by Quinn, Taryn
“I’m not laughing at you. Exactly. Just an ironic choice of words.” He nodded at his daughter, but he made no move to accept her. “You look good holding her. Far better than I do.”
I frowned. The vibes I was getting from him regarding Lily weren’t exactly making me want to dump her off on him and run. Exactly the opposite.
He seemed uneasy around her. His own child. How could that be? I mean, Bess had made it clear that her “Snug”—a more unlikely nickname I’d never heard before—was in desperate need of a nanny, but she hadn’t indicated he was incapable.
But that seemed wrong too. Somehow Asher Wainwright didn’t seem like the sort of man who ever faltered.
Yet here he was, faltering.
Unless his behavior was due to something even more sinister. Maybe he wasn’t uncomfortable around Lily. Maybe he didn’t love her as a father should.
Surely he didn’t blame her for the loss of her mother?
Almost unconsciously, I drew her back against my chest to nuzzle the top of her head. She was so small and alone. So utterly helpless. She wasn’t responsible for anything, least of all something so tragic.
“See.” His voice sounded rough now, almost like sandpaper. “It’s as if she belongs in your arms.”
“Because I’m a female? That’s my job, right? To nurture and care and clean.” Even as I said the words, the leading edge of my irritation faded as I looked down into her face. She was smiling up at me, I would’ve sworn it.
It was probably due to gas or who knows what else. I didn’t care. Her smile warmed me with a soft, happy glow.
When Asher didn’t respond, I spoke to the baby instead.
“Guess you don’t mind me holding you, even if you probably don’t remember me from the other day. But we made fast friends then, didn’t we? Remember Latte?”
“Latte.” Asher’s voice didn’t sound any less gruff. In fact, it was even more so.
What kind of heartless man could be bothered by someone doting on his baby girl? A baby I was beginning to think desperately needed it. At least she had her great-grandmother.
Thank God for Bess.
“The dog you were walking,” Asher said into the silence. “When you coincidentally came across my grandmother.”
I didn’t know if he was intentionally sounding like a dick, but I wasn’t having it. I also wasn’t going to upset Lily, not when she finally seemed settled.
“Actually, your daughter,” I stressed those two words, “fell in love with Latte. Since even a fancy Wainwright like yourself doesn’t own the sidewalk, I figured we could walk on it. If you don’t approve, feel free to tell someone who cares.” I delivered this with a sunny smile, my voice as even as a ruler.
Lily blinked open her big brown eyes and made a face. There was no outwitting a baby. Especially one who was ready to climb before she even walked.
“It just seems so unlikely.” He shrugged and tucked his hands back in his pockets. Guess it was better to touch silky fabric than his own child. “Us meeting again.”
“Another chance meeting after our first chance meeting? Yeah, so strange. Especially since Crescent Cove is so huge. That under three-thousand population definitely makes it hard to run into someone more than once.” I rolled my eyes. “And I didn’t even run into you. I ran into Bess. If she hadn’t gotten it into her head that I would be perfect to help out with Lily, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
“No clue where she would’ve gotten that idea.”
I didn’t have to look at him to know he was watching me cuddle Lily. “She didn’t see me hold her or anything,” I said through gritted teeth. Worse, I could feel my cheeks heating.
As if I was embarrassed I liked his little girl. More than he even seemed to.
“She said you needed help,” I continued. “I didn’t want to do it, but your grandmother is friendly and sweet and well, look at her.” I gave Lily a little impatient rock in my arms, and her lips rounded into an O. But she didn’t cry.
Small favors.
“She is adorable.”
“Say that as if you mean it, why don’t you?”
“I know why I’m irritated at you, but maybe you’d like to share why you’re annoyed at me?”
“You have no reason to be irritated at me. I came here to help you.”
“To help Bess,” he corrected. “You didn’t know you’d be helping me. Right?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Sure you aren’t a lawyer instead of a businessman? You’re suspicious enough for one.”
He shrugged.
“Is it that hard for you to believe I wasn’t interested in getting another shot at you?”
“Interesting turn of phrase.” He tilted his head, assessing me in a way that almost made me forget I was holding a baby. From the heat in his eyes as they swept over me, I might as well have been naked.
I definitely felt that way right now.
“You know what? What you think is not my concern.”
“Aren’t you even going to ask why I was irritated at you?”
“Irrationally irritated?” I kept my tone sweet despite my decidedly uncharitable thoughts.
This ass had taken my virginity. Could I get a refund? It was unfortunate the only receipt I had was the X-rated tape that kept wanting to play behind my eyes.
“I won’t dispute you that it’s irrational.” I was so shocked he was agreeing with me that I almost didn’t notice he’d stepped closer.
Until he cupped my chin and lifted my face to his.
“It’s irrational for a man to be mad at a woman who doesn’t want to see him, when that was the agreement all along. When he has no time for her in the first place.”
I tried to focus on what he was saying and not the insistent pressure of his fingers on my skin. Light and possessive, warm and dominating. How it could be all of those things at once, I didn’t know.
Maybe I was just too long deprived.
