Page 3 of Sinful Santa
“Um…” Tahlia extracted herself from Maddy’s hold, cheeks hot and surely red. She dared a look at the man she’d called a Grinch only minutes before. He looked like he was caught in a trap.
“Maddy…” he stopped when Kaiden appeared at his side and slipped his hand into his father’s much larger one.
“I like her, Daddy,” he said quietly, brown eyes staring so earnestly into his father’s that only a person with a stone heart could say no.
Despite Tahlia’s dire opinion of him, Matt Nelson did not, apparently, have a stone heart.
With a barely suppressed groan, Nelson leveled a glare on Tahlia as if to say she’d done this on purpose. Of course she hadn’t. If she had her druthers, she would run out of that room and never look back. Except…Maddy had taken hold of her hand and as Tahlia stared at the way the little girl held onto it so tightly, she was assaulted by a sudden lump in her throat. When she dragged her gaze back to Nelson, his glare wavered and something softer swept across his face before it went blank, and he said the last thing she expected.
“Yes, kids, she’s your new nanny.”
Nelson gave Tahlia a day to move into the spacious quarters given to her before she officially began her duties. The room had an en suite bathroom with a shower and a big tub Tahlia wasdefinitelygoing to take advantage of, and a walk-in closet which was more than enough for her meager collection of clothes. Warner, who also appeared to be the house manager, gave her a general tour of the rest of the mansion before leaving her to unpack her things. The kids’ rooms were down the hall from Tahlia’s, side by side, with an adjoining door they apparently never closed, and their own shared bathroom. It was also huge and decorated like an aquarium, live fish tank and all.
A live fish tank. In the bathroom.
Tahlia didn’t know how much money Nelson spent on the home, but it must have been millions. It was a little excessive for Tahlia, but then again, he was able to give her a generous salary, so she wasn’t about to judge.
“I’m telling you, Violet,” Tahlia switched her phone to her other shoulder while she sorted through her clothes to fold them. “He’s filthy rich. Obscenely, actually.”
“What are your impressions about him, though? The man himself?”
Tahlia picked up a stack of shirts and hauled them to the bureau inside the closet. “He’s…okay.”
“Okay? What’s ‘okay’?”
“To be honest he didn’t want me to work for him and was a real asshole about it, but the kids begged him.”
“Who wouldn’t want you to work for them? You’re amazing!”
“I know!” Tahlia laughed and shoved the drawer shut. “Seriously though, I kind of get it.” She explained what happened at her interview and sighed. “I don’t know if I’d want someone who’d only had one previous nanny experience.”
“But you have an excellent reference from Professor Martin! Her kids loved you!”
“I know,” Tahlia returned to the bedroom and sat on the bed. Her fingers explored the embroidery on the white duvet, flowers and vines hand stitched into the soft cotton. “Still, I don’t have a lot of experience and my education is in engineering. What kind of a nanny is that?”
“You fixed the kids’ toy and they couldn’t part with you. I think that says a lot. And apparently he thought so, too. Even if he is a giant jerk.”
“Maybe,” Tahlia murmured. “Maybe.”
Though she doubted it very much, perhaps time would prove Violet right.
2
As the month of December flew by, Tahlia learned a lot about the Nelson family.
Foremost, the twins couldn’t be more different. She was right: Kaiden was the shy one, needing quite a bit of time with a person before opening up. Maddy wasn’t less of an introvert, but more blunt. Definitely her father’s daughter.
They went to a fancy private school in the city, of course. Tahlia drove them and picked them up. She didn’t have to, as they apparently had a limousine specifically for that purpose but she liked to; it gave her extra time with them and it was during those drives she learned a little about their mother. A very little. There were no pictures of the woman anywhere in the house and the kids didn’t remember much their mother left when they were three. When Tahlia tried to learn from the other members of the household staff, they didn’t give. No one wanted to discuss it and she sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Nelson. As a result, she had to be content with the former Mrs. Nelson being a mystery.
When at home, the kids took piano. Maddy, another thing she apparently shared with her father and cello which Kaiden preferred lessons from private tutors. In their free time, if they weren’t up to some mischief together, Kaiden preferred to sit ina certain nook on the east end of the house which overlooked the woods nearby and read or do puzzles. Maddy, on the other hand, couldn’t sit still. She had to be doing something, either with her hands or a physical exercise of some kind. During a snack between their last music lessons before Christmas break, Tahlia gave her an old Rubik’s cube and the girl had it solved in a minute. Both children had an enquiring mind, curious about everything and unafraid to ask questions.
Tahlia very quickly fell in love with them, though she grew increasingly irritated by their father. The few interactions she had with him were weekly meetings during which she updated him on the kids and every time she had to bite her tongue to keep herself from asking why he didn’t just talk to them. Perhaps, she tried to reason, the holidays were a particularly busy time for him. He was the CEO of Roland Technologies and Tahlia supposed there could be some innovation meant to come out during the season that was taking up his time.
The excuses dried up when he didn’t show up for Thanksgiving and she had to introduce herself to his parents. Then she decided that he was an unregenerate asshole who was addicted to work and didn’t deserve to have kids. She was glad not to have much contact with him because if she did, she might speak her mind and probably end up fired.
Those were her thoughts about Matt Nelson those first couple of weeks. Until one night she saw something that kind of changed her mind.
That night Tahlia woke up with an urgent need for water, maybe three in the morning, she didn’t expect to see anyone up but, when she exited her room and walked past the kids’ rooms, she heard some movement in Kaiden’s.
