Page 42 of The Boss's Baby Affair

He told himself nothing was going to happen.

He and Candace were going to share a glass of wine together, have a light meal…and that would be the end of it. He was capable of controlling his emotions…his desires. After all, he’d been doing it for years.

True to her word, Candace was back within fifteen minutes. To Nick’s everlasting regret, she’d donned a pair of navy sweats and a white T-shirt. No sign of the aqua one-piece swimsuit remained. Pity…

But very much safer.

“Good timing,” said Nick. Mrs. Busby had just left after placing a tray of sandwiches on the table.

“Jennie is exhausted.” Candace set the baby monitor on the table and sank into the chair opposite, then pulled a plate toward her.

“It’s the water. She should sleep well.”

“Until two o’clock.” Candace grimaced. “That’s the drill.”

“She wakes up every night?” He hadn’t known.

“Like clockwork.” Peeling back the protective food wrap that covered the platter of sandwiches, she said, “These look delicious.”

“Smoked chicken and avocado on this side. The others are Swiss cheese and salad.”

“Yum.” Candace helped herself. It didn’t take long for them to demolish the contents of the tray, eating in companionable silence. When the platter was empty, Candace raised her wineglass. “To Mrs. Busby. She’s a wonder.”

Leaning forward, Nick clinked his glass against hers. “I’ll drink to that.”

Tilting her head to one side, Candace studied him. “She tells me she’s worked for you for ten years.”

Had it already been a decade? Nick thought about it. He’d been married to Jilly for seven years, and Mrs. Busby had been with him for several years before Jilly had had this house designed, built and decorated. “It’s possible. I first employed her when I lived over on the North Shore. I owned a drafty old Victorian house with an enormous garden.”

Jilly had hated the house as much as he’d loved it. It had been the first casualty of their marriage.

“Mrs. Busby told me about it—she said it had been built by one of the pioneers of the city. She misses it.”

“I never knew that.”

“She told me about the gardens—about the ferns you planted behind the house. She said it was like a secret world—she thought that Jennie would’ve loved playing in there, that it was the kind of place where a child could imagine fairies and elves.”

“Goblins, too.” Nick couldn’t suppress the tide of nostalgia that the memory of the house brought.

“Don’t you miss it?”

Candace’s question brought him back to the present. He dismissed the momentary sense of loss, and his customary mantle of control dropped into place. He lived in the present, not the past. What happened now he could control. The past had already happened; nothing could change it.

“No.” To soften the brusque reply, he shrugged and said, “It was time to move on.”

Candace glanced up at the white structure behind them. “You moved on to something a lot more modern. This house is a completely different proposition.”

“It’s a good investment—it’s everything the market wants. Great architectural style. Location.” He gestured to the sea shimmering in the setting sun. “The value has more than doubled.”

There was no point saying it had been Jilly’s house, not his. It had never felt like home.

Candace brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “You want me to believe that you sold the Victorian house to upgrade to something that needed less restoration and was a better monetary investment?”

He met her gaze levelly. “What other reason could there be?”

She made an impatient sound in her throat. “Mrs. Busby thought you lived here because Jilly loved it.”

After a pause, Nick said, “Sounds like Mrs. Busby and you had a real heart-to-heart chat.”

Leaning forward, Candace touched his arm. Lightning forked along his skin. “She wasn’t gossiping,” she said earnestly. “She’s very fond of you.”

“That surprised you?”

She looked startled by his question. Finally, she said, “Truthfully?”

“By all means be truthful.”

Nick braced himself, and hoped she wouldn’t be too truthful.

“Yes, it did surprise me. You come across as being very distant and remote. Not the kind of man who would be easy to work for. Yet she’s adamant that you’re the best employer she’s ever had—even though she seems to have found Jilly…” Candace hesitated “…trying sometimes. Not that she said it in so many words. It was more in what she didn’t say—and how much she raved about you.”

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