His Nanny Mate (Moana and Edrick Morgan) novel Chapter 95

#Chapter 95: The Banquet

Edrick

“There’s my favorite girls,” I said with a smile.

I didn’t even think about it before I said it, but I knew as soon as it came out of my mouth that I’d made a mistake. Ella didn’t seem to notice, but Moana sure did. Her green eyes, which looked even more beautiful with the small amount of gold eyeshadow around them, widened.

“Ha,” I said, feigning surprise at myself in the feeble hope that I could get away without Moana dwelling on this too much, “slip of the tongue. Are you two ready?”

…

When we arrived at the banquet, the party had already begun. The end of summer banquet was a long-standing Morgan family tradition. The banquet that I had taken Moana and Ella to earlier that summer was solely for more immediate family and close friends, but this banquet was different. Each summer, practically every single member of the entire Morgan clan, from immediate family to cousins several times removed and all of their own friends and extended families through marriage would come from all over the globe to visit my parents’ mansion. Needless to say, these parties were huge, and often went on for two or three days. That was why I paid my old friend Tyrus to come and do Moana’s hair and makeup; sure, it was necessary for the nanny, but I wanted to make a good impression. Besides, I had to admit that I wanted to do a little something nice for Moana to make her feel better, although I would never tell her that.

The driver pulled up to the front driveway and we got out. Moana held Ella’s hand as we walked up the wide stone pathway, lined with fountains and sculptures, but as soon as Ella saw her other little cousins she instantly took off running.

“Oh— Ella!” Moana called, taken by surprise by Ella’s sudden mad dash.

“It’s alright,” I said with a chuckle. “She only gets to see these kids once a year. She’ll be fine — although that dress will probably wind up in the trash by the time she’s done rolling around with them like an animal.”

Moana managed a wry laugh and followed me up the steps to the front door, where servants were waiting to take our jackets. Glasses of champagne were handed to us almost as soon as we walked into the large banquet hall, but Moana refused.

“Darling!” my mother’s familiar voice called as I entered. She waved at us from across the crowd, and Moana and I made our way over to her. Of course, with so many people here, she only extended Moana the basic pleasantries, although I knew that my mother secretly wanted to dote on the mother of my second child all night. When I was with Olivia, it was the same thing. I didn’t have to hide my relationship with Olivia quite as much as with Moana, so my mother would spend hours at these events gushing over her despite my father’s sullenness that I wasn’t married to her. Although, Olivia quickly stopped even coming to the events as soon as she got pregnant; I didn’t realize it at the time, thinking that she was just dealing with morning sickness throughout the pregnancy, but she was really sneaking around with other men and only used the pregnancy to keep me faithful.

“How are you, mom?” I asked, planting a kiss on her cheek while Moana stood nearby, looking a little out of place despite her luxurious outfit.

“I’m splendid,” my mother said, then turned to Moana. “And you look absolutely stunning, dear. You’re glowing.”

Moana blushed. “Thank you.”

Then, my mother turned back to face me and lowered her voice. “I’d advise steering clear of your father, at least until he’s had a couple of drinks in him,” she said, patting my hand. “He’s not happy about the tabloid.”

My eyes widened; so my father did see the tabloid after all. When he didn’t call to scold me about it, I thought that he never saw it.

“Does he know…?” I asked, indicating Moana’s pregnancy.

“I think he might have an idea,” my mother replied. “But I told him that we were just having a nice lunch, and that you never mentioned anything about a pregnancy. That might have allayed his suspicions for the time being.”