Filed to story: The Alpha and His Nanny Luna (Tiffany & Asher) Book PDF Free
Finally, Asher turned around — but only halfway. “I have some work to do, Ella,” he said.
“But…” Ella pushed out her lower lip in a pout, as she often did when she wasn’t getting her way. “You just got home. You always play with me when you come home.”
Asher’s eyes flickered over to me for the briefest of moments once more, just as they had in the dining room the day before.
“Yes,” I said, holding his eye contact. “You just got home. Why don’t you rest for a while?”
Asher shot me a look that almost seemed as though my words had burned through his very flesh like fire before he spoke. “I’m really sorry, Princess,” he said, averting his gaze and looking back at his daughter. “I just have a lot of work to do. I’ll play with you tomorrow, alright?”
Ella let out a small whimper, but nodded in solemn agreement. “Alright. Promise?”
“Promise.”
I couldn’t hide my glare as Asher turned around and retreated to his office once more. The fact that he was so unwilling to be around me that he wouldn’t even spend five minutes with his daughter after work was simply unfair to her. If this went on for much longer, I would have no choice but to confront him about it; he could be as distant with me as he wanted to, but it wasn’t right for him to mix Ella up in our drama.
In fact, over the next few days, it became increasingly obvious to me that Asher was avoiding me. He never played with Ella in the living room anymore, and always seemed to go out of his way to leave any room that I was in within five to ten minutes of being there. He even began to let Ella into his study to play with him, which was incredibly uncharacteristic considering the fact that he had declared his study a child-free zone — unless it was absolutely necessary for Ella to enter — on my second day of working for him.
On the third day, I had begun to have enough of the Alpha CEO’s strange behavior. Was I really so awful that he couldn’t stand my presence for more than five minutes at a time?
…
It was the evening of the third day of this nonsense. Ella and I had just spent the last hour preparing a nice meal, not just for ourselves, but for Asher to share with us. It was my idea, and was really a bit of a scheme on my part to test the limits of how far Asher would go to avoid me.
Ella was elated to show him all of her hard work when he came home, and had even gone so far as to put on one of her favorite dresses to mark the occasion. She insisted that I dress up as well, so I complied and put on a nice dress and a small amount of makeup. Admittedly, I wanted to look nice as well, and found myself subconsciously putting more effort into my appearance than I had planned.
We took special care to set out the table settings, then sat down at the table and waited patiently while quiet music played on the record player in the corner.
Not long after we sat down, we heard the elevator doors open with a ding in the foyer. There was a pause as Asher likely hung up his jacket, then there was the sound of footsteps before his figure emerged in the doorway.
He hardly even looked at us. In fact, if it weren’t for Ella running over to him, he would have crossed through the dining room without even noticing that we were there.
“Surprise, Daddy!” Ella said, jumping up from her chair and skipping over to him. She grabbed his hand, then gestured over to the table with her other hand. “Tiffany and I made you a nice dinner.”
Asher paused, studying the table silently.
“What’s all this for?” he asked.
Now, I stood. Asher’s eyes seemed to widen slightly as he took in the appearance of my slim-fitting dress and neatly curled hair, but he quickly hid his look of shock. “We wanted to do something nice for you,” I said, walking over to his chair and pulling it out for him. “You’ve been working so hard, and haven’t had any time to spend with us.”
Asher seemed taken aback. “Oh, I don’t kno–” he began, but Ella stopped him by stamping her foot and folding her arms across her chest angrily.
“Eat dinner with us!” she demanded, exhaling sharply through her nose. “Tiffany let me stir the soup and everything.”
Finally, with a reluctant nod, Asher sat down in his chair. Ella sat next to him, and I sat on the other side. We enjoyed the nice dinner together, but he seemed to be keeping his focus solely on Ella throughout the entire meal. While it hurt me deeply, I was at least happy that he was spending time with Ella.
That spell quickly dissipated, however, when he retreated to his study once more almost as soon as the dinner was over. I put on a smile and helped with the dishes, then put Ella to bed… But I couldn’t sleep without talking to him.
So, I returned to his study after Ella was asleep, still wearing my dinner dress, and knocked on the door.
Tiffany
I stood outside Asher’s study for a few moments, my hand raised to knock, as I bit my lip and wondered if this was the best idea. Would attempting to talk to Asher even accomplish anything?
I almost turned around and left, but as I thought of Ella’s sad face when her father wouldn’t play with her after work simply because of my presence, I mustered up my courage and knocked.
“Come in,” Asher’s muffled voice called after a few moments. I took a deep breath and entered, standing in the doorway. Asher was sitting at his desk, and looked up at me with a surprised expression on his face as I opened the door. “Oh, Tiffany. Did you need something?”
“I want to talk to you,” I said, doing my best to keep my shoulders back and my chin held high for fear of breaking down right in front of him over such a small thing. I really had been so much more emotional than usual lately, but I didn’t want to let Asher see me break down over something like this.
“Come in, then,” he said, clearing his throat. I took a few steps in and shut the door behind me, then stood to face him. “Well? What is it?” he asked.
I took a deep breath before speaking. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
Asher furrowed his brow. “What makes you say that?”
“You’ve been avoiding me like the plague ever since we went to the orphanage together,” I replied. “I want to know if I did something or said something to upset you.”
“I’m not sure what you’re referring to.” Asher pushed his chair back a little from his desk and leaned back a bit. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”
I scoffed. “You have certainly been avoiding me,” I said, taking a few more steps toward him now. “You can hardly be in the same room with me for more than five minutes.”
“Well, it’s not like I need to spend time with you,” he replied. “You’re my employee.
There’s no reason for us to be any closer than what is absolutely necessary.”
“I understand that, but you can’t bring Ella into it,” I said. “She deserves to spend time with her father. You come home from work and go straight to your office, as though breathing the same air as me is poison. You’ve even been breaking your own rule of no children in the study by bringing her in here to play whenever I’m around, and if it weren’t for her begging tonight, you wouldn’t have even eaten the dinner we spent all evening preparing for you. What sort of a message do you think that sends to your daughter?”
Now, it was Asher who scoffed. “Whose idea was dinner, anyway? Yours or hers?” His voice began to cut like ice, but I tried my best not to let it get to me.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I replied, folding my arms across my chest.
