by Lizzie Shane
“Charlotte seems happy,” Aiden said neutrally, trying to focus on that fact.
“She’s definitely drunk the Kool-Aid.” Scott snorted—but Aiden couldn’t laugh. Cult-like devotion was a little too close to what he was seeing on Charlotte’s face whenever she looked up at her beloved.
Scott waved for a refill of his drink, which he’d somehow managed to drain already—and Aiden tried not to stare too judgmentally at the gesture.
“What are you doing to keep busy these days?” he asked—again in that carefully neutral tone.
“You mean since I torpedoed my career?” Scott asked cheerfully.
Scott’s tenure as a Congressman from the Great State of Maryland had ended rather abruptly when he lost his second re-election campaign thanks to a scandal involving a couple of his staffers and an impressive quantity of cocaine. He’d been out of court ordered rehab for a while now, but the brothers rarely talked and their mother wasn’t in the habit of passing on family news until she had something positive to be announced.
“Mom wants me to run again,” Scott declared cheerfully. “She thinks I can pull off the reformed sinner found Jesus thing, but I doubt Eleanor will play ball. My darling wife decamped to her parents’ place in Pennsylvania with the kids and she’d probably have filed for divorce already if she weren’t hoping for Grandpa Dalton to kick the bucket and leave me something big in the will.”
All of this was said with a smile—but that was Scott. Drugs and smart ass remarks. Sad eyes and snarky grins.
“Do you want to run again?” Aiden had never gotten the impression that Scott liked politics very much, but as the first-born son of the Montgomery-Raines line he hadn’t been given much choice in the matter.
“Not particularly,” Scott took another swallow of his drink. “I’ve been doing some lobbying lately and I might stick with that. Turns out I’m much better at wining and dining and leading the naughty elected officials to sin and temptation than I ever was at being the virtuous public servant.” He snorted. “You should run for office. Boy Scout like you? I’m surprised Mom hasn’t already commissioned your campaign posters. Saint Aiden for Congress.”
Aiden’s jaw worked as his irritation bubbled up to the surface again. “I’m not a saint.”
Scott snorted again. “Sure you aren’t. I bet you’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket.”
“Just because I’ve never had to bribe a public official to get my license back after it was revoked for driving under the influence doesn’t mean I’m a Boy Scout,” he snapped, and then immediately regretted the words.
“Oh yeah. You’re edgy all right. When was the last time you did anything even remotely scandalous? I bet you don’t even cheat on your taxes.”
Aiden glared at his brother, rejecting the ridiculous urge to drag out all his faults to defend himself. Sure, he’d never been involved in scandal and he liked to play by the rule book, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have just as many demons as the next man. Just as many regrets. He had wants and needs and if he happened to be better than most at controlling them he wasn’t going to apologize for it just because Scott was riding his own devils hard tonight.
“Boys!” Their mother detached herself from the crowd to approach, arms spread like an orchestra conductor. “Come take a picture with the Speaker before he has to leave.”
His mother was never one to miss a photo op, but in the past it might just have been Scott she corralled into smiling for the camera. Aiden didn’t miss the fact that she included both of them in the demand. Had she been thinking about a potential bid for office in his name? Had his grandfather said something to her? Or was this just Regina Montgomery-Raines being Regina Montgomery-Raines?
Aiden moved to shake hands with the older man, someone he knew well thanks to his grandfather’s widespread campaign contributions. They posed with hands clasped for the cameraman who’d been roving around the engagement party, catching more of these moments than he was romantic vignettes of the bride and groom.
They said their goodbyes to the Speaker and began to circulate through the crowds of DC power players. Scott made a comment about the dog and pony show, but Aiden didn’t respond. He was too busy thinking about how much influence was in this one room. How much good these people could do, if they only stirred themselves to do it.
He could be one of these men. The dog and pony show wasn’t distasteful to him, as it seemed to have been to Scott. He could do this dance. In a way, it was what he’d been raised for.
Politics had changed in recent years—his grandfather had bemoaned it in many of his lucid moments—but they could change again. For the better. Aiden could do that. He understood the giant unwieldy beast of governance better than most.
Maybe it was time to put his Boy Scout reputation to good use.
CHAPTER NINE
Samira crept down the stairs, ears straining for the slightest whisper of sound below as she clutched her empty mug in one hand.
Sneaking. Okay, yes, she was sneaking, but she’d been keeping her distance from Aiden ever since she realized she was having feelings for him that she needed to not be having toward her employer.
He’d gone straight from work to his sister’s engagement party and she hadn’t heard him come home yet, but she’d been so engrossed in her book she probably wouldn’t have heard the zombie apocalypse starting outside her window.
It was silly to be sneaking. At only a little after ten, she was sure he was still out celebrating with his family. She could get her tea and disappear back upstairs without ever having to face his sexy blue eyes or wide, muscular shoulders. She could pretend that she hadn’t felt a thing when he touched her hand.
Aiden Raines was just her boss. That was all he would ever be. So what if she found herself picturing him when she read the steamy scenes in the book she’d just put down? So what if reading it had been so vivid, so erotic she’d almost convinced herself she could feel his hands skating over her skin? That was fantasy, not reality. She knew the difference.