“I don’t have time for you either, so don’t trouble yourself.”
His lips curved for an instant. “And she only hears the last part.” His thumb brushed along the edge of my lower lip, barely skimming it, but a breath rushed out of me just the same. “That is what I’ve missed the most. So responsive. Is it to me, I wonder, or to any sensation at all?”
“Add it to your list of unanswerable questions. Now if you don’t mind—”
“I do mind. I mind very much knowing you’re on this planet, walking the streets of my town, and I can’t have you.”
A thrill went through me, causing my arms to involuntarily band more tightly around his child. She let out a soft whimper, and I glanced down to make sure she was still sleeping.
“And that,” he murmured, his cinnamon-laced breath wafting over my mouth as physically as a kiss, “is just as arousing. You don’t want this responsibility. Yet your first thought is for her.”
“Your daughter,” I reminded him, since he didn’t seem to want to say the words.
Something unreadable passed over his face. Then he was moving even closer, his shiny wingtip shoes crowding my worn-flat sneakers. “My responsibility,” he agreed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Which makes you off-limits, even if you were interested.”
“I am not.”
“The lady doth protests too much.” His mercurial smile flitted away before I could enjoy it. “But in this case, I’ll gladly go without if it means Lily won’t. So, name your price.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Name your price for agreeing to take care of her.” The pinch of his fingers on my chin tightened, then he let his hand drop. “Whatever it will take, it’s yours.”
“A few hours a week? How long?”
Right, that was what I should be asking. Instead of telling him no straight out.
How was I supposed to keep my professional boundaries with Asher when he was so…Asher? Especially when my feelings were already becoming far too unmanageable where he was concerned.
“Full-time.”
Okay, I could deal with that. Maybe. Depending on what his idea of full-time actually meant.
“Like thirty-five or forty hours a week? And we’ll need a trial period, to see if it works out. Because I really don’t think I’m the one for this job—”
“As Lily makes a liar out of you.” He touched her cheek for a heartbeat before slipping his hand into his pocket.
And my heart ached for his little girl even more than it currently ached for me.
“Asher, how long?”
“Full-time,” he repeated. “You’ll be my live-in nanny.”
Eight
“Snug, I’m leaving in two days.”
Halfway across the parking lot to my car after day one of the Free Papers Expo, I blew out a breath. I’d hoped to swing by the gym for some stress relief before I swung by my grandmother’s to pick up Lily, but my grandmother had called before I’d made it two feet past the door.
“I’m well aware.”
“Are you also aware that it’s customary to train someone before you leave them to handle a new job all on their own?”
“I’m handling it.”
“Oh, really. It didn’t sound that way when Hannah called to give me her contact info yesterday. She might not have been excited to take on the position—and I’m still not sure how you managed that feat—but even she’s starting to wonder who hires someone on the spot then vanishes.”
I opened the driver’s door to my Mercedes and tossed my briefcase on the passenger seat. “You’re speaking to me right now. Doesn’t seem like I vanished.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“No.”
“When do you plan on it?”
I hadn’t.
All right, so that wasn’t entirely true. I knew I’d have to deal with her, but I had a lot going on. Besides, just lining up a nanny—even if I wasn’t enjoying the benefit of her services quite yet—had lifted a load from my shoulders.
Assuming we were right about her latent nanny capabilities.
It would’ve helped had I actually seen her references, even of a personal nature. I didn’t think she was secretly a serial killer, but as of now, my only testimonials for her were my grandmother’s gut feelings and my dick.
And my dick didn’t know jack about how to take care of a baby.
“You know what today was. I was meeting with clients and investors and industry people all day.”
“How did it go?”
“Fine.” I knew she was just trying to help so I exhaled, long and slow. “I was going to spend an hour at the gym, so I’ll just spend it stopping by Hannah’s instead. What’s her address?”
A phone call would’ve sufficed, but I told myself I was already in my car and Lily had a sitter for a little while longer. Face to face was how I conducted as much of my business as possible.
That was all this was. Business.
Plain and simple.
“Before I give it to you, I have a question. Do you know Hannah?”
I reached up to loosen my tie. All of a sudden, my clothes felt too restrictive, despite the fact that my suits were practically a second skin. I worked in them, relaxed in them, fucked in them—
No. Not that I fucked period lately, but I’d never indulged in an afternoon quickie or dinner date bathroom romp. I wasn’t that sort of man. Everything was separate. Defined. I didn’t understand being ruled by passion. It just didn’t compute.
Or it hadn’t used to. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“She’s now my employee, is she not?”
“You know very well what I mean.”
“You mean before you introduced us.”
My grandmother waited.
“I don’t know Hannah Jacobs,” I said firmly, and it didn’t feel like a lie.
Not entirely.
The woman I’d met on New Year’s Eve had seemed different than the Hannah who had appeared in my grandmother’s living room. Halves of the same whole perhaps, or maybe her true nature had been hidden behind the facade she’d worn that night. I’d worn one as well.
So, no, I didn’t know her. Not nearly as much as I wanted to, and that was a goddamn problem.
