Page 26 of Desiring Boss Daddy (Cascade Mountain)

That appeased me a little. “What about the rest of the things you’ve been doing? I’m not blind, Graham. Or stupid. You want something from me.”

“Okay, you caught me.” Graham pushed himself away from his desk and let his arms dangle on either side of his chair. He looked downright defeated. “I need something from you. A favor.”

Great, here it was. “What?” I couldn’t even imagine the magnitude of the favor he was about to ask of me if he had spent so much time, money, and effort on showering me with all these gifts.

“I need you to work a Saturday for me,” he said. “This Saturday, in fact.”

“This Saturday, as in tomorrow?” I asked. “Really?”

“My family’s having a little get together this weekend for my sister’s birthday. I need your help with Collins.”

I blinked at him. “You need my help to watch over your daughter during a family gathering? What do you all do? Shoot guns? Get blind drunk?”

“I want to make sure she has a friend there.”

I literally burst into laughter. “Graham, your daughter needs friends her own age. Doesn’t she have any cousins? Any playmates?”

“No. I’m the oldest sibling—the only one who has a child.”

“Well, maybe this is a good time to talk about what I think Collins needs as a bright and growing girl.”

I was about to launch into an explanation about social skills and the importance of age-appropriate peers for learning and development when Graham held his hand up.

“This is a good time for you to tell me you can be there for my daughter at my parents’ place tomorrow,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking, and all I wanted to know.”

I sighed. “The other one is still a conversation we need to have, Graham. For Collins, but yes. Fine. I can be there for her on Saturday as her temporary nanny.”

“Thank you. Good. That’s all I need to know.”

“She knows I’m hertemporarynanny, right?” Graham looked at me sharply, and I held my hands up. “Not a loaded question. I’m just asking. But she knows, right? Because it’s what I’ve been telling her from the beginning. She hasn’t heard anything different, right? Because both of you need to understand that I come with an expiration date. And that expiration date is in a week-and-a-half.”

“I’m well aware of what you told me when you took on this position,” Graham said stiffly, scrolling through his phone as if he could scroll on past this confrontation. “Which is why I need your help.”

Later, in analyzing the interaction over and over again, I had to wonder why I didn’t see it coming. I had been so blinded by our sexual encounters and the subsequent treatment and gifts that I assumed one thing.

But he had actually wanted the opposite.

“You’re the child psychologist,” he continued. “Can you find the right person to help me raise my daughter better than I could myself?”

I was so taken aback that I chuckled. “Graham, no one can replace the power of a parent.”

“You’re doing better than Collins’ mother ever could have or would have, for that matter.”

It was only the second time she’d come up in conversation, and the first time Graham had broached the subject himself.

“I’m a professional,” I said, not stopping to analyze his words or the pang they struck in me. “You said it—a child psychologist, not a mother. Plenty of people need help with their kids, but that’s not what I’m dragging my heels about. A nanny is never, ever a replacement for a parent, especially not a parent like you.”

“There’s only one of me, Heather.” He sounded tired, and despite all the crap he’d put me through these past few days, my heart went out to him. “And I’m stretched thin as it is.”

“But you love her,” I insisted. “And she knows you love her. She’s fine all day, don’t get me wrong. You can’t see the change in her the way I do, but the moment she hears your car, she lights up, Graham. You’re her father, and nobody can do better than that.”

“I need support,” he said. “Her mother isn’t coming back any time soon, and you’re leaving. Can you help interview your replacement?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. How did that hurt so much? I was the one who told him I had to return to New York, and yet something inside me twisted at the thought—at the idea that I was replaceable for Graham. Just like Charlie had replaced me.

“I’ll do anything I can to smooth the transition,” I said. “Collins will take it all in stride. You’ll see.”

“She’s a firecracker.”

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