Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
“But you hate eating junk!” Milo is totally scandalized at my suggestion.
I shrug. “You deserve a treat now and then. And it’s better not to catch the place on fire.”
Right then, I think we both start smelling smoke at the same time. The use of the word fire seems very timely. Milo and I exchange looks of horror before we both go running to the kitchen. I make it there first just in case it’s dangerous because I don’t want Milo to be in any harm’s way.
“For the love of toast and marmalade,” Toren curses as he fans a tea towel over the smoking frying pan. When he spots me, he fans the smoke even harder. “I don’t know what happened. One minute they were cooking, and the next, they were on fire.”
“Gah!” Yeah, I went there, just like Toren and Milo. It must be rubbing off on me.
Muscling Toren aside, I lean over the frying pan to see that the meatballs are little black lumps. Luckily, whatever fire there was is extinguished, and I don’t have to worry about whether it’s a grease fire to smother, something I can throw water on, or something I need the fire extinguisher for.
The water in the spaghetti pot is dangerously close to boiling itself dry, and the pasta hasn’t even been put in yet. The sauce has been poured into the small pot, or I guess I should say it was because it’s now everywhere like a giant sauce volcano erupted in the center of the stove and overflowed to the counters, cupboards, and window.
“Oh boy,” Toren says as I survey the mess. “Don’t worry. I’ll clean it up.”
“It would probably need your muscle and manpower to get all of it off, so I hope you will.”
“If I can’t, I’ll hire someone, and if I stained anything, I’ll…I’ll replace it. I’m…Lu, I’m sorry. I…”
I ignore the fact that he called me Lu, and I really hope Milo didn’t hear it. He doesn’t need to hear his nanny calling his mom something he’s never heard me called before. I always hated when people called me Lu, except for Toren. I never minded when he did it. In fact, I was so freaking pleased the first time because he never did things like that—use nicknames. It was like it went against his stiff code of propriety and assaulted his intelligence to abase himself to use names for people that were not their actual names.
“Relax,” I mutter under my breath. I will not lose my shit. Not over this, and not over a nickname. Milo walks up beside me and looks at the stove. Then, he looks at Toren and shakes his head in the way only an astonished four-year-old can.
“I told you,” Milo whispers to me, but it’s more like a whisper-yell. I know Toren can hear him because his lips twitch at the corners, but it’s not followed by an eye twitch, so it says he’s more amused than annoyed.
“Hmm. Well, how about PB and J then?”
“No!” Milo and Toren both say at the same time.
“I can do one better.” Toren whips out his phone. “There’s a place I know that makes really good spaghetti, lasagna, and pizza.”
“All of them!” Milo shouts.
For once, I don’t correct him, even though with the lobster we had last night, it is overkill on the ordering in. I’m kind of exhausted and starved, and those things make for bad combinations, so it’s better to solve this fast. Plus, the sooner food gets here, and we eat, the sooner Toren will be out of my space and away from me. Then my brain will go back to thinking and processing at the rate it should, the weird burning sensation in my chest will go away, and my befuddled internal organs can stop being so befuddled. Oh, and my nipples too. They can go back to being regular nipples and not hard, tiny, pointed, pebbly nipples.
I shouldn’t eat lobster again. I think all that seafood “seafooded” something in my system and made my body haywire. Maybe it’s a lingering allergic reaction that only affects my lady bits.
“Sounds like a plan.”
While Toren orders dinner and Milo goes to his room for what I assume is going to be another book he’ll bring out, I make plans in my head to find a new nanny.
I can’t keep coming home to Toren in my house every single night, minus my one day off. That would be…well, I just don’t want to get used to it. I can’t get used to it.
CHAPTER 9
Toren
I need to talk to Luna, but it’s not like she makes herself available. The spaghetti incident was the only night I stayed past six, and that was eight days ago.
I wait until Milo is asleep for his afternoon nap before I slip downstairs using the narrow-as-hell staircase that looks more like a secret getaway escape route than it does a usable passage. I can feel both walls touching my shoulders, and that’s even after I angle myself to the side.