Temptation (6 page)

I nod my head slightly so that he knows I've
heard every word and then I focus my attention back on her face.
She's looking up at me with those eyes of hers that I could
disappear in while her cheeks flush in embarrassment, probably
because I've spent an entirely long amount of time looking her
over.

"Shall I bring you to Alyssa?" she asks
me.

"Yes, please, and thank you."

She turns to leave the room and it takes me a
few seconds to follow because my eyes can't seem to focus on
anything but her body. Eventually my brain catches up and we leave
the kitchen and make our way down the hallway before climbing up
the stairs to the second floor. With every step she takes I focus
on her backside as it sways subtly from side to side.

Why did Chris have to say she was off limits?
He knows me better than anyone so he should know that making her
off limits will only tempt me more.

We pass a few doors before walking into the
large, open loft that overlooks part of the first floor. Sitting on
a pink chair covered in balloons is the birthday girl. She's
smiling from ear to ear while watching a handful of children
jumping in a ball pit that's off in the corner of the loft.

The room fills with the sound of her
laughter. She's giggling as one of the boys tries to hit her with
the plastic ball. Her eyes close as her head tilts back and I watch
the blond ringlets of her hair fall against her back. She lifts her
head back up and opens her eyes. It's then that she spots me.

"Uncle Theo," she shouts, jumping out of her
chair and running in my direction. Her pink party dress makes a
rustling noise as the tulle underneath swishes with each step. I
hold out my arms as she jumps into them and wraps her tiny arms
around my neck, holding me tightly.

"Happy birthday, princess," I declare
adoringly.

"Thanks," she replies as she lets go and I
set her back down on the floor. Looking up at me with her bright
blue eyes that she gets from her mother she says, "I'm four
now."

"I know. You're almost an adult," I reply,
humoring her.

"Do you like my dress?" she asks, spinning
around in a circle so I can see the entire thing. It takes me a
second but I quickly realize that she is wearing an almost
identical dress to Cassie. The only difference is that her dress
has tulle underneath and Cassie’s doesn't. I look down at her feet
and she's wearing identical ballet flats to Cassie's, too.

Out of the corner of my eye I catch Cassie
smiling down at Alyssa as she continues to turn herself in circles,
making herself dizzy in the process. Eventually she slows down and
tumbles to the floor.

"Whoa, my head feels funny."

I stand over her, looking down as she lies on
the floor on her back. "If you're not feeling well maybe I should
give your gift to another little girl at the party."

Her eyes grow big and she quickly sits up and
then pushes herself to her feet. "Oh no, Uncle Theo. I feel great
and I want my gift."

She grabs the package out of my hand and
places it on the ground. In a matter of seconds there is wrapping
paper everywhere, a torn lid to the box she just ripped open, and
tissue paper all over the ground as she looks in the box,
speechless as to what's inside.

"This is the exact doll I wanted!" she
exclaims and then looks up at me. "I told mommy you were going to
get me her but she told me not to get my hopes up. But I told her
you would. I just told her."

I smile down at her, a genuine smile because
it's hard not to be happy when I'm around this little girl. It's
every other child in the world that annoys the shit out of me, but
Alyssa is perfect. I'd do anything for her, and that includes
walking into the most well-known and expensive doll store in the
world and picking out the doll she wanted. She asked me for this
doll the last several times we had fake tea together in my
office.

"There's also an invitation in there. Do you
want me to read it?"

She looks around until she finds the red and
pink card and then stands up, placing it in my hand.

"Please," she replies.

I open the card. "You and your new doll are
cordially invited to have tea and brunch with Uncle Theo next
Friday in the Garden Room. A shopping spree for all your favorite
doll essentials to follow-"

I'm unable to finish reading because she is
jumping on me and screaming her gratitude in my ear. I squeeze her
back and kiss her on the top of her head before setting her back
down.

Like any typical child she quickly forgets
about me and goes off running to her friends to show off her new
doll, leaving me alone with Cassie who has been quiet this entire
time.

"That was really sweet of you. Molly didn't
think you were going to pull through and get it for her."

That really pisses me off because although I
don't show up to a majority of the parties at their house, I've
never let down Alyssa, not once. Even last year when I knew I
wasn't going to make her third birthday party, but I couldn't tell
anyone why, I took Alyssa out for ice cream and broke it to her
that I wasn't going to be able to make it. I let Chris and Molly
believe I blew off the party because I didn't want them to know the
real reason I wasn't going to be there.

I turn to face Cassie, prepared to defend
myself but she's looking at me with those eyes and I lose my train
of thought. She's wearing very little make-up and it lets me admire
the natural beauty she is. I can barely catch my breath looking at
her.

I feel like I just ran a marathon

I inhale deeply before speaking. "A promise
is a promise and I'll never break a promise to that little
girl."

"Yeah, Alyssa said that to Molly, too. It
seems Alyssa knows you better than they do."

That's probably true.

"So," I say, looking her up and down. "What's
with the matching dresses? Don't get me wrong, you look incredible,
but I thought only the birthday girl got to wear pink today."

She rolls her eyes but is unable to hide the
slight smile that pulls at the corner of her mouth. "Alyssa
insisted we match since I'm her best friend."

"You're best friends with a
four-year-old?"

"Alyssa's four going on thirty and yes, I'm
proud to say I'm best friends with a four-year-old. She has all the
qualities someone needs in a best friends. She makes me laugh,
listens to me, and is loyal."

I laugh. "She listens to you because you're
her nanny and she's loyal because all children are loyal to the
adults in their life, even if some adults don't deserve it. It's
beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time."

She nods her head in agreement at my words,
seriously considering everything I just said. "Yes, but she's still
my best friend and if she wants me to wear a matching outfit with
her on her birthday, then I'll wear a matching outfit with her on
her birthday."

