Hannah smiled, and meant it, for the first time in a while. “I do.”
Nate hadn’t been in the best mood recently, but today he was positively cheerful. Shirley’s latest appointment had yielded semi-good news; she was eligible for surgery to remove most of her tumours. And if it went well, she could stop taking methotrexate. And if she stopped taking methotrexate, she would, in her own words. “Stop feeling half-dead all the bloody time.”
So he was feeling pretty fucking good.
Even sitting at the dinner table opposite Hannah wasn’t enough to dampen his happiness—not that Hannah typically made him unhappy. It was more her complete indifference to him, combined with his pathetic longing for her, that usually ruined his day. But right now, as Nate enjoyed the excellent pasta made by his excellent nanny, he could almost convince himself that her indifference was a good thing. Kind of. Somewhat. One of them had to be sensible, after all.
Josh was chattering on about his day at school and how he’d learned his twenty-rows. Nate had no idea what twenty-rows were, but clearly Josh was an expert on the topic. In fact, his son just might be a genius.
“And after maths we went outside and played rounders,” Josh was saying, “and Ava laughed at me because I couldn’t catch, so I put a cone on her head.”
Yes, Nate decided. His son was indeed a genius.
“Joshua,” Hannah murmured in a tone that suggested she disagreed. “What did we say about expressing anger?”
Josh sighed heavily. “Use your words.”
Oh. Right. Yeah. Nate cleared his throat and added, “You mustn’t put cones on people’s heads, Josh.”
Josh sighed again, even more heavily. It was a wonder his tiny lungs could handle that much air. “O-kay.”
“Good boy.” Nate turned to Beth, trying very hard not to look at Hannah in the process. Which was difficult, when Hannah was sitting right there, wearing a bright white shirt (who wore white to eat pasta? The woman was both brilliant and terrifying) and purple lipstick. He’d taken a picture of her in that same lipstick just last week.
Not that she’d noticed. His photograph-Hannah-by-stealth campaign was going extremely well. In fact, it might be the only thing that was going well between them. That, and treating each other appropriately. They were doing great there.
Not that he absolutely fucking hated it, or anything.
“Beth,” he said brightly. “How was your day?”
“It was good!” Beth said. “We found a monster doggy.”
His brows shot up. He looked over at Hannah—which was okay, because he was looking as a baffled parent rather than a lovesick pervert. She met his gaze with a wry smile, which was also okay, because she was just being a capable and caring nanny. “It was a very safe and friendly monster doggy,” she assured him, her tone dry.
Then the moment passed. Now they were just Hannah and Nate smiling at each other, and everything became unbearably intimate and potentially inappropriate again. He looked away.
“It was this big, Daddy,” Beth said, raising her hand to improbable heights.
“This big,” Josh corrected, kneeling on his chair and thrusting his arm into the air.
“THIS big—”
“Alright! Sit down, both of you. We don’t stand on chairs at the dinner table.” He could practically see Hannah having heart palpitations. “It was a very big dog, is the message I’m receiving.”
“Yes.” Beth nodded. “And the lady who owns it says she’s a pirate—”
“She is a pirate,” Josh insisted. “I know she is. She told me.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I do!”
“If she was a pirate,” Beth said, “she’d be on the ocean. Obviously, she’s not a pirate. Is she, Hannah?”
Hannah hesitated, spearing pasta onto her fork. “I’m not sure. Perhaps she’s a retired pirate.”
“Will you ask her?” Josh prodded.
“Send her a message!” Beth suggested. “And tell us what she says.”
Something about those words pricked Nate’s attention even more than a monster-dog-owning pirate. “A message?”
Hannah focused her attention on her food and said demurely, “We swapped numbers.”
His eyebrows flew so far up his head, they might have disappeared into his hairline. “You did?”
“We did.”
“Why?”
She pursed her lips and blatantly avoided meeting his eyes. “The usual reasons. Long-distance communication, etcetera.”
