The Unexpected Nanny 2

14- Opening up options

A couple weeks have gone by, and Grace never came around if she saw Ethan over at Antonio, and Sadie's. He too tried staying away from her, and tried getting her off his mind. For the past couple weeks, Ethan tried taking Antonio's advice, and kept his eyes, and options open.

He remained acting like he always did around others, and stuck with his typical jokes, the teasing, and was hitting on Ilona as well. He was doing everything that he could, to help himself find what Antonio asked him to do.

Antonio was liking his kids adjusted to Ilona so well, and that his extremely shy little girl, Carina, became very close to her. She talked to her, and clung to her, which was a bonus. He decided to finally go ahead with his plans, and to surprise Sadie with a vacation, the day after Thanksgiving.

He got everything set up, worked it out with Ilona, making sure she would still be OK with the idea, of her watching the kids for a week.

Antonio, and Sadie left the kids with Ilona, and headed out for dinner to meet with his parents. Ilona was in the dining room, playing a board game with the kids, when she thought she heard a knock at the front door. When they heard another knock, Luca got up from the table, and ran to answer to door "Hi Uncle Ethan." Luca smiled, letting him in.

"You kids must have gotten in the habit of locking the door lately." he says, rubbing Luca's head, messing up his hair.

"Oh, that was me." Ethan heard Ilona say as she walked into the dining room. "Sorry, I'm so used to locking the door all the time, I've been doing that for years, especially whenever I would have to watch my nieces and nephews."

"It's alright, it's a good way to be safe. Just something that I have to get used to, you've been here what, almost a month now?"

"Something like that."

"Is Antonio not here?"

"No, he and Sadie left to go meet his parents for dinner, and then I think he said something about taking her somewhere after dinner."

"I'll have to come back tomorrow."

"You should stay, and play a game with us." Lilliana says to him.

"Maybe I can stay, and play a couple games with all of you." he says, looking at Ilona.

Ethan grabbed a chair, and sat next to Lilliana after she asked for him to sit by her. While they played games, Ethan couldn't help but sneak a peek at Ilona every now and then, and at one point they both snuck a peek at each other, locking eyes, before she quickly turned her head to see what the time was.

"Hey you guys, I think we should be getting ready for bed. It's almost nine at night, and past the three little one's bedtime." Ilona started gathering up the triplets, and walked them up into their room, while the other kids took off to go to bed, leaving Ethan alone at the table.

While he sat there thinking about things, he thought he would help, getting the game all picked up, and put away. He then picked up all their glasses off the table, rinsing them off, and putting them into the dishwasher.

Ilona walked back down the stairs, noticed everything was cleaned up, and put away, then saw Ethan cleaning up the kitchen. "You didn't have to do that, I could have done all that." she says, walking towards him.

"I don't mind, sit down, unwind, and take a break." He tells her, as he finished rinsing all the dishes, and putting the rest into the dishwasher.

He then leaned against the sink, looking down, thinking, and wanting to say some things to her, but couldn't get the words out.

"You look like you have something on your mind." she says, looking at him curiously, and inching a little closer to him.

"You have no idea." he sighed, raising his head to look at her. He then smirked, as he looked at her. Taking a deep breath, he looked away from her.