If possible, I think I like her even
more.

This is the first conversation I've ever had
with Cassie and I don't want it to stop, but for the first time,
possibly ever, I don't know what to say. I'm great at talking to
women. I know how to read them, read their body language and say
the right thing, but I can't read her and I know if I don't say
something soon to break this awkward silence between us she'll walk
away.

"I think you've just found some competition.
Maybe I need a four-year-old as a best friend too. I'll have to up
my game with Alyssa to win her over."

"When I say it, it's sweet; when you say it
you sound like a potential sex offender. No grown man should be
best friends with a four-year-old girl," she jokes.

"Good point. You win, I'll just have to stick
with being her favorite uncle."

The kids continue to jump in the ball pit and
Alyssa has abandoned her doll and joined the other kids in the pit.
Balls are being tossed and kids are burying themselves until only a
hand or foot can be seen above the rubble.

Without being too obvious I shift on my feet
from side to side until I'm much closer to Cassie and our arms
graze each other.

"Can I ask you something?" I blurt out
suddenly.

"Go ahead."

"I don't know if you recognize me, but I
recognized you right away. You swim at the health club I attend and
this may sound invasive, or creepy, but I have to know. Bailey,
who's a member service representative at the club, she told me your
name was Maria, but Chris called you Cassie. Which is it?"

She looks down at her feet before looking
back up at me, biting her lip. "I didn't know you even knew my
name. Of course I recognize you from the club, you swim next to me
almost every day. Umm... my legal name is Maria, which must be why
Bailey called me that, but everyone calls me Cassie."

"Everyone?"

"Everyone who's close to me. Bailey doesn't
even look me in the eyes when she talks to me. She's too hung up on
herself and the latest fads, but I definitely told her I go by the
name Cassie."

"Why Cassie and not Maria?"

"Listen, I don't know you very well, or
actually at all, except for the few things Chris has said about you
in passing. Although, I didn't know the Theo he talked about and
the guy I swim next to is the same person. I'm not going to go into
detail, but I go by Cassie because that's the name I choose to go
by."

Her response is not at all what I expect and
instead of satisfying me, it makes me want to know more about her.
I watch her take a deep breath as her chest expands and her tits
stretch the material of her dress. Fuck me, those tits. Even with
all that weight loss they're still large, round, and what I would
give to lower the top of her dress and feast on them right now.

Shit. I need to get it together.

The kids are still playing in the ball pit
and Alyssa has forgotten about us as she continues to jump in the
balls in her pink dress. I nudge Cassie's shoulder to get her
attention.

"Want to sit down? Chris's study is down the
hall and we can raid his liquor selection."

She stops watching the children and brings
her attention back to me. "I work here, remember? I know where Mr.
Smith's study is... and I don't really drink."

She doesn't drink? How am I supposed to get
her comfortable with the idea of letting me fuck her in one of the
abandoned rooms if I can't even get a shot or two of tequila in
her?

"Okay, no alcohol but we can talk. Get to
know each other."

She watches me hesitantly, but then nods in
agreement before turning around and walking down the hallway,
leading the way to Chris's study.

We walk into the large room, bypassing the
desk and bookshelf and going directly to the large leather couch in
the corner. She waits for me to sit down and when I do she sits at
the opposite end of the couch, with her feet on the ground and her
hands clasped together in her lap.

She looks nervous and for the first time I
can actually read her body language. Her perfect posture and the
fact that she sits so far away from me proves how unsettled she is.
But is she just a nervous person or is she nervous to be alone with
me? That I'm not sure of.

I turn to face her on the couch, getting
comfortable by leaving one leg on the ground and bending my other
leg and placing my foot on my knee. I want to make her comfortable,
too, and I know the only way to do that is to show her that I'm a
nice guy who really does want to get to know her, and not just get
in her pants. I ask her the same thing I asked her in the loft.

"Now that we're alone and have some time, why
do you go by Cassie?"

Her arms tense and she squeezes her hands
together tightly in her lap. "Why do you want to know so
badly?"

"Just curious. I'd like to get to know you
and Maria is a beautiful name so it's interesting to me that you
would decide to go by something else instead."

"Cassandra is my middle name. It's actually
very popular in the south for women to go by their middle
names."

"Yes, but we're not in the south. We're in
Chicago."

She takes another deep breath and it takes
all my inner strength to focus on her eyes and not look down at her
breasts.

"When I was just a few days old, my birth
mother dropped me off at a convent in Wisconsin and left me with
the nuns. When we first arrived the sisters immediately took us in
and convinced my mother to stay the night and sleep on her
decision. They felt like after a good night sleep my mother might
change her mind and realize that children are God's precious gifts
to the world."

"And did she? Did she change her mind?"

"I don't know. I'll never know. The next
morning when they went into her room she was dead. The coroner
ruled it a drug overdose. She had so many prescription and
recreational drugs in her system on top of a lethal amount of
cocaine. The nuns never checked her purse before giving her the
room. She did a couple lines right there in the convent, but with
all the track marks on her arms it seemed cocaine wasn't her only
drug of choice. She had been an addict for a while.

"I was only a few days old so the nuns were
worried for me as well. I was screaming and crying all day, I
wouldn't drink the bottles they made for me and when I started to
convulse they called an ambulance and I was rushed to the hospital.
Turns out I was a newborn baby addicted to cocaine, heroin and
meth. She never stopped taking drugs the entire pregnancy and she
breast-fed me to save money so I was getting the drugs from her
breast milk. Wherever we lived those first few days added to the
addiction because she was cooking the meth where we lived. The
hospital could tell by the fact that my skin and clothing were
saturated in it."

"That's fucked up," I whisper, interrupting
her story.