“Sure about that?” But this time she didn’t wait for a response, just rattled off Hannah’s address.
“Thanks. And do me a favor? Don’t call to warn her I’m coming over.”
“Pray tell, why not?”
Which meant she’d intended to do just that.
“I don’t want her to change her mind about the job before I speak to her.”
Or refuse to see me, after deciding she’d rather not be alone with me after all.
“Didn’t I just tell you she was inquiring about the position herself? Not that she sounded overly enthusiastic, gotta say, but that she hasn’t backed out is a miracle. Especially since you haven’t exactly upheld your half of the bargain.”
“I will.” I started my car. “I’ll be home to relieve you in an hour, tops. Thank you.”
“You know I love this baby.”
“I do. Thank you for that too.”
“You don’t ever have to thank someone for giving love. It’s free.” With that perspective adjustment, she ended the call.
It took me longer than I expected to reach Hannah’s. Somehow I’d forgotten that she’d made a passing comment about not living in the town proper.
Yeah, not even close. She was halfway to Syracuse, therefore requiring me to turn around and head back in the direction from which I’d just come.
That was my fault, however, since I hadn’t reread the address my grandmother had given me until I was nearly back to Crescent Cove.
Lost in your thoughts, hmm? Wonder why.
I finally pulled up in front of Hannah’s place, having passed a number of other houses much the same as hers tucked away in this cul-de-sac. More models were being built at the end of the lane. Most of them seemed like dull repetitions of each other. No distinguishing features, no children’s bicycles laying haphazardly on the lawn—at least until the next snow came. Definitely no fun and whimsical touches to make each home individual.
My own new house wasn’t much different. It was a bit larger and more child-friendly due to the enormous yard. I’d been happy with it until looking at these soulless replicas had made me realize that mine was much the same.
Not like my grandmother’s home, one of the oldest on her block. She was forever having to repair this or that, but it had so much character. Her house also had a porch, just as my new place did. I wouldn’t have purchased it otherwise. To me, porches meant family and friends.
There wasn’t one of those in sight here. That seemed like the biggest insult of all.
I parked beside an older sedan with little pockets of rust over the wheel wells. It didn’t match the house, but a quick look inside revealed it was tidy and well-kept.
And I was going to walk up to the front door before the neighbor peeking out between the lacy curtains next door labeled me as a creeper or a potential thief.
I ascended the two steps to the small stoop and rang the bell. No one answered. I pressed it again. And again.
Wasn’t that Hannah’s car? It certainly seemed as if it might be.
Unless it was a boyfriend’s car. Maybe they were occupied upstairs.
Christ, I wasn’t going to put those thoughts in my head. My mistake for not asking if she had someone in her life now. It didn’t have a bearing in any case.
Just business, remember? She’s Lily’s nanny.
I hoped.
With that in mind, I rang the bell again. That was the only reason I was here. Perhaps she was taking a shower or was in a distant part of the house.
Perhaps she knew I was here and was ignoring me.
If that was the case, I was going to turn around and head home. She deserved the courtesy of a call before I showed up on such short notice.
&nb
sp; Even if I didn’t fully believe she’d stick around to speak to me without the buffer of my grandmother between us.
Then again, she’d agreed—sort of—to taking the full-time nanny position in my home. I hadn’t specified she’d be living with me, but surely, she knew how this worked, right? I’d assumed she’d be in a small apartment, not this.
Wrong again.
Ringing the bell one last time, I rocked back on my feet. If she didn’t answer, I was leaving. Even I respected some boundaries.
Just as I was about to turn away, the inside door swung open.
Hannah appeared in the doorway, her brown hair flying out of its topknot thingy and falling across her face. Under one arm, she held a huge silver mixing bowl and a whisk.
“Oh.” Her throat visibly moved. “It’s you.”
Not the warmest welcome I’d ever received, that was for sure.
“Did I interrupt?” Knowing full well that I had.
She stared at me owlishly, then reached up to pull out one of her tiny earbuds. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you. I try to get into the zone when I cook and these help.”
“Are you making dinner? My apologies.”
“Well, yes, but not for me, and not for today. I’m prepackaging meals for my clients. Do you want to come—”
“What clients? The ones you dog-sit for? What do you do, package up some doggy stew for them?”
“Hardly. Their owners handle their dietary needs just fine without me. Though, hmm, that’s an idea.” She moved to a side table, set down her mixing bowl, and tugged out a notepad from the drawer and scribbled on it with a stubby pencil.
A gust of wind from behind me nearly knocked me off my feet. She didn’t notice.
“Healthy stews and treats,” she mused. “Pre-portioned. That’s good. Cheaper price for higher quantities. I wonder if I should add cats too?”
I had not one clue what she meant. Obviously, my day at the expo had worn me out more than I’d realized. That gym visit obviously hadn’t been optional. My brain was sluggish.
“Listen, can I come in?” Before the wind blew me off the stoop.
I wasn’t certain she’d care.
“Sure, sure.” She gestured behind her and kept scribbling and muttering.