“They are going to be ladies who eat Lunchables,” Beth said seriously. “I also eat Lunchables, but I am not a lady yet.”
Hannah finally looked up, but not at him. She gave Beth a fond smile and said, “Lunch, poppet. We’re having lunch.”
At which point Nate realised that the sharp, suspicious feeling tightening his chest was jealousy.
He stuffed a forkful of pasta in his mouth and decided not to think about it.
Only he couldn’t stop.
18
Ruth: Can you put silk in the washing machine?
Hannah: Depends. Why?
Ruth: Evan got me new pyjamas.
Nate knew he was being ridiculous. Not because he suspected that Hannah had a date, but because he was not happy about it.
He’d been 99.9% sure that she liked women, because she had a habit of checking them out rather obviously in public. She seemed to think no-one would notice. It was quite high up on the list of adorable things about her.
He was also 99.9% sure that Hannah hated making friends. She only seemed to have a few, and one of those was her sister—so she probably hadn’t randomly picked up a new one at the park. Of course, that logic also suggested that she wouldn’t randomly pick up a date at the park. But he knew from experience that she could be very direct when she wanted to sleep with someone.
Which brought him right back to his completely unreasonable jealousy. Dinner was over, the kids were in bed, and Nate was loitering in the living room because he knew that once Hannah took off her makeup and put on her ‘inside clothes’—he’d given up trying to understand what that meant—she’d come down to tidy up.
What are you going to do, ask her about it?
Yes.
Well, you can’t, because it’s none of your business.
Wrong.
Nate didn’t have much experience with jealousy, but apparently it wiped out half of his IQ points and all of his common fucking sense.
He sat on the sofa and glared at the Hot Wheels cars littering the carpet. Then he glared at the blank TV screen. Then he glared at the fort, which was still standing. He’d lain in that fort with Hannah. The woman who may or may not be a pirate had never lain in a fort with Hannah. She certainly wasn’t in love with Hannah, whereas he was, so if this mysterious dog owner had any sense of fair play whatsoever she’d fuck off.
On the heels of that unbelievable nonsense, Hannah arrived. He looked up as she faltered in the doorway, peering at him with what appeared to be concern.
“Nate? Are you okay?”
He grunted in response, because if he actually opened his mouth, something ill-advised might come out. Like, Don’t have lunch with a dog-owning pirate. Or, I’d really like to kiss you again, but only if you swear on the Bible that you want it too and you’re not afraid of losing your job if you say no.
He thought it was best to avoid those sorts of statements. He was trying to keep things light.
But Hannah was making it difficult. She came over to the sofa with a swish of her swirly, knee-length skirt and said, “Nate. Seriously. You’re worrying me.”
He’d rather not worry her—since he loved her, and since she already worried too much—but he couldn’t exactly explain what his problem was, could he?
“Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking.”
She squinted at him as if he were a page of 8pt font. “About what?”
Well… “Do you have a date?” he blurted out, a burning coal of jealousy wreaking havoc in his c
hest. Really, he needed to know. If she did have a date, that might complicate his make-Hannah-fall-in-love-with-me mission. It was best to be forewarned.
“A date? Why on earth—wait. Do you mean with Rae?”
He shrugged, because that was what casual, unconcerned people did, right? They shrugged. “The woman with the dog.”
“Rae. No, I don’t have a date.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why would you care if I had a date, anyway?”
For about half a second, Nate considered lying. Then his brain finally woke up, and he realised that a question like that from a woman like Hannah could potentially be translated as, Please tell me why you’d care if I had a date.
That was probably wishful thinking. It had to be. Only now she was doing that shifty-eyed thing she did whenever she was embarrassed, and she’d crossed her arms over her chest, and… oh, fuck it.
“Because I’m jealous.” Nate set the words free with a sigh that was half relief, and half annoyance with his own big mouth.
She huffed out a laugh, but there wasn’t much humour in it. “Jealous? Seriously? What does that even mean?”
