Page 83 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
“You have my granny Fin doing that splits business?” he asked.
“No,” Libby replied curtly. Her tone was cordial, but irritation simmered beneath her singsong voice. “I showed her a few restorative yoga positions to help with her arthritis. You might have noticed if you’d been able to spare us a moment.”
And the punches kept coming.
He had to do this. There was no other choice than to make her despise him—again. But as the realization hit, the image of her naked and biting her bottom lip as she hummed the dirtiest of moans invaded his mind. Their bodies had moved together, pumping and thrusting as they rode wave after wave of delirious ecstasy. The hum of energy that had flowed between them and the depths of her amber eyes had him craving a life that was not for him. A life he didn’t deserve. A life he had to forfeit. Libby’s tenderness only fueled the fever dream that he could be anything more than a fighter. He’d failed as a husband. He was failing at being a parent. Boxing was all he had left.
Mere had sacrificed too much for him to fail in the ring.
“Now that we’ll be together in Rickety Rock, we’ll get to see my dad every day, Libby. You won’t have to ask me so many questions about him because he’ll be with us,” Sebastian chimed, and now Libby was the one blushing.
“You’ve been talking about me with my son?” he asked, lowering his voice.
Libby shifted in her seat. “Just normal nanny questions.”
“What did you want to know?”
“She wanted to know what you and I used to do in London,” Sebastian answered crisply before Libby could conjure a reply. “I told her we didn’t do much of anything because you were training a lot back in England, too.”
Shame scorched through his veins. He glanced at his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. It would be a miracle if he didn’t rip the damn thing clean off the dash.
The kid couldn’t be right, could he? The two of them had to have done something together in the recent past.
Or maybe not?
After Mere’s death, his time in London blurred into a parade of one-night stands that only ushered in more loneliness. He released a pained breath when Sebastian cut into his tormented thoughts with an elated whoop.
“We’re here! Look, it’s the sign for Rickety Rock, and it’s got a donkey on it—a donkey next to a big boulder. I wonder if that’s our donkey. I can’t wait to meet the donkey. Did you know that a male donkey is called a Jack, and a female donkey is called a Jennie?”
“Sebastian’s read a lot about donkeys and pack burro racing since he got to Colorado. He’s even made a few sketches in his book,” Libby said. He didn’t have to look at her to hear the smile in her voice.
“See,” Sebastian called, holding up a drawing of a donkey’s head. “I drew you with a donkey, Dad.”
“He’s excited to spend time with you now that we’re out of the city and training for the Ass-in-Nine,” Libby added in a hushed voice. The venom in her tone had been replaced with a hopeful lilt.
Too bad he was about to disappoint her again.
“You know that I’m still going to be training for the fight, right, mate?” he said, meeting Sebastian’s eye in the rearview mirror. “This donkey race isn’t such a big deal compared to a championship fight that millions and millions of people are going to watch.”
“Yeah, I know, Dad,” the child answered, deflating into the seat.
“But you’ll have those camps and activities with your mates,” he said, trying to find the bright side. “You’ll be so busy you won’t even miss me.”
Had more hollow words ever been spoken?
What was wrong with him? He was better off keeping his gob shut.
“Yeah, Dad, camp with Phoebe and Oscar will be cracking,” the boy answered flatly.
Bloody hell.
Libby glared at him, her amber eyes blazing.
If she had a vibrator, she’d surely chuck it right at his head.
Silently fuming, she didn’t say a word as they exited the interstate. The GPS barked directions as they entered the tiny town of Rickety Rock. The place looked like something out of an olden day’s movie. There was a quaint downtown area with a mix of one- and two-story brick buildings lining the main drag, coupled with hanging baskets of brightly colored flowers. He took in the shops and raised an eyebrow at their interesting names. There seemed to be a theme to this town—an odd coupling of two categories: donkeys and discombobulation.
Sebastian rolled down his window and craned his neck. “Burro Café, Ass You Are Western Wear, The Mule and Donkey Saloon, Jack and Jennie’s Bookshop, Wobbly Hardware, Loopy Scoop Ice Cream Parlor, Askew Market, Crooked Zen Rocks and Fortunes, Rickety Rock Visitor Center and Vortex Resources,” Sebastian called out, reading the names of the various eclectic shops.
