Chapter 3 #2
He told himself Belle’s giggle wasn’t the sexiest thing he’d ever heard, and those dimples in her cheeks weren’t the cutest thing he’d ever seen. They were both lies, but he was doubling down on self-preservation.
“I’ll make sure she gets bored,” Belle said, acknowledging he was right without saying the words.
For a couple of years now, he’d managed to put his attraction toward Belle on the back burner, something that was easy when their interactions were limited and usually in the presence of other people.
With her living in his home, he was more aware of her than usual. Noticing too many things he shouldn’t.
Like how she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Or how her voice softened when she talked about Pip.
Or how, since coming to stay at his house, she no longer looked at him quite as directly as she normally did.
Maybe he was just imagining that. Or maybe not.
Either way, the balance felt different with her living there.
Just slightly off…or maybe it was more accurate to say on. Because there was definitely a rhythm between them.
Something he noticed again, several hours later, as they prepared dinner together. They worked in an unspoken choreography. He handled frying the chicken breasts, while she chopped the vegetables for a salad. They moved around each other with the ease of people who’d done so a hundred times before.
Once the meal was over, Belle took Pip up for her bath while he cleaned the kitchen. By the time that was done, Pip was in her pajamas and ready for her nighttime story.
Victor noticed Belle tended to hover in the doorway of the bathroom while he read to his niece.
At first, he thought perhaps she didn’t think he could handle something as easy as reading a children’s book and tucking a little kid in for the night, but it occurred to him somewhere around her third night in residence that Belle was hanging out because she liked listening.
Tonight, whenever he did a funny voice for Blue, the overused crayon, it wasn’t just Pip who giggled but Belle as well. And he liked that…especially the way she smiled at him.
Soft. Amused. Familiar.
Something in his chest shifted, because this felt all too seamless.
And that was a fucking problem. There were no edges, no friction or distance, all things he’d anticipated and expected.
Shit. They were things he needed if he was going to manage to keep his distance from Bel—no, the nanny.
It was high time he went back to thinking of her as the nanny again.
If she was going to make this all too fucking easy and comfortable, then he was going to have to create distance between them. Even if it was only in his mind.
Once they’d both kissed Pip good night, they walked out of the room together, and Victor turned briefly in the doorway, looking back at Pip, who was quietly singing her llama—and herself—to sleep.
“She’ll be out in two minutes,” Belle whispered. “All that horseplay in the pool this afternoon wore her out.”
After Belle and Pip returned from Mrs. Evans’s house, Victor had offered to take over with Pip for the afternoon so that Belle could have a break. Since arriving, he noticed Belle rarely took time for herself, and he worried that perhaps it was because he hadn’t thought to tell her she could.
Of course, he’d expected her to retire to her room, or maybe even leave the house, go shopping or meet up with a girlfriend. If she’d done either of those things, he wouldn’t be struggling quite so hard being in her presence right now.
Unfortunately, Belle’s idea of taking a break was to put on her swimsuit and sunbathe in one of the loungers by the pool.
He’d stolen a few hundred too many peeks of her in her bikini while she dozed on her back, her eyes closed behind her sunglasses.
Every night since Belle and Pip moved in, this was the spot where they said good night. But tonight, for some reason, Victor wasn’t ready to let her go just yet.
“Want to have a drink on the patio with me?”
The second he issued the invitation, he felt the overwhelming desire to kick his own ass—because what the fuck was he thinking?
He’d just determined to stop thinking of Belle as anything more than the nanny, and now, he was asking her to have a drink. For a split second, he harbored the hope that she’d turn him down, declare herself too tired.
That prospect vanished the second her face lit up with a bright smile. “Sure. I’d love that.”
He sighed softly as the two of them made their way to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of Chardonnay, while he popped the top on a bottle of IPA. Once they’d secured their drinks, they made their way to the patio.
Victor loved his backyard, enjoyed the privacy and the quietness. He passed more than a few nights a week sitting out here just like this, staring up at the stars, listening to the crickets, and watching the fireflies flickering around the yard.
