His Nanny Mate By Eve Above Story
Chapter 160

Chapter 160

Chapter 160: A Scene Worth Painting

Moana

On the day of the painting class, Ella and I were both elated. Edrick kept his promise and took the dayoff of work, and after breakfast we were on our way.

The class was held in a beautiful park in the uptown area of the city by a lake. Edrick parked the car onthe street and we each held one of Ella’s hands as we walked over. I couldn’t help but smile as weapproached, with my plein air easel folded up and tucked under my arm. The air that day was beautifulwith a nice breeze, and as we approached the little lake I could see that it was teeming with all sorts ofwildlife: ducks swimming around in search of breadcrumbs, little frogs jumping off of lily pads, andturtles sunning themselves on floating logs. The lake was surrounded by large weeping willow treeswhose long fronds swayed in the breeze. It really was like a picture straight out of a storybook.

As we approached, there was already a group of other families gathered by the picnic area. A womanwas standing at the front of the group and setting up a demonstration easel facing the lake, and whileshe did, I noticed that the other children were running around like wild little animals.

I didn’t blame the children for acting so rambunctiously. There was a spread laid out on one of thetables filled with all kinds of fruit and sweets, and it seemed as though the children already had their fairshare of sugar. Even Ella, who normally would have been excited to play with other kids, halted in hertracks and looked up at Edrick and me with an apprehensive look on her little face. Even she was a bittaken aback by the sheer amount of energy surrounding the place; it seemed like some of the parentswere genuinely trying to wrangle their children, but some other parents also seemed to be ignoring theirkids as though this was more of a romantic date for them to go on while their kids could run amokaround the lake.

“Hello!” the teacher called, waving at us excitedly as we walked up to join the group. She looked downat my easel, and her smile widened. “It looks like you brought your own supplies! Are you a painter?”

I felt myself blush as the other attendees turned to look at me. A couple of werewolf women gave mesnide looks. I could only imagine what they were thinking about a family of a wealthy and famous CEOwith his supposedly human fiancee, their half-breed daughter and the half-breed baby growing in herbelly. With our security guard standing a little ways away and the fact that our faces had been plasteredall over the news recently, I knew that the other couples recognized us. The teacher, however,thankfully treated us just like everyone else with kindness and warmth.

I shrugged in response to the teacher’s question. “I wouldn’t consider myself much of an artist, but I dodraw and paint sometimes,” I said, wanting to be humble.

“That’s a lie!” Ella suddenly chimed in. “She’s really good at art! She even teaches me how to make artsometimes!”

The teacher grinned. “Is that so?” she said. “Well, maybe if I get tired today I’ll let your mommy step into teach the class.” She said it in a joking manner, but it made me blush even harder; not to mentionthe fact that she referred to me as Ella’s mother. I still hadn’t talked to Edrick about it just yet.

I set up my easel, and the teacher gave Edrick an easel with supplies to use. Ella even got her ownminiature easel, which was placed next to Edrick’s. I was slightly behind the two of them, which gaveme the perfect view of them. The way that they looked was more stunning than just the view of thelake, in my opinion.

However, the other children were still too rambunctious. The teacher patiently tried to get theirattention, but it didn’t seem to be working since most of the parents weren’t paying much attention. I felta little bit bad about it as I watched her get somewhat frustrated as she tried to get them to settle downso she could begin the class.

Finally, when Edrick and Ella both shot me a concerned look almost in unison, I decided to step in.

“Hey, kids,” I said, approaching the group of children who were now on the verge of wrestling in the dirtnext to the lake, “it’s time to start painting. Don’t you want to have a souvenir to bring home later?”

The children suddenly stopped their play-fighting and looked up at me, c*****g their heads as I spoke. Icould already see that they were listening more to me than even the teacher, which was no surprise; Ihad always been good with kids. I didn’t know why, although now that I knew I was a werewolf I hadbegun to wonder if it was an ability of mine. But pacifying children wasn’t a werewolf ability that I hadever heard of, so I simply figured that it was just because of my experience with children. I had, afterall, been the one child to help Sophia around the orphanage a lot while I was growing up and I hadalways enjoyed taking care of the younger kids.

“Come along,” I said with a smile. “Let’s go paint.”

The kids seemed to be listening. They calmed down and made their way over to join their parents, andas they did, the teacher, Edrick, and many of the other parents looked at me with shock. I felt a bitembarrassed by the attention as I made my way back over to my easel, but I was just glad that wecould start painting now.

The teacher began the lesson, which was to paint a scene of the lake in front of us. She began byteaching everyone how to paint the perspective of the lake, using simple terminology to explain thingssuch as foreground and background.

As she taught, however, I just couldn’t get my eyes off of Edrick and Ella. They were both focusing sohard on their paintings, and I noticed now for the first time that they were both left-handed. Between thelittle bow on Ella’s sun hat and the way that Edrick’s white shirt rippled in the breeze, it was toobeautiful of a scene for me to ignore.

And so, I added a little something extra to my painting.

The art class was a lot of fun. The other children turned out to be little angels now that they were calm,and Ella even seemed to make friends. When we were finished, the teacher came around and lookedat everyone’s paintings. She stopped in front of everyone’s easels and pointed out to the class howbeautifully they did — she even did the same in front of a toddler’s easel, which was just a giant splotchof color. It made me smile, and it made me want to come back to another one of her classes.

At the end, she came to look at my painting. Her eyes widened a bit as she looked at what I hadpainted; I had painted the lake, of course, but I also added Ella and Edrick in the foreground, standingtogether as they painted on their easels.

The teacher looked over at me.

“This is gorgeous,” she said. “You were being too humble earlier. I love how you added somethingspecial to you.”

Edrick seemed to get curious. He c****d his head and came over, and when he saw my canvas, he saidnothing; instead, he only blushed a deep, scarlet red.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

On the ride home, I gingerly held my painting in my lap while Ella chattered nonstop about how muchfun she had.

“Can we hang up our paintings together?” she asked, her voice practically a squeak from her level ofexcitement.

Edrick nodded, and I noticed that he glanced over at my painting again. “We can even get themframed,” he said with a warm smile. I felt my face turn red, and was reminded of what Olivia had said

about him. I was believing her less and less; why would he go to the trouble to frame and hang ourartwork together if he just planned on kicking me out once the baby was born?

Ella seemed pleased with this, and let out a satisfied sigh.

“I hope I can go to lots of classes someday,” she said, staring winsomely out the window. “I had somuch fun with the other kids.”

Ella’s words admittedly made me feel a little sad. She really had so few chances to experience what itwas like to be a regular student. Even her weekly training sessions were one-on-one.

When I looked over at Edrick, he seemed to be looking at Ella thoughtfully. I hoped that he was comingto the same realization that I had come to.