Hold Me Close - Talia Hibbert Page 0,171

ever been poor before?”

“No,” she said promptly. Then, wincing: “I’m sorry. That was insensitive, wasn’t it? Oh dear. Am I being awful? Am I being an enormous snob?”

“What? No.” But she still looked worried; so worried that he finally slipped up. After almost a month of avoiding it successfully, Nate reached out and touched her.

He couldn’t even feel bad about it, because the minute his hand settled on her hip, she calmed down. Just a little bit, but still. It was only the lightest pressure, a comfort, he told himself firmly. A reassurance. He wasn’t thinking about the curve of her body or how soft she seemed, or the fact that they were closer right now than they’d been in a while—closer even than the nights they sat together in the dark. He wasn’t thinking about that at all.

“Listen,” he said, dragging his mind away from those thoughts that didn’t exist. “I know this is easier said than done, and you can definitely tell me to go fuck myself, but I wish you wouldn’t worry so much. About the way you are, I mean. I know you second-guess yourself all the time, but I like the way you are.”

She shook her head once, as if to clear it. Slower than he’d ever heard her speak before, she asked, “What does that mean?”

Good fucking question. “Well… Obviously, when we were at school, you didn’t have many friends.” Which was the polite way of putting it. “But I didn’t have friends either. And I know people say things about you, but they used to say things about me too. Doesn’t mean they were right. There’s nothing wrong with you, Hannah. I like you. I like how blunt you can be, and how serious you are, and how passionate you get. It’s honest. Everything about you is honest. That’s not a bad thing.”

She stared up at him, and something in his head… shifted. Or slotted into place, maybe. For the first time, he looked at her upturned face and didn’t force himself to see it objectively. For the first time, he let himself notice that she was beautiful. She was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with the symmetry of her features and everything to do with the odd, burning weight she created in his chest. She was so beautiful that, if he’d walked into a bar and seen her, he’d have walked right the fuck back out.

Nate didn’t go for women who made him feel this much, this easily. He didn’t want that kind of connection. But he was starting to realise that he accidentally—inconveniently—wanted her anyway.

Fuck. He shouldn’t have hired her, should he? Even if she was amazing with the kids, even if she did make his life a thousand times easier and he could trust her with shit like his weird habit of collecting cash…

He should’ve hired someone who didn’t make him smile without trying, or inspire his mouth to talk without permission from his brain. He should’ve hired a nice, ordinary, very bland nanny. Maybe a twenty-year-old who vaguely got on his nerves. Not a woman he was currently fighting the urge to kiss.

“I like you too,” she said, so suddenly and simply and honestly that he almost couldn’t take it. Luckily for him, she added, “The kids are suspiciously quiet. I’ll check on them.” And, abruptly, she left.

It took him longer than it should have to realise that she hadn’t touched her breakfast.

Hannah, unsurprisingly, was cleaning. It was the most productive way to burn off energy when she felt jittery.

Two days had passed since Nate had, rather suspiciously, claimed to like her. She still wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Well, no; that wasn’t true. She knew exactly what to make of it: he was a nice man, who, like his brother, found her pleasant to be around.

It must be some sort of family deficiency, the way they laughed at her sharpness and softened at her irritation. Unlike his brother, however, Nate didn’t like-like her. Which was a good thing, because, though they’d become friendly over the last month, their relationship was still professional.

So why did the fact that he liked her—could, in fact, list specific traits that he liked!—fill Hannah with a bright, zinging sort of pleasure? Because she was far too fond of him, that was why.

But, she reminded herself as she dusted the living room blinds, it was only natural to develop certain sympathies toward a man when one ate