaze again.
‘No, not particularly, but you know, you listen to enough true-crime podcasts and you start to get a little paranoid.’ She grimaced at that admission. Maybe he didn’t want a paranoid person watching his kid. She really needed to be more careful with her tendency to tell people everything about her. Now was not the time or the place.
Not with Archer dressed like that, with the batter seeping through his shirt and making it nearly transparent in places and her in her PJs. Oh God, she just remembered what she was wearing. Or more importantly not wearing.
Iris was currently dressed in nothing but an oversized T-shirt and a pair of panties. And that was it. Iris WAS NOT WEARING PANTS in front of her boss. Dear God, why? She tugged at the hem of the shirt like that would somehow help the situation when all it did was draw Archer’s gaze down to her bare legs.
One second and then two. Heat flooded every one of Iris’s limbs. Archer, her new boss and sexy chef extraordinaire, was staring at her legs, in his kitchen, in the middle of the night. Was this a pepper-spray situation? Was it a pepper-spray situation if she liked that her new boss was staring at her legs?
Maybe she should pepper spray herself.
Archer cleared his throat, tearing his eyes away from her bottom half. A new expression was on his face. Gone was the composed chef, the man in charge. And in his place was a man undone, if only for a second, only a breath before he schooled his features again, before his mouth flattened out again, before disappointment replaced … lust?
Iris swallowed hard.
‘You should probably put some clothes on,’ he said, voice rough but stern. ‘Or go back to bed.’
Her cheeks went up in flames, but she didn’t know if it was embarrassment or desire that heated them.
‘Right, sorry. I’ll get out of your way.’ She pulled her shirt down over her ass and hightailed it out of there. But it was a long time before she fell back to sleep.
* * *
Archer was gone by the time Iris had to wake Olive up for school, so it was just the two of them for breakfast. And thank goodness for that because Iris didn’t feel up to facing Archer after her pant-less performance last night. The look on his face as he’d stared at her, like he wanted her to be his next meal, had haunted her for hours. It still was actually and if she didn’t have a small child to tend to, she might have let herself luxuriate in it for a bit longer. But there was no time for that today.
Olive sat at the island, her short legs swinging under the tall stool, the lack of confidence in Iris’s ability to take care of her clear as day on her face.
‘So,’ Iris said, attempting her best I’m-a-professional-nanny-and-I-love-spending-time-with-small-children???smile, ‘what would you like for breakfast?’
The little girl frowned. ‘I’m not hungry.’
Hmm. Her first hour on the job and already a conundrum. Was she supposed to force her to eat?
‘Well, you need energy for school, right? You don’t want to fall asleep in the middle of math class.’
This seemed to give Olive pause. She wrinkled her little nose as she thought about it. And Iris had to admit, she was pretty cute. Objectively speaking. Like a puppy. Small things were always cute.
‘I don’t like what he has.’
It took Iris a minute to parse what Olive was saying. ‘You don’t like what your dad buys for breakfast?’
Olive nodded.
‘You probably could have told him that,’ Iris pointed out before heading back down the hall to her room. ‘Hold on.’
She returned a minute later with a box of strawberry Pop-Tarts in hand. She never moved places without them. They were the perfect emergency breakfast.
‘How about one of these?’
Olive’s eyes widened. ‘I’ve never had one.’
‘You’ve never had one? Man, what were your parents feeding you?’
Olive froze. Iris froze. What the hell was wrong with her? How had she forgotten why she was here?!
‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry, Olive. I know your mom was the best. I’m sure she fed you all kinds of good things.’
Olive sat fiddling with the silver wrapping of the Pop-Tarts, a small frown on her face. Iris honestly didn’t know how a five-year-old processed grief or how much she understood about what had happened to her mom and why she was stuck living with people she didn’t even know.
All of a sudden, Iris’s heart hurt.
‘Hey, I’m going to heat one up for you, okay? And then you can try it and we can talk about your mom, if you want, or we don’t have to. Okay, Olive?’
Olive nodded but didn’t speak, her dark brown gaze following Iris around the kitchen. Iris didn’t know how to help a child process the recent death of their mother, but she was pretty good at distraction.
‘First, we unwrap the pastry,’ she trilled in her best Julia Child impression. ‘And then we simply place it in the toaster for two minutes, not a moment more!’ She dropped the Pop-Tart in the toaster with a flourish and was rewarded with a giggle.
‘Now,’ she went on with a smile, spinning toward the fridge, ‘some juice!’ She continued on this way, narrating the breakfast making process like she was on a cooking show, delighting in Olive’s laughter at the spectacle.
Maybe she was good at this nanny thing after all.
Feeling pretty cocky led them to be ten minutes late for kindergarten drop-off, and with Olive wearing a pair of unicorn slippers to school, but Iris was counting it as a win.
She’d made Olive laugh. Not bad for her first day as a nanny.