Hold Me Close - Talia Hibbert Page 0,164

forced turned real. Funny, really, how she managed that, when her own smiles were so hard to draw out. “I bet you’re one of those people who has strangers telling you their deepest darkest secrets.”

“I am,” she admitted. “Apparently it’s something about my face.”

“I think I’d agree with that. Sometimes you look kind of… friendly?”

The alarm in her expression was so intense, he almost laughed out loud. “Friendly?” she choked out. “I am not friendly.”

“Only sometimes,” he said again. “I think when you’re feeling sympathetic, you forget to do the thing.”

“The thing?”

“You know.” He scowled stiffly in his best Hannah impression. “The thing.”

She closed her eyes and put a hand over her face. “Please tell me I don’t look like that. And if I do look like that, lie to me. I beg of you.”

“You don’t look like that,” he said obediently. “You’re prettier. And there’s more lipstick involved.”

She was still covering her face, but he saw the corner of her mouth twitch. Which was great, actually, since it meant she wasn’t freaked out that he’d accidentally called her pretty. It also reminded him that she wasn’t wearing lipstick right now. He was so used to those bold shades, she should’ve looked naked without it.

And she did. But not in a bad way, like she was vulnerable or lacking. No, this was more the get your arse in my bed kind of naked. The kind of naked he really shouldn’t be thinking about, because what the fuck, Nate? The state of his head right now was reminding him of his little brother. And Zach’s head, he assumed, was a hellscape of misremembered porn, constant arousal, and generally inappropriate behaviour.

Which was fine, because that was Zach, and he had a right to be as filthy as he wanted. He even had a right to be mentally filthy about Hannah because thoughts never hurt anyone. But Nate… Nate needed to get control of whatever this weird attraction was, fast. Because he did not have a right to be mentally filthy about his fucking nanny. He wasn’t that kind of guy.

Hannah moved the hand from her face and snuggled deeper into her enormous cardigan, as if the house wasn’t hotter than the devil’s arsehole, and he was struck again by the need to take her picture. The shadows clung to her but she stood out like a beacon. Her skin drank in scraps of light and elevated them to sunshine. The softness of her body and the strength of her self…

Yeah, he wanted to take her picture. And he’d focus on that want above all others, since it was the least shameful.

He wouldn’t mention it, though. Frankly, all his wants were a little bit much, when it came to Hannah.

“I should go to bed,” he said. “Have to be up with the kids soon.”

She nodded. “Are you sure you don’t need me in the mornings, by the way?”

“Nah. I want to spend as much time as possible with them. Don’t worry about getting up.”

“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll go up, too.”

Great. Now he’d have to walk beside Hannah, with her bare legs and her bare mouth and her… fuck.

“I’ll just put this in the kitchen,” he said, raising his glass. “See you later on?”

“Right. Later.” She gave him a bright sort of smile, like she was trying to reassure him, and then she stood and padded out of the room.

Nate waited until he heard her climbing the stairs. Then he went to the kitchen. But he didn’t drink the rest of his water, or even pour it away; instead, he bent over the sink and emptied the glass on his own damned head.

7

“I like to keep things simple. It’s all so much neater that way.”

- Hannah Kabbah, The Kabbah Code

As time passed, Hannah fell into a routine so relaxing and so thoroughly enjoyable that she began to question her own moral fibre. She was supposedly working, and certainly being paid for it—but all she ever seemed to do was clean to her obsessive heart’s content, play with two adorable (if slightly unruly) children, and blog.

Her first week with the Davises passed rather uneventfully. When Nate wasn’t driving Shirley around town or to appointments, he came home and shut himself in his office. Hannah had no idea what he actually did in there—photography stuff, she assumed. Apparently, that was Nate’s job. Although she’d thought photography required more space than an office and more participants than a single man, but… maybe not?

Aside from that particular