“In my case, it means that the thought of you with anyone else makes me want to set something on fire.”
Those words hovered in the air between them for an uncomfortable few seconds before her calm facade evaporated.
“Ohhh, you are such a fucking guy,” she snapped. “I cannot believe you!”
Well, Nate reflected. It turned out honesty was not always the best policy. He should’ve stuck with the plan, shouldn’t he? Why hadn’t he stuck with the plan?
Because she had a date with a pirate. Sometimes plans get rearranged.
“Three weeks,” Hannah whisper-shouted. Whisper-shouting was never a good sign, with her. “Three weeks, Nate! And you haven’t said a word!”
“A word about what?”
“About us!” she hissed, fury flaring in her eyes. “Which was fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. But now you think I’m seeing someone else, all of a sudden you’re jealous?”
“It’s not all of a sudden—”
“Yes it fucking is!”
“Hannah, I…” He broke off just in time, the word love ready to roll off his tongue. “I like you! Okay? Of course, I’m jealous.”
“Oh, you like me? You like me? But ever since we… ever since we had sex—”
Jesus Christ, she was still whispering sex.
“You’ve been acting like I’m just some… some…” she scowled, frustration all over her face. “Some acquaintance! A friendly acquaintance! I am not an acquaintance, Nate! I put your thing in my mouth!”
He blinked. “Did you just call it—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, will you focus?”
Good point. “Hannah, I swear to you, you’ve got this all wrong.”
“Don’t tell me I’ve got it wrong! I never get it wrong!”
Shit. She was actually upset. Really upset, if she was reverting to know-it-all Queen of the World mode. Nate paused for a moment and took in the stern set of her shoulders, the harsh line of her jaw. He knew when Hannah was angry, and this wasn’t it. Not exactly. Right now, she was too tough, too brittle—as if she might break.
Hannah was hurt.
A frantic sort of panic rose up in his chest, because he’d hurt her. And that was just… no. No.
Nate was on his knees in front of her before she could blink. He caught her face in his hands, just to make sure she looked him in the eyes as he spoke. “Give me thirty seconds. I know you’re thinking a lot right now, but just stop for thirty seconds. Stop and let me explain. Because I can explain.”
After a tense, silent moment, she whispered, “How?”
He’d take that as permission and talk fast. “I have feelings for you, and I’ve known that for a while. But I also know that as long as I pay your salary it’ll never be right for me to pursue you. I’ve already crossed a lot of lines—”
She snorted. He grinned. If she was giving him attitude, she was already better than she’d been a second ago.
“All the lines,” he corrected. “But, sweetheart… after that day in the garden, I think you made it pretty clear you didn’t want things to continue. I thought I was being ridiculous, just hoping you’d change your mind. But I did hope. Thing is, I knew that even a word from me could feel like pressure, in this situation, so I kept my mouth shut. I was trying not to push. Maybe I tried a little too hard,” he admitted ruefully. “Because I never meant to make you feel like… like an acquaintance.”
She sighed. “I can see you trying not to smile, you know.”
“Sorry. It’s just… an acquaintance? Really?”
“It seemed accurate.”
“Okay,” he said solemnly. “Fair enough. But I swear, I was just trying to be good. That’s all. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I didn’t know how you felt about me.”
“You still don’t know how I feel about you,” she said archly.
He smiled. “Well, are you gonna tell me?”
“No.”
His smile grew. “Okay. Are you gonna kiss me?”
Hannah eyed him thoughtfully. “That’s quite a good idea.” Then she grabbed his T-shirt with both hands, dragged him closer, and pressed her mouth to his.
And time stopped.
It stopped. That was the only explanation. How else could his lungs hesitate, his heart stutter, and his mind freeze all at once? How else could every worry that buzzed steadily through his head suddenly fall silent?
There was nothing, now—no work to complete or meetings to schedule or doctors’ appointments to dread. Nothing but Hannah’s hands fisted in his T-shirt and Hannah’s tongue slipping tentatively into his mouth. Nothing but the softness of her lips, nothing but the way her thighs cradled his hips as she pulled him closer. Nothing but the scent of her, fresh and real and so familiar, and the hoarse little sound she made in the back of her throat as his hands settled at her waist…
Nothing but her. Nothing but heaven. Nothing but bliss.
She let go of his shirt and smoothed her palms over his chest, trailing sparks of desire with her touch. Her fingers nudged the little bar at his nipple and lust shot through his body. Nate’s hips thrust forward of their own accord and found the edge of the sofa—not what he wanted, not Hannah, but enough to alleviate his sudden, desperate need for pressure.
She wouldn’t tell him how she felt, but Nate let himself pretend. Let himself imagine. When she moaned softly into his mouth again, he decided that meant, I need you. And when she raised a hand to glide over his jaw, her thumb stroking his cheekbone, Nate interpreted that as, I care for you.
And when she pulled back, panting, her eyes wide and her pupils dilated, he almost heard, I love you.
Almost. But not quite. Even his imagination wasn’t that powerful.
Still, what she actually said was pretty fucking great. “The inoculation was a failure.” The humour faded from her voice, until she sounded achingly serious. “I can’t stay away from you.”
He was holding her too tight. But she didn’t seem to mind, and he didn’t want to stop. “So don’t. Ever. I don’t want you to.”
“But you were right,” she murmured. “What you said about power, I mean.”
He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Tried to ignore the jagged pain in his chest.
She kissed him again. Gently, carefully, pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth. “I’m not worried. You can’t hurt me. But I don’t want you to feel guilty. You already feel so guilty all the time.”
He didn’t even know where to start with that. Was it bad that he cared most about her second sentence? “You can’t hurt me.” Not won’t. Can’t. Nate might have power over her job, he realised dully, but he clearly had none whatsoever over her emotions.
Well. That was okay. It was enough that she wanted him. It would have to be enough.
“I wouldn’t feel guilty,” he said, “as long as you swear to me that… that you’ll nev
er put my feelings before yours. That you’ll never be afraid to tell me the truth. No matter what.” He opened his eyes to find her smiling gently.
“I’ll never be afraid to tell you the truth,” she said. “And to prove it, I will tell you right now that I want to kiss you again. And stuff.”
He arched a brow, but it was hard to look sardonic when a pathetically happy grin was spreading across his face. “And stuff?”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“We really need to work on your dirty talk.”
Hannah looked down at the erection straining his jeans. “I think I get along just fine without it.”
Hannah watched as Nate opened the door to his office with a baffled expression on his face.
“You don’t mind, do you?” she asked teasingly. “It’s not, like, top secret in here?”
He rolled his eyes, stepping back to let her in first. What a gentleman. “No, it’s not top secret. But I don’t see why we’re here.”
“Because we’re doing things,” she murmured, looking around the spartan little room. “Remember?”
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “I remember.”
Hannah was too distracted to laugh at his tone. She was busy studying the mysterious office where Nate spent most of his daytime hours. Honestly, it was a bit of a disappointment. She’d expected some dark and sophisticated den of creativity, but it was just a plain, clean and tidy space with a desk, a chair, a huge Mac, and a shit ton of cupboards.
Still, at least the desk was big. That suited her purposes.
“You know,” Nate said as he shut the door behind them, “I was thinking we could have sex on a bed.”
She wandered over to the desk. “What if the kids come into your room?”
“You’ve been here for months, Hannah. When have you ever known the kids to wake up at night?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
“Plus, we could use your bed.”
She turned to face him, wondering if she should explain her reluctance. She was supposed to be telling the truth, right? About everything. That seemed like the only way to make this work—although, truthfully, she still didn’t believe that this could work. Situations like these didn’t end happily for Hannah. They ended up with her eating Chunky Monkey alone in her bedroom while reminding herself that no-one could make a fool out of her unless she let them.
Hold Me Close: A Cinnamon Roll Box Set Page 54