Samira stepped into the kitchen—and froze.
He was home.
Sitting at the island, bent over a glass. Still wearing his tux, his bowtie undone and dangling around his neck where his top button had been opened to reveal the column of his throat. Looking like eleven different kinds of fantasy come to life.
Most of the lights were off, but he sat in the glow of the pendant lights above the island, spotlighted by them as he cradled a full tumbler of something amber between his hands. Benjamin Franklin sprawled at his feet, all four legs in the air in the eternal hope that Aiden would bend down and scratch his belly, but Aiden was staring sightlessly down at his drink.
Her immediate instinct was to flee—run, stupid, he hasn’t seen you yet!—but her feet were frozen in place, something about his expression catching at her heart, and then Aiden looked up and escape without detection was no longer an option.
“Hey.” Their gazes connected and a lopsided smile lifted one corner of his mouth, but there was something inexplicably sad in his eyes.
Lonely. Aiden Raines looked lonely. That was what had snagged something soft in her chest and refused to let her leave.
“Hey,” she whispered back, the word almost inaudible, still frozen on the edge of the kitchen. She glanced over her shoulder, back toward the safety of the stairs.
“Please don’t go,” he said, correctly interpreting her impulse toward retreat, and she looked back at him. “I don’t want to run you out of your own kitchen.”
“It’s your kitchen,” she reminded him softly. “I don’t want to interrupt—”
“I could use the interruption. And the company.”
The ache in his voice made her heart squeeze and she couldn’t have walked away then if she wanted to. She took a few hesitant steps into the room and Benjamin Franklin rolled to his feet and came over to get petted. “Bad party?” she asked as she set down her empty mug.
“Bad week. But the party didn’t help.�
� He lifted his drink and sipped the amber liquid. “My sister’s fiancé is a putz, but he’s a very well-connected putz, so there’s that. My mother was in heaven—except when I refused to let her pimp me out to the bridesmaids. And my brother accused me of being a Boy Scout. Saint Aiden.”
She eyed the glass in his hands. “So you decided to prove him wrong by drinking by yourself in your kitchen?”
He reached for the bottle at his elbow and poured some into an empty glass she hadn’t noticed sitting on the island. “There.” He slid the glass to the side until it rested in front of the empty stool beside him. “Now I’m not drinking alone.”
She knew it was a bad idea, but she rounded the island until she was sitting next to him, so close she could almost feel the heat of him through her flannel pajama top.
The tuxedoed lawyer and the nanny in her pink cloud jammies. They couldn’t have been more mismatched.
Benjamin Franklin retreated to his dog bed with a gusty sigh, apparently giving them up as lost causes.
Samira eyed his glass as she lifted her own and sniffed at the potent liquor. Just the scent of it nearly seared her nostrils. “How many is that?” She nodded to the nearly full glass in his hand.
“My first—if you don’t count the one I had at the party,” he said and she realized she’d only thought he was drunk because he seemed so unguarded. He shrugged at her surprise. “I’ve been thinking more than drinking.”
“About anything in particular?” She took a drink of the liquor and wheezed as her too large swallow seared the back of her throat. She gasped for air—but layers of flavor continued to develop in her mouth with every breath she took to try to cool her burning senses. “Wow.”
“Sorry. I should have warned you. It’s got a kick.”
“It’s not that. I just—I’ve never had scotch that had as many layers as wine.”
“Then you’ve never had good scotch.” He lifted the bottle, angling it toward her so she could see the label. “This one is from my grandfather’s private stock. He got a reputation for being a scotch connoisseur as a young man and ever since then powerful men have been sending him expensive bottles to thank him whenever he does something mysterious and magical to make the world bend to their will.” He set the bottle aside with a thunk. “Of course, he can’t drink any of it now. Alcohol doesn’t play well with the Alzheimer’s meds.”
“I’m sorry,” Samira said softly. “I know you two are close.”
He dipped his head—and she saw it again. The loneliness. The sadness. Saint Aiden, the Heartbroken.
He glanced at her, eyes dark with sadness, and murmured, “Thank you for not saying were.”
She nodded, taking another, more careful sip of the scotch. This time she was prepared for it and the smoky notes teased her senses. “That’s really good.”
“If I’d known you liked scotch, we could have been drinking together for years.” He paused, frowning to himself. “Is this against the rules?” She frowned in confusion and he nodded toward his glass.
“Because of my religion?” She’d drunk wine in front of him for years, even shared a glass the other night—
“Because I’m your boss.”
Ah. Right. Those boundaries she seemed to be terrible at remembering. “You don’t act like a boss.”
His grin was wry. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”
Neither was she. She wasn’t sure of anything where he was concerned.
She rifled back through the conversation, searching for some safe topic of conversation, nervous with the lengthening silence. “I take it you don’t want to be a Boy Scout?”
“It’s not about wanting to be. I’m not. And sometimes I get sick of feeling like everyone is dropping me into that box. Nice Aiden. Good Aiden. Saint Aiden. Like they’re implying I’m too naïve to see the world as it is.”