Belle’s shoulders visibly relaxed when she claimed the Adirondack next to his. She took a sip of her wine and sighed.
“It’s so nice out here,” she said softly, her tone matching the peacefulness of the evening.
The night air was cooler than he expected, considering it was June. Summer was inching forward, but it hadn’t quite settled in yet.
For a few minutes, they didn’t need to talk, both of them simply taking the time to relax.
Victor leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him.
“Long day,” she said.
He smirked. “Pip has enough energy for twenty people. Takes a lot of work to keep up.”
She nodded. “So true.”
Silence fell again, but it was comfortable, not awkward. Ordinarily, Victor relished it, so he surprised himself when he broke it to start a conversation.
“You ready for Pip to start school in the fall?”
Vivian had told Victor that Belle would remain on as Pip’s nanny, even after his niece went off to kindergarten, because she still needed the help.
While Vivian—a workaholic from the word go—had scaled back her hours big-time following Pip’s birth, she still put in some long days, her hours fluctuating according to her work schedule.
Most school days, Pip would be home nearly three hours before Vivian got off at the hospital.
If Phil was still alive, he would have been the one taking Pip to and from school, taking care of her in the summers.
That had been the plan when they’d discussed starting their family.
Vivian loved Pip more than anything on earth, but there was no way in hell she could have been a stay-at-home mother.
Her brain simply wasn’t wired that way. When Vivian first discovered she was pregnant, Phil had suggested that he take a year off from teaching to stay home with Pip when she was a baby, and Victor didn’t doubt that if things hadn’t taken such a horrible turn, that was exactly what he would have done.
“I guess I’m ready,” Belle replied after a moment.
“It’s going to feel strange not spending all day with her, and I know I’ll miss her when she’s at school, but we’ll still have the afternoons and evenings and the weekends and summer.
Besides, with her gone, I’ll have more time to do…
” She paused, then casually lifted one shoulder. “Things.”
He frowned, because that was a very vague word. “What things?”
She tilted her head back, looking up at the sky rather than at him.
For a moment, he wanted to bark at her, demand she look at him, because he hated not being able to see her eyes or her face when she released what sounded like a sad sigh.
“I don’t know exactly,” she admitted. “I’ve never really had a lot of free time on my hands, so I guess I haven’t had a chance to figure out what sort of things I’d enjoy. ”
He recalled her mentioning she’d worked fourteen hours a day prior to becoming Pip’s nanny. That admission on her part reminded him of exactly how little he knew about Belle Watson.
“Why do you work so much?” he asked, aware his tone was too gruff for normal conversation. Not that she seemed bothered by it. After five years of acquaintance, Belle—like his teammates—had grown accustomed to his shitty tone.
She gave him one of those adorable, dimpled grins. “I like to eat. And I prefer living in a house to roughing it on the street in a cardboard box.”
Victor scowled, even though he knew she was just jerking his chain. “Answer the question. You said before starting as Pip’s nanny, you worked fourteen-hour days. And I’ve seen the hours you put in for my sister. You take full-time employment to a whole new level.”
She giggled despite the fact he wasn’t joking.
“I love Vivian and Pip. To be perfectly honest, Vivian’s house is the first place that’s ever really felt like a home to me.”
That caught him off guard. “Where’s your family?
” It was probably way late in their association to ask that question, but it was just occurring to him that she never talked about her family or—as far as he knew—spent holidays with them.
She’d been a part of his and Vivian’s “Team Christmas” since Pip was born.
“They’re everywhere,” she replied. “I was the youngest of nine kids, so by the time I came along, Mom and Dad were sort of over it all. My three oldest siblings were already out of the house by the time I was born, so they always felt more like glorified aunts and uncles than brothers and sisters. When I was a baby, my thirteen-year-old sister, Flora, was my primary caregiver, because my mother had some complications following my birth that meant she was bedridden, recovering for several weeks after. When Mom was finally able to get up and do stuff, she just sort of…let Flora keep tending to me.”
Victor’s expression must have been darker than he realized, because her eyes widened briefly as she held up her hands.