Page 43 of The Nanny and the Nerd
She looked over her shoulder at him. “It’s also Phoebe’s home.”
“And yours,” he replied hastily, then shook the damn cobwebs out of his addled brain. “Yours until we decide if we want to move forward after the trial period,” he recovered. God help him! He and Penelope were like two walking blooper reels.
“This is your room.” He tapped the door twice like he was room service delivering towels.
This could not get more awkward!
“And where’s Phoebe’s room?” she asked with the slightest shake to her voice.
He pointed one door down. “Her room is between ours.”
Penelope gazed past Phoebe’s door into the dimly lit hall. “That’s you?”
Was it a bad idea to assign the nanny a room so close to his? He figured she’d want to be close to Phoebe.
“Yes, but I can give you another room if you’d like. I chose this room for its proximity to Phoebe, and it’s also got a pretty cool steam shower.”
Pretty cool?Jesus! He sounded like an idiot!
“A steam shower,” she repeated.
He inhaled a tight breath. It took everything he had not to imagine beads of hot water trailing down her smooth, toned legs in a cloud of delicious humidity. Dammit, he wasn’t that strong! He could see her in there with her hair twisted in a bun as wet, golden tendrils clung to her neck, with water trailing between her breasts like an invitation. And she wasn’t alone. His heart hammered in his chest at what came next in his dirty nanny daydream.
“Rowen, are you okay?” Penelope asked.
He blinked and filed the thought under stop fantasizing about the nanny. “Yes, the steam shower came with the house like everything else,” he answered in a voice he hoped didn’t reveal he’d imagined her naked.
“I’ve heard that steam is good for your pores and things like that,” she rattled, dialing up the awkward meter. At least he wasn’t the only one tripping over himself. This situation was utterly foreign to him, and it had to be even stranger for her. A first night in a new place was hard. He knew that better than anyone.
“Should we go in?” she asked, running her poking finger across the stainless-steel door lever.
He stared at her hand, and his chest tightened. First the elevator, then Phoebe’s spelling test, and now the door handle—would he envy everything this woman touched? What was next—the toaster?
He cleared his throat. “Why not! It’s a room with a bed and a shower.”
This. Had. To. Stop!
Would it make it more awkward if he slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth and mimed the rest of this tour?
He opened the door and allowed Penelope to enter ahead of him, cursing his boneheaded comments. He’d been in this room many times, and he’d never had to force himself to not look at the steam shower until now. Instead, he turned his attention to the keypad on the wall. “This is for the security system Mrs. Sullivan mentioned. I’ve created a Gale email account for you and emailed you your security code.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You made me an email address?”
“You are an employee, and I prefer to interact digitally, so…” he trailed off.
“That makes sense,” she replied, touching one of the posts on the modern canopy bed. Her bed. The place where she’d sleep mere feet away from him.
He folded his arms.
Focus on the security!
“You can also access the security system through any of the devices I’ve provided.”
Penelope glanced into her bag, and he could see the laptop, phone, tablet, and watch crowded in with her sea of scribbled on papers.
“I haven’t looked at any of the tech stuff you gave me. Could you tell me what to do with the alarm? I can write it down,” she offered, setting her tote on the floor and pulling her notebook from the giant bag as several errant sticky notes fluttered to the ground like recyclable butterflies.
His instincts told him to clean up the mess, but Penelope shook her head.
