Page 45 of Even if It Hurts

“I’m aware.”

Only a whisper of that earlier humiliation rose to the surface as she pushed the button for the elevator and murmured, “So, youaregoing to hold that against me.”

“No.” At her surprised reaction, I relented, “I’ll just keep in mind that you might not always be telling me everything.”

“And you’ll be divulging your every thought and secret to me?” she gently challenged. When I slanted my head in defeat, she stepped closer as an excited gasp left her, one of those blinding smiles lighting up her face that was sure to be my ruin. “Hey! You never told me about the Jack Ryan thing.”

Another hushed laugh crept from me, and I nodded toward the elevator at its arrival. “That’s a conversation for another night.”

“If you think I won’t hold you to that...”

“Oh, I’m positive you will, Miss Pearson.”

She hummed in amusement and stepped onto the elevator. “Honestly, Mr. Briggs?” she began before twisting to face me. “I think you should laugh more.”

Her head bowed in a vain attempt to hide the blush rushing to her cheeks, and my heart hammered in my chest as I watched her. Unable to say a word as every part of me demanded I storm onto the elevator, pull her into my arms, and kiss her.

But I just stood there. Watching as the doors closed, as if that could sever the current buzzing over my skin and tying me to that woman in a way I’d never known.

“What do you want, Peyton?” I asked before I ever turned away from the metal doors, having heard her slightly unsteady steps try to sneak up on us a few seconds before Lainey left.

When I found her, she was in the same clothes as before, new slice of pizza in hand, leaning against the wall separating the foyer from the rest of the apartment. With a tick of a brow, she asked, “Justa nanny, huh?”

I blew out a harsh breath as I continued past her.

“Hiring a young, gorgeous nanny has to be the dumbest thing anyone could ever do,” she went on as she followed me. “Then again, it’s you, and I’m pretty sure you’re immune. Except I just saw you with her. I heard the way you were talking to each other.”

“She’s in a relationship.”

“And?”

I turned on her, my brows drawn low over my eyes. “And that means something.”

“But her working for you doesn’t?”

A muscle in my jaw ticked because it needed to...it just didn’t. Not with Lainey. But I’d spent so long focused on my careers, I didn’t know how to handle having my focus pulled to anything else—especially this.

“She needs toonlybe Kaia’s nanny,” I finally said, revealing everything I was feeling for the girl who’d just left. “I’ll use whatever I can to keep that professional boundary.”

Istilled at the sound of my bedroom door opening late that night and contemplated pretending to be asleep for the span of a breath before a petite body crashed into mine in a move I was sure wrestlers would be proud of.

“Wren.” Her name punched from my lungs on a wheeze as her wild laugh filled the otherwise silent and still room. “You’re gonna break a rib one day,” I chastised as I pushed her away, desperately trying to breathe through the pain so I wouldn’t let on that I was already spectacularly bruised on that side.

My little sister snorted as she crossed her legs beneath her, all that excited mischief lighting her expression in the dark. “So, tonight was intense...”

That was putting it mildly.

“Is that what you call the intervention I came home to?” I mumbled scornfully as I sat up against the headboard. “They’re still acting like I’m committing some horrendous crime.”

“I mean . . .”

“Shut up,” I breathed, kicking at her hip and earning a soft laugh from her. “And you ditched me right in the middle of it.”

“I wasn’t the one they were yelling at,” she defended before dramatically flipping her naturally straight hair. “Besides, I had somewhere to be.”

I lifted a brow in question, but she just tilted her head, letting me know she wasn’t going to share where she’d been.

“Wren, tell me you’re being careful.”

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