Page 24 of Forbidden Kisses

She’s Jeremy's nanny. She's much younger than you. She's completely off-limits. Get that through your thick skull.

Riley avoided my gaze as I got out of the pool for my phone call.

Fucking hell, I don’t want her to be uncomfortable. I need to get my shit together.

After she left later that afternoon, it was too late to cook, so Jeremy and I ordered pizza for dinner. While we waited for the delivery, we called his mother. He usually spoke to Shona either before or after dinner. I appreciated that she was flexible and never missed a call.

"Hi, Jeremy," she said. "Hey, Duncan."

"Mom, we were at the pool."

She chuckled. "I can see that. You have wet hair. Did you have fun?"

"Yeah, we did.”

“He’s very proficient at the butterfly, although he was mostly on the slide today."

“I'm so proud of you, Jeremy," Shona said.

"I’ll leave the two of you to chat." I liked hanging around when they were on the phone, but I knew they were more at ease talking if I wasn't actively part of the conversation.

As I cleaned the table, I heard her saying, "I can't wait for you to come to Dublin."

Jeremy stayed with her for two weeks every summer.

"Me too. Is Jamie going to come with us on our adventures?”

Jamie was Shona’s boyfriend.

"Oh no, baby. I'm sorry. Jamie and I… well, we aren’t friends anymore."

I looked at Jeremy immediately. His smile fell. "But why?"

"Sometimes relationships between adults don't work out. But I have a new friend. I can't wait to introduce you to him."

My brothers didn't understand why I didn't introduce anyone to Jeremy, and this was proof that it was a bad idea.I didn’t want my son to get attached to someone, only to be disappointed when things didn’t work out.

My ex obviously wasn’t as concerned.

"Okay," Jeremy said, sounding confused as hell.

She was on her third boyfriend over the past three years, and it was taking a toll on him. It was one thing if she had someone stable in his life, but that hadn’t been the case, and I didn’t like it one bit.

Once he’d done his nightly routine and gone to sleep, I called Shona back.

"Hey, Duncan. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I just figured we haven't spoken in a while."

"That's true,” she agreed. “So, how are things? Ms. Williams leaving wasn't great, huh? Especially with summer starting?"

"No, but that's fine. I've made new arrangements."

"Already? Wow, you always were very efficient."

"Listen, Shona?—"

"Oh, I knew it. I can feel it in your voice. You want to admonish me."