His Nanny Mate (Moana and Edrick Morgan) novel Chapter 96

#Chapter 96: A Proposition

Moana

As I watched Edrick and Kelly walk away together, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. Not only that, but she was wearing the exact same dress as I was! Even Verona did a double take when she saw Kelly walk up to us.

When they were gone, Verona quickly came over to me and took my hand.

“Don’t worry about it, dear,” she said gently, giving my hand a squeeze. “Kelly… Well, she’s not a bad girl, really, but she’s always had a bit of an infatuation with Edrick. She’ll get bored eventually and stop pestering you.”

“It’s alright,” I replied with a smile, even though I couldn’t help but feel bad. “It’s just a dress.”

Verona gave me a sad look. I felt as though I would cry and ruin my makeup if I kept standing here, so I quickly excused myself under the guise of performing my job duties as a nanny and went to look for Ella. After several minutes of walking around and weaving my way through the growing crowd, I finally spotted Ella over by the snack bar with her friends. As children often do, they were stuffing their cheeks with sweets.

“Ahem.” I cleared my throat as I came up to Ella, folding my arms across my chest and looking down at her. The other kids saw me and quickly ran away, but she slowly turned to face me and gave me a sheepish smile, her cheeks round with cream puff pastries. “You’ll spoil your appetite, young lady,” I said, stifling a laugh at the little girl’s chipmunk-like appearance.

She chewed for a minute, then finally swallowed with a big gulp. “Sorry,” she muttered, staring down at the floor. “I was hungry.”

“Well, at least get a plate and sit down when you eat,” I said gently, taking her hand as I began to lead her away from the snacks. “It’s not very polite to eat like that.”

I led Ella back to Verona, who was still waiting by her table as she talked to a servant, seemingly giving orders judging from the way that she pointed and gestured at various tables. The servant nodded understandingly before scurrying off. Verona let out a sigh, then finally noticed Ella coming and a wide smile spread across her face. Ella ran up to her, grinning from ear to ear as her grandmother showered her with kisses.

I hadn’t even fully caught up yet when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. At first, I thought it was Edrick needing something from me — but when I turned around, I felt myself go pale as a sheet when I saw that it wasn’t in fact Edrick, but was instead his father, Michael. He was staring down at me with a terse smile spread across his face, but his eyes were cold and stern.

“Care for a dance?” he said, holding out his hand.

“I— Um—” I stuttered, my heart practically pounding out of my chest as a million thoughts raced through my mind. Why was Michael Morgan asking me to dance if not to confront me about the pregnancy? Even if it wasn’t about the pregnancy, it certainly had something to do with my relationship with his son. I was sure of it.

“Well, is that a yes or a no?” he asked. “Come along. I like this song. I’d like to dance before it ends.”

Before I could resist, Michael’s hand dug into my shoulder and he guided me somewhat roughly over to the dance floor. He then turned to face me and took one of my hands in his, then put his other hand on my waist. I could feel my own hands trembling as I placed my free hand on his shoulder.

“U-Um, thank you,” I managed to squeak out, forcing a tense smile as we began to dance to the music. Michael was a stern leader, and I almost felt as though I was being thrown around a bit as we danced. “This is a lovely song.”

“Mhm.”

For a few moments, we danced in silence. He smelled like an almost sickly combination of whiskey, cigar smoke, and cologne. It made me want to gag, and started to trigger my morning sickness, but I somehow managed to keep my cool in front of him.