Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 98524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
His jaw steeled as he looked away. “Fine.”
“Are we good?” I asked, trying to catch his eyes again.
“Yes. We are good. Just get her ready, please.”
“’Kay.” To spare us both the awkwardness, I picked Aleesa up and settled her on my hip. “Come on, big girl. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I walked around the table and left the kitchen, but not without looking over my shoulder at Javier. He watched us go with a slight dip between his brows.
He didn’t look away until we disappeared around the corner.
When Leesa and I made it upstairs, I looked at her with a smile and said, “I was messing with him just a little bit.”
Four
Javier
Sometimes I asked myself what I was thinking by hiring Octavia Klein.
That feisty, slightly obnoxious, hardheaded woman was not my usual hire, but she was great with Aleesa.
She taught my daughter manners. Read to her two to three times a day. Made every single one of Aleesa’s appointments and classes on time. She even cooked healthy homemade meals for her, and that was extremely important to me.
It did not help that she was all my daughter talked about. Nonstop. For over half a year. Aleesa was at the point of refusing my bedtime stories completely because she wanted her Tava to read them to her.
All that was wonderful. Seriously. I was happy that my baby girl was happy, but I had to say I was surprised Octavia was still around. She really worked my nerves and was always finding ways to get under my skin.
I was not sure why I still allowed her to irritate me after so many months. She knew just how to scrape my nerves too. Never too much to anger me, but just enough to get inside my head and make me second-guess everything.
Most of the nannies I had hired had bailed after three or four months. Octavia was coming up on seven months and hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to quit. I was not sure if that was a good sign for me.
Most could not keep up with my demands; however, Octavia would take them like they were no big deal to her—as if having issues thrown her way could never set her back. I guess I should have expected that from a woman as carefree as she was. She had a strong spirit, one that reminded me a lot of Eloise. Was that why she got under my skin?
I shifted in my chair with a sigh as my deceased wife crossed my mind, watching the film run as Coach Harrison rambled about certain plays.
“You good?” a deep voice asked beside me.
I turned my attention to Deke Bishop, one of my best friends on and off the court, and the most famous of us in the room. He gave me a curious once-over, his eyes gleaming under the projector light.
“I am fine,” I answered.
“I’m just asking.” He threw two innocent hands into the air. “You’ve been huffing and puffing ever since you got here.”
That was because it bugged me that Octavia had asked if I wanted to take Aleesa to ballet. She knew I would if I could, but there was always shit interfering with my bonding time with Aleesa, like watching films and going to meetings, practices, and games.
Do not get me wrong; I love what I do. I love my career, and I love basketball. It is my heart and it is part of what centers me, but nothing centers me more than my family. I do everything for Aleesa so she can live a good life—one far better than mine was growing up.
I was not going to tell Deke all this, though. It was bad enough that he kept heckling me about Octavia. He said that I talked about her a lot. He assumed I was into her. But what else was I supposed to talk about when she worked for me and spent more time with my daughter than I did?
He claimed I never talked about my previous nannies as much as I did her. I called bullshit on that.
Some days, Octavia was amazing. On other days, she was a handful and I wanted to fire her simply because she agitated me. It was her mouth, really. So sarcastic and witty . . .
It had been a long time since I came across a woman with such a solid spine. A woman who was respectable and understanding but also took no shit from anyone, not even her own boss.
Perhaps that was why I found myself constantly talking about her around Deke. She was not afraid of me like the others were. Like many people were, actually. Almost like she could see right through me, down to my soul.
Once the film was wrapped up, I walked with Deke to the parking deck so we could get to our cars.