so. But you can’t ask her. You can’t pressure her.
Hmm. He didn’t like that thought. He didn’t like it at all. Because it sounded a lot like, Chill the fuck out and see if she makes the next move. Which she might never, ever do. That was all well and good, but the last time Nate had noticed he was in love, he’d proposed on the spot. He did not have high hopes for his ability to chill the fuck out.
Ahead of him, he saw the door to Beth’s classroom open. Her teacher led out a gaggle of chattering seven-year-olds, and within seconds, Beth was running over to him with a big grin on her face, pushing her tongue through the rapidly-closing gap in her front teeth.
She slammed into him like a rocket, and when she looked up, he saw himself in her big, blue eyes. Not the real him, the him who thought too much or too little, who made mistakes and had to leash his temper like an attack dog. He saw the version of himself she believed in. The version who was more patient, more principled, more perfect than he could ever be.
He’d really like to be that Nate. For Beth, and for Josh, and for everyone he loved.
Which, he supposed, meant leaving Hannah alone.
Great.
17
Hannah: How come there’s only one of these huge cookies on the table? Who’s it for?
Nate: You.
Hannah was used to tangled thoughts, but not like this. Her worries had never wound her up like bondage porn.
And she’d never thought about things like bondage porn during her daily life, either—but, apparently, that was her style now. Her mind had become some sort of hyper-sexualised filth machine that put everything in lustful terms, and it was all because three weeks ago she’d gone absolutely bonkers and let Nate… kiss her.
Etcetera.
Well, to be honest, she hadn’t let him do anything. She’d kissed him.
Etcetera.
Hannah wandered toward Ravenswood’s play park with Josh clinging to one hand and Beth clinging to the other, letting their discordant chatter wash over her. These days, only the kids had the power to tear her mind away from their dad. When they were around, she could concentrate on watching them, and making them laugh, and feeding them at regular intervals. When they were at school, all she could think about was whether Nate had said her name strangely at breakfast, and whether Nate was still up late every night researching his mother’s condition, and whether Nate had gotten over his attraction—and why the hell she hadn’t.
Because Hannah had been forced to admit that her grand plan was a fucking failure, at least on her part. Being with Nate had not fully inoculated her against the deadly crush virus. Instead, her weird, flushed feelings had mutated into something disturbingly intense. Something so strong, she’d been on edge for the past three weeks, trying not to let her maelstrom of emotions escape.
What if she slipped up and kissed him? What if she told him the truth?
I have never wanted anyone the way I want you. And I can’t stop.
It would be a fucking disaster, of that she was sure. She’d been grappling with this issue for some time now, and no matter how she looked at things, the important facts hadn’t changed.
Sensible women did not sleep with their employers.
Or develop feelings for their employers.
If sensible women accidentally slept with and/or developed feelings for their employers—it happened—they remedied the issue by never doing it again.
Even if she lost all sense and tried to do it again, Nate’s recent sweet-but-distant politeness clearly showed that he wouldn’t do it again. Possibly because
She may have scarred him for life by seducing him in the first place.
It was all looking very grim, to be honest. But at least things between them were proper and professional, now. Extra proper and professional. Which was exactly how Hannah liked it. Just imagine if Nate hadn’t started acting like a fond nineteenth century butler around her. Imagine if he’d decided that, actