Page 46 of Love Notes & Lifelines
I crave being this close to her—close enough to count her freckles—close enough to be inappropriate. I should have taken into account what having her in my space would do to me. Or maybe I did and allowed lust to fog my decision-making abilities.
Dads, even uncle-daddies, do not fall for the nanny.Say it again louder for those of us in denial back here.There’s a power dynamic at play—a thousand and one ways this is all wrong, and not a single part of me cares.
Fuck.
“We’ve been over that,” she huffs, stepping around me. Damn this version of her. The real her—Stella and Jane combined to make one perfectly imperfect soul. “I didn’t set out to deceive you, so either you let it go and move on or you find another nanny.”
“Oh, no you don’t. You signed a contract,” I grin. “One that pays you handsomely. I’m not losing you now.” My voice is too deep, too sultry, so I take a step back and loosen the tie around my neck.
Elijah’s teasing voice sings in my head.“You didn’t think about your attraction when you strong-armed her into living with you.”
But how could I? Everything we’ve done has been at warp speed. Our one night that was cut short after she received a phone call and ran off. Elijah hiring her. My uncle-daddy status. It’s all unbelievable, really.
“How did it go with Caleb?” She worries her lip, then steps back onto the stool as though she’s going to try again.
I reach her before she stands upright, wrap my arms around her thighs, and lower her to the ground. It’s a slow decline down my body that pumps blood everywhere but my brain. “Don’t do that again.” My voice needs a memo of its own—don’t use that husky tone when her body is pressed against yours. “You can’t wrestle Ruby with a broken arm, and I don’t want shit all over the furniture.”
I take the spatula she was scraping with and the towel she’s using to catch pasta pieces then step onto the stool myself, realizing too late that my Oxfords don’t have great traction.
“It went about as well as you’re imagining,” I say over my shoulder, struck by how domestic this is. “He’s been with me a long time, but I wasn’t expecting the amount of animosity he was hiding behind.” My sigh is heavy with loss—I relied on Caleb. “I don’t know what his motivation was. We’ve always worked welltogether, but this company was always my baby. I’ve paid him fairly, generously even, but apparently that wasn’t enough for him.”
“Did Teddy help?” There’s a fondness in her tone that has me glancing down. A giant boulder rolls around my gut and is gaining speed.
“You care about him.” The words come out hoarse and painful.
She nods. “I do. If I had a younger brother, I think he’d be just like Teddy—shy but sweet and a hard worker. We stumbled onto the files at about the same time, but he’s the one who put it together while I scouted for inconsistencies. So…was he helpful?”
I frown as I scrape at the ceiling. “Let’s just say he looks very good in Caleb’s office.”
“What?” Stella screeches then covers her mouth and runs to the baby monitor set up on the counter. A low chuckle vibrates in my chest. When she’s sure she didn’t wake the girls, she turns to me. “For real?”
“Yes, Stella. For real.” Her smile is a hit to the nuts. I fucking love making her face shine. “He’ll work in Caleb’s office so he has access to every file he can get his hands on. Caleb was escorted out empty-handed today, so hopefully Teddy will find something.”
I pause with my arm outstretched to the ceiling. There’s no denying Caleb was misappropriating funds, but it’s so unlike the man I know. Sure, he’s a hard-ass, but he’s always been an ethical hard-ass. It’s why I hired him in the first place.
“Beck?”
Stella’s voice jolts me into motion, and I clear my throat. “Elijah’s packing up his personal belongings and will leave them at the front desk, but I doubt he’ll come for them. His fate isin the hands of the legal system now—if we’re right, he’ll never practice law again.”
“That’s good, right?” she mutters while chewing on her bottom lip, stealing my attention from the job I’m doing on the ceiling. It’s impossible to be in her vicinity and not be drawn to her—not when she’s so close. Her amber eyes shine with unshed tears, and they’re pointed right at me.
My reaction to her tears is so visceral they could knock me on my ass again.
“What’s wrong, Stella?”
Daisie Dog whimpers at her feet, and I step down from the stool.
“Huh? Oh, nothing. It makes me happy when good things happen to good people. That’s not usually the case, and Teddy is good people. I’m sad for Caleb and whatever caused him to inflict pain on someone else, but I’m not sorry to see him go, so that probably makes me the complete opposite of a good person.”
Elijah’s words about love languages and protective tendencies flash through my mind, but I ignore them when she shrugs, then moves to the sink to load the dishwasher.
How could she possibly believe she isn’t a good person? It makes me want to shake some sense into her. She should see herself as I see her. Personified hope.
She doesn’t hear me approach, but when I touch her shoulder, she jolts, then melts into my hand. It makes me crave more of her, and I know instantly that I need to lay some ground rules for myself around her. Immediately.
“Why were you following those files?” I ask, cataloging her reactions and committing them to memory. “Were you expecting a raise? A promotion? What did you hope to gain from it?”
She spins on me in a fiery ball of anger. Exactly what I was hoping for. Her nostrils flare and her chest heaves, bringing us closer on each violent inhale. “Nothing, Beck.” She spits my name and the muscle in my cheek twitches. “I wasn’t hoping to get anything out of it. I didn’t even know if I was right, but it was the right thing to do.”
