Unexpected Attraction

Episode3

The question throws me off balance and I clench my fist hard whilst staring daggers at Alice from the corners of my eyes. Looking at those hazel eyes of my daughter staring up at me and waiting for an answer, I know I’ll have to jumble up something very convincing, so ideas don’t start forming in her head.

I sigh and grab a shirt from the floor, throw it on, and walk closer to where Amelia is standing. “Hey, kiddo,” I say and ruffle her tiny twists as she looks at me.

“It’s nothing serious, it’s just that Alice had some insects in her dress and while helping her take them out, they flew into my clothes, and we had a hard time trying to get ‘em off.” What the heck is this gibberish I just spewed? The story isn’t even believable, but I’m shocked when Amelia bursts into laughter, her tiny eyelids crinkling as she laughs.

“You both got the bugs in your clothes! So Daddy is scared of bugs and Alice, too? Ewwww!” She throws her head back and laughs some more, while Alice uses the opportunity to throw on her clothes.

I lift her to my shoulders and walk out of the room with her still giggling after casting a deadly stare at Alice.

I take my daughter to the kitchen downstairs where I spend the next thirty minutes preparing her breakfast of macaroni and cheese whilst listening to her ramble on and on about random things of which the bug story topped it all. She is seated on the high island chair and the memories of how I and her mum used to sit there when one person was cooking makes me release a wistful sigh just as I turn off the cooker.

Alice walks into the kitchen while I’m dishing out the food in Amelia’s breakfast set—a pink plate, cup, and cutleries. I pour in milk into the cup and placed it before her. “Eat up, baby so we can do other fun things as daddy isn’t going anywhere today,” I say and the wide smile that spreads across her face fills my tummy with apprehension that my baby girl is a target for some hoodlums.

“Thought you had a meeting this morning?” Alice asks with a c****d eyebrow. She is standing by the sink where the dirty dishes lay. I shot her a dry stare and turned back to my daughter who is now focused on the delicious platter before her, that she had little attention to spare us.

“Any damned meeting can be canceled for my child’s safety to be in check.” I scoff.

She sighs and says nothing instead she proceeds to wash the dishes and clean up where I cooked. By the time she finishes, Amelia is already done with her meal and heading out of the kitchen for her room to perform her normal after-meal routine—flossing and bathing which I’ll do for her as I'm no longer comfortable having Alice near her.

It still breaks my heart that I fell for Alice’s pretense. Everything about her made me fall for her, and I’m still in shock that she had plans to do such evil to me.

“Uhmm Mario.” I hear her call as I’m about to step out of the kitchen and I turn. I c****d my brow in response, and she blinks back tears. ‘Those fake tears!’

“Look, Mario, it’s not what you think, please. It’s a very long and complicated story that I won’t want to bore you with, but all I can say is I never planned to do it, not after how I’ve come to love Amelia.”

“You don’t want to bore me, you say? Are you okay at all, Alice?” I chuckled slightly, more like a scoff as I watch her say that gibberish.

“What is complicated in you conniving with your boyfriend to kill my daughter?” I don’t know why my eyes are traveling down her petite body that is clad in her nightie and why my d**k is stirring up at how her lips pout. Something is trying to whisper how she might be innocent to me, but I’m not listening.

I blink my eyes sharply to clear the thoughts of how warm I felt inside her yesterday when she begins to sob.

I poke my head outside the kitchen to check for my daughter. With her nowhere in the sitting room, I walk towards Alice who is now shaking heavily from the sob.

“He beats me, forces himself on me, and is blackmailing me to do things for him.” She blurts out as I come closer.

I resist the heavy urge to roll my eyes at how dramatic she is sounding, but the look in her eyes says otherwise. She’s shaking, and her face is reddened which is quite unusual. I mean, I’ve seen her moody a few times over the months since she started working for me, but I’ve never seen her cry.

Her small lips pout as she cries, and I’m tempted to lean in and plant a kiss on those lips that grazed my core body parts just a few hours ago. I don’t do that, instead, I draw her in for a hug, all the anger and disdain I started feeling after seeing those messages suddenly turned into pity.

‘What if she’s trying to manipulate you into thinking she’s a victim while she finishes you off?’ My subconscious whispered coldly again as I wrap my arms around her and pressed my lips on her hair.

It is unclear to me why I’m not listening to my subconscious, I don’t know why I believe her story and why I’m suddenly seeing the abuses she’s been going through in the hands of her killer boyfriend written all over her. Is it the way she’s vibrating in my arm and sniffing rapidly like one who’s scared to death?

“It’s okay, you’re safe now.” I coo and rub her back slowly.