style="font-size:15px;"> “Tell you what,” Brianna began in a much softer tone. “Why don’t you let me get dressed and we can discuss all this over a cup of coffee.” She indicated Marco with a nod of her head. “He was just leaving.”
Mrs. Schelling turned to look at him. Acknowledging Marco for the first time since she’d arrived, she studied him thoroughly. Apparently, she didn’t like what she saw. Then she turned her eyes to Brianna’s short T-shirt.
“I didn’t realize you were entertaining a gentleman,” she said with disdain.
Brianna’s breath caught. That was probably the worst thing to say in front of her husband. She didn’t have a chance to reply. Enzo, who must have sensed the tension between his mama and the nanny, whom he never really took a liking to, walked over and threw his relatively full cup straight at Mrs. Schelling’s shin.
“Ow! Do you see?” she cried. “There are plenty of nice, manageable children out there who need looking after. I don’t have to put up with—” She gave Enzo a look that could only be described as disgusted. “With this—”
“I am sorry for any trouble my son may have caused,” Marco interrupted. His words were cordial enough, but they held a distinct undertone.
“Your son?”
Marco gave her a stiff nod. “Correct. And it just so happens, we no longer need your services. I am here to make alternate arrangements for Enzo.”
Marco reached into his back pocket and pulled out a leather wallet. Removing several crisp bills, he extended them to the older woman. Brianna simply stood and stared. She would be hard pressed to match it.
Mrs. Schelling let out another “humph” as her pudgy hand closed around the bills. “I dare say I deserve it for all I’ve had to put up with.” She gave Enzo a withering look.
Brianna sighed at the other woman’s sourness. “I’m sorry our arrangement didn’t work out, Mrs. Schelling. I know Enzo can be a handful, but he’s just so young. There’s a lot he needs to learn.”
Mrs. Schelling pulled her coat tighter as she mumbled something incoherent under her breath. Then she stalked out.
Brianna shut the door and stared at it. What now? Behind her, Marco’s sigh was clearly audible.
Brianna turned to him. “Don’t you dare say a word. I don’t want to hear anything from you right now.”
He gave her a look a teacher might give a child who was having a tantrum.
“Listen,” she continued. “I have made no secret of the fact that Enzo has been having some behavior problems since we moved.”
“And what of the gentlemen you entertain?”
True to form, Brianna thought. “I do not entertain anyone. Mrs. Schelling just jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
Marco’s stony glare didn’t change.
“In any case, I need to start getting dressed.”
“Am I to presume that I will be given the privilege of sitting for my own son?”
“Only if I’m to presume that you’d still like to.”
“Of course I do. But I have one question for you first.”
She somehow knew that he would. “By all means,” she said, not sure how much more conflict she could take in one morning.
“What exactly would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?”
There was that hint of accusation in his voice again. “I would have figured something out.”
“I’m afraid to guess what that would have been. Were you going to perhaps dump Enzo off on an unprepared neighbor? Or maybe you would have brought him to the restaurant with you where he would have been practically unsupervised.”
Oh, he was just too much. “All the neighbors love Enzo, first of all. Secondly, I have a backup sitter.”
“And how long would that have taken?”
He had a point. It would probably have taken long enough to make her late again. Enzo’s antics had made her late so often in the past, Chef Ansigne had just about lost all patience with her.
“Are you going to sit with him or not?”
“Of course. Don’t even pretend you have another option.”
Brianna refused to take the bait. “Fine, I’m going to run upstairs and take a shower.” She reached down to tussle Enzo’s hair. He’d come over to hug her leg, seeking comfort, no doubt.
She leaned over to his eye level. “Enzo, you’re going to spend the day with Papa. All right?”
Enzo shook his head and smiled.
Marco immediately went to him. “Why did he say no?” he asked Brianna. “I thought he remembered who I was.”
“He shakes his head when he means yes. He’s saying no when he covers his face with his arm.”
Marco smiled but it didn’t last. “It’s been so long, I don’t know any of his little quirks.”
Here it comes, Brianna thought. Another condemning tirade about how all that was her fault. But instead Marco stroked his son’s cheek and started to speak softly to him in Italian. Brianna hadn’t forgotten how gentle he could be, how tender.
She shook away the memories. There was no use for them now. Slowly stepping around Marco and Enzo, Brianna silently made her way to the stairway.
* * *
Marco heard the water come on upstairs. It would be very hot, he knew. That was how Brianna liked her showers. There would be steam rising off her silky, smooth skin. She was likely using a lavender soap, rubbing it over her curves.
Stop it.
But how? She was no less beautiful than when he’d fallen for her three years ago. It was taking everything he had not to go up to her now. He knew she would respond. No matter what had happened between them and how far they’d been apart, she was sure to respond. The way she responded to him had never been the problem.
He just wished he understood her.
The nanny’s words echoed through his head. Entertaining a gentleman.
The woman must have witnessed something to speak as she did. Had she found Brianna “entertaining” in the past?
He clenched his fists.
He had to consider the possibility. Despite being her husband, he hardly knew Brianna. When they’d first met on that fateful business trip to oversee expansion of the family’s North American operations, Brianna had still been training then, barely out of culinary school. One look at her had triggered an attraction unlike any he’d ever felt. Nothing he’d ever shared with any other woman even compared. Maybe that was why he’d behaved so foolishly that week and then had
