She turns toward me when I approach the window. There’s a scent of flowers on the air, and it takes me a long moment to realize it’s wafting in from outside, not coming from her.
No, her scent is more subtle, warm and sweet, hitting me right in the chest, and lower. My dick goes hard in a nanosecond, and I hiss in shock.
I haven’t reacted to a woman like that in years. Haven’t allowed myself to be affected. Haven’t wanted to be.
God Fuck, why did I invite her in? Have I gone fucking crazy? Maybe there’s still time to chase her out, because I can’t… Can’t think straight. Can’t get a grip on myself.
I shove off the windowsill and struggle to compose myself. It’s goddamn useless. As my body tightens with desire, my mind spirals into despair.
“You should go,” I say, bracing my hands on the counter, bowing over, telling my dick to fuck off.
She’s silent, except for a small exhale. I wait for her to start screaming at me, to call me names. To storm out.
Or to refuse to go and demand an explanation.
It’s quiet.
Eventually she says, “You told me to come over. You said I work for you. Was that true?”
Her voice is low, calm. Gentle. It glides over my raw nerves like a balm. She’s right. I told her to come.
And I still think it was a fucking bad idea.
“It’ll be a trial run,” I hear myself say as if from a distance. “A week.”
“I understand, Mr. Hansen.”
“Just Matt,” I say, gripping the counter edge, hiding the bulge in my pants, how hard I am for her.
“And the kids? Do they know I’m here? Are they upstairs?”
“I’ll get them.”
Of course they don’t know they now have a nanny. Hell, I didn’t know either before I spoke the words. As I step stiffly out of the kitchen, I wonder once again what in the fucking hell I’m doing.
Chapter Eight
Octavia
A trial run.
I mull this over as I wait at the foot of the stairs for Matt Hansen to come down with his kids.
This doesn’t feel real. It feels like a dream.
This whole morning. Entering his house again, his electric presence inside the small kitchen, the heat of his body when he stood beside me at the window, the tattoos on his arms and the metallic black of his hair and beard.
Again I wonder how old he is. Behind the hair and the beard, it’s hard to tell. His eyes belong in an older face, deep and unfathomable. But his mouth looks soft, his brow smooth.
And why am I thinking of his brow and his mouth? Why am I thinking about him at all, when he’ll most probably change his mind about hiring me in the next five minutes and kick me out once more?
I’ll have to leave town, after all. I’ll need to go just to find a job. Mom barely scrapes by enough for us to live on, and I can’t be a leech for a day longer.
Depressed by the lack of options, I find myself pacing from the bottom of the stairs to the sofa and back.
Mom keeps saying I should focus on my dreams for the future and not worry about money. She thinks I don’t know about the debts. That I haven’t noticed how she saves up the old bread to make French toast or to toss into the soup.
How she hasn’t brought home milk and juice in years, filling the fridge with pop and instant ice tea.
How she hasn’t bought any new clothes or shoes since I can remember, always patching the old ones up, bringing second-hand shirts for Merc from who God where and fixing some of her older pieces for Gigi and me.
Like this dress I’m wearing today.
Like the dress I wore the first time I came here.
Her job at the pizzeria isn’t paying much, and although she got promoted a couple of years ago to kitchen supervisor and got a raise, it still isn’t enough for the four of us.
Kitchen supervisor. Ha. It just means she gets to do the work of three people instead of just one for a few pennies more.
I glance up at the stairs, then return to my pacing. What’s taking him so long? Maybe he’s already changed his mind and I’m wasting my time.
But a childish screech makes me stumble.
“Dad,” a girlish voice says from the top of the stairs, “is she our new nanny?”
I spin around.
God, this man’s kids are the cutest things.
He’s holding the dark-haired little boy—Cole—on one muscular arm, chasing with the other after his daughter who can’t be more than five. She’s dressed in a pink princess dress and is heading down at break-neck speed.
“Mary!” he calls out in his deep voice.
The girl giggles—and trips.
My heart gives a single, hard boom inside my chest.
Her father won’t catch her.
And she’s falling.
With a gasp, I lunge for her, jumping up two steps, catching her in mid-air just before she tumbles the rest of the way down.
Steadying myself on the narrow step, swaying with her weight, I wrap my arms securely around her, and her sweet little girl smell fills my senses. Her hair smells of flowers and her clothes of crisp, new cotton.
“Gotcha,” I whisper to her and descend the steps I’d climbed to set her safely down on the carpet. “You all right?”
She nods gravely, looking up at me with her father’s dark eyes. “I’m Mary,” she says. “Are you the nanny?”
I can’t help but smile. “I’m Octavia, but you can call me Tati.”
“Jesus,” her asshole dad mutters as he hurries down the stairs. He looks down at his daughter, jaw clenched, and I wonder if he’ll hit her. If he’s violent to them. My chest squeezes at the thought. “Mary, come here right now.”
Mary gives me a long, searching look, smiles, and reaches for her dad’s hand.
He turns his back to me, made of rigid lines and tension. Cole waves at me over his shoulder with a chubby hand. His eyes are blue like mine.
Matt heads into the living room, rounding the sofa, and I stay rooted on the spot, unsure of what I am supposed to do. He’s not going to punish Mary, right? All that anger radiating off him combined with his shaggy beard and hair and that dark gaze sure is intimidating.
But right before he sits down on the sofa, Matthew Hansen kisses his daughter’s head and says, “Girl. Get over here.”
Cole blows me a saliva bubble. Mary sighs.
Silence stretches.
Wait… “Are you speaking to me?”
“It’s Octavia,” I say tightly as I sit down across from him and his kids. “Not girl.”
“You’re a girl,” he says, his voice low and flat. “Are you even legal?”
“You can rest assured I’m eighteen and perfectly legal,” I spit out the words.
What is it with this guy that brings out the worst in me?
Oh, right. His unbelievable rudeness.
Something shifts in his expression, and a flash of what looks like amusement crosses his gaze.
It annoys me even more, so I draw in a breath and let it out slowly.
You need this job, I remind myself.
I do.