She grimaced in sympathy. “I know what you mean. My best friend is always telling me I’m too virtuous for my own good and all it does is make me want to prove to her that I’m not the Pollyanna she thinks I am.”
“Exactly. We’re human. Just because we have a code doesn’t mean we’re always shiny and pure on the inside. It’s like we have to prove to the world that we’ve had impure thoughts so they’ll take us seriously.”
Impure thoughts certainly weren’t a problem on her end as he lifted his glass and drank, his throat working. She couldn’t look away, her breath going short. “We should write a handbook,” she joked, trying to cover her breathlessness with humor. “How To Be Bad.”
He snorted. “Except we’d be terrible at it.”
“Would we?”
She looked at him then and their eyes caught, something shifting. Something flaring and warm. Awareness burned through her and the air around them seemed to grow thick and close around them.
*
Holy shit, she was gorgeous.
He stared into her eyes, falling into them as something heated the air. Her pupils were so huge he couldn’t see where they ended and her irises began in the liquid darkness of her eyes. How had her lashes always been so thick and he was only noticing them now? How could her lower lip have been so enticingly full this entire time?
Silence swelled around them, taking on a new, sharper edge.
Samira was amazing at silences. He’d just been thinking that. What a good drinking companion she made. How it was different, drinking with her, than it had been with Scott. Not only because he didn’t feel that guilty twist like he was enabling his brother’s addiction, but also because he could just be with her. Easy. Comfortable. Silences had always seemed warm with her—until these last few days when she’d been blowing him off. But this…
This wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t warm. It was hot. Searing. Fucking electric.
His heart started to beat too fast and still neither of them looked away. His gaze fell to her lips.
“I’m not a saint,” he heard himself murmur.
I’m lusting after my nanny. How’s that for human?
The thought sharpened something inside him, forcing him to acknowledge something he’d been doing a very good job of denying for the last few weeks. He wasn’t just fascinated by Samira in an intellectual way. This was attraction he was feeling toward her. Far more than he should be feeling for a woman in his employ. Jealousy he’d felt when he waited up for her the other night.
“No?” she said on a breathless murmur that went straight to his groin.
What were they talking about? Oh right. His lack of sainthood. His mortal temptation.
And God, was he tempted.
“Aiden?” Her gaze fell to his lips and he licked them before he knew what he was doing.
He knew better than to do anything about the lust scalding him. He was a good person, damn it. And he wouldn’t take advantage of her trust. That wasn’t who he was.
She worked for him.
What was he doing?
“I should—” He stood abruptly and Samira moved at the same moment so they bumped against one another. Her hand landed flat on his chest, his braced her waist to steady her and they both froze. An electrical current seemed to arc between where she touched him and he touched her. The flannel of her top was soft beneath his fingers, worn thin. How many times had he seen these pink cloud pajamas? How had he never noticed how fucking erotic they were? How they made her skin flush warmly… Or maybe that was him. This moment. It wound tight around them, powerful and hot.
“Samira,” he whispered, his voice so low and scratchy he barely recognized it.
Her lashes lifted, unveiling her eyes, and the last of his reason slipped away. They were close. So close. It would be easy to just lower his head that last inch. His chin notched down, a whisper away. Her face was already tipped up to him, her eyelids heavy, everything about her waiting for his touch—
His cell phone buzzed, loud in the silence, and Aiden jerked away, cursing under his breath. Samira stumbled back as he spun away, fumbling for his phone. The ringer w
as on vibrate and it hummed rhythmically. His mother’s name flashed on the screen as adrenaline chased the cobwebs out of his brain.
He’d just seen his mother an hour ago. It had to be an emergency. Instantly worry coalesced in his gut.
He took two quick steps into the breakfast room and tapped to connect the call quickly before it could go to voicemail. “Mother? Is everything all right?”
“Aiden! Sorry to call so late. I was going to leave a voicemail.” He could still hear the party going behind her and her voice was bright and cheerful—a woman in her happy place. “I forgot to tell you tonight that Charlotte and I want to borrow the girls tomorrow morning and take them shopping for their flower girl dresses. Now that we’ve picked Charlotte’s dress, we know what we need to find for the girls. We have an appointment to open the shop. Nine a.m. sharp.”
“Great. Of course,” he said absently, turning back to face the kitchen—which was totally empty. Only the second half-drunk scotch on the island remained as evidence that the last fifteen minutes hadn’t been a figment of his imagination.
“Lovely! We’ll see you then. Good night, darling!”
Aiden absently closed the call and pocketed his phone, staring at the spot where Samira had stood.
He’d nearly kissed her. It had been entirely too close. Jesus. What had he been doing? Had he lost his freaking mind? She was his employee. His nanny. He’d nearly kissed his nanny. Hell, he was still half-hard.
That one moment, no matter how tempting, could have derailed his entire life. He was in a position of authority over her. Political candidates didn’t fool around with their nannies. At least not ones who wanted to last.
Thank God for his mother’s poor timing. From now on, he would have to be the Boy Scout.
