Page 5 of Sunshine
“Absolutely. My clever, funny, adorable niece isn’t spending her afternoons and weekends with someone she doesn’t know and adore.”
“So…” What the hell is Daisy getting at? I frown and rub a hand over my jaw, swallowing a tired sigh at the reminder that not only do I need a haircut, but I also need a fucking shave. “So, do you want to be her nanny?”
Daisy leans in and pats my hand. “No, dear brother. Not me.”
I squint at Daisy’s smug expression. As if she beat me at a game I didn’t know we were playing.
“Then…who?”
Her eyes cut to the other side of the table. I follow her gaze to Poppy’s totally unsurprised face, and my stomach drops hard and fast.
“No.” The word shoots out before I even think it, like a reflex.
“Yes.” Daisy drums her feet under the table like a freaking child. “It’s perfect!”
The perfect solution to my not having enough hours in the day is to hire my sister’s best friend to be my daughter’s nanny? The answer to all my problems is to add one more? Because Poppy may be the first woman to make my palms sweat in ten years, and she may even be a fantastic nanny, but she’s also the biggest temptation I’ve ever had to resist in my life.
I’m not in the market for casual sex anymore—now that I have Izzy, I’m not certain that sex can even be casual—but even if I were, Poppy is the last person I’d hook up with. I care about her too much to treat her like a plaything. And then there’s Daisy. She’s always been funny about my dating her friends, and it’s been an unspoken rule since we were kids that I keep my hands to myself.
But how the hell do I do that if Poppy is here every day? How do I keep pretending that I don’t want to thread my fingers into her hair, pin her against the nearest hard surface, and kiss her until her knees buckle and she can’t catch her breath?
Hiring Poppy is the definition of reckless and there’s no room for recklessness in my life. Not anymore.
“Absolutely not.” I cross my arms and glare at Daisy, trying and failing to ignore the way hurt twitches at the corners of Poppy’s eyes. My forearms tighten against the pang of regret behind my sternum. “Give it up, Daze, because I don’t need help, and Izzy does not need a nanny.”
Especially not one as tempting as Penelope Golightly.
two
Poppy
I can’t believe Daisytalked me into this.
No. I lie. I totally can.
I cast a darting glance Dylan’s way and hide the ache I feel at the hard set of his jaw. Why would I agree to be his nanny? Why would I scheme to put myself in his way when it’s obvious he doesn’t want me around?
Because I’m in love with the guy, and apparently, somewhere inside my thick skull, I’m still fourteen and willing to do anything to be near him, no matter how much it pisses him off.
And while I’m on the subject of feeling pissed off, where the hell does he get off looking so freaking gorgeous after all these years? He’s different now. Moodier and more serious, with only hints of the cocky teenager he used to be, but that doesn’t make him less beautiful. The opposite, in fact. He’s a mouthwatering mix of scruffy and brooding and strong. Broad and solid and tall. His golden-brown hair is long enough to catch on the thick dark lashes framing his baby blue eyes, and his sharp jaw is shadowed with stubble.
I spent ten years away from Aster Springs, so you’d think going that long without a hit of his face would have purged Dylan Davenport from my system. But no. He’s perfect in a way that makes me want him and hate him all at the same time. If he cared about me at all, the least he could have done was develop a bald patch and a paunch.
“See?” Dylan gestures at me without looking in my direction, reading my silence as reluctance. “Poppy doesn’t want to do it.”
“I didn’t say that,” I retort, then curse my impulse to do the opposite of what he wants me to do. “I didn’t say anything.”
“But you do want to do it, right?” Daisy gives me a face that readswhat the hell is wrong with you?
I lift my shoulders with an apologetic grimace, and Dylan snorts quietly, shaking his head with a knowing lift to his full mouth. I don’t know why Daisy and I try to talk with looks when her brother can read our faces as well as we can.
The truth is I do want the job. I glance at Izzy’s schedule and note with mild alarm all the activities he has planned for her. I understand Dylan’s reasoning, and I hate that he’s doing this alone, but something doesn’t feel right, and that’s always been my kryptonite. Situations that make me believe, if only for a little while, that if I work hard enough and prove I’m worth something, I might make myself irreplaceable.
But it’s not only that. I love the Davenports like they’re my own family. I can’t say no if they need me, and according to Daisy, theydoneed me. And as for Izzy… So much of her situation reminds me of my own. I grew up without a dad and with a mother who was so distracted by her own life that she was more like an eccentric aunt than a hands-on parent. I’d love to be a safe, steady adult in Izzy’s life the way Daisy’s mom was a dependable presence in mine. It’s the least I can do.
And anyway, my infatuation with Dylan is my problem. I hid my racing heart and the butterflies in my stomach well enoughall those years we were teenagers. It can’t be any harder now that we’re adults. I’m older now. More mature. I can totally ignore the fact that I haven’t had sex in a really long time and would pay good money for the exquisite privilege of jumping his very fine bones.
“Yes, I want to be Izzy’s nanny,” I announce with a decisive nod. “When do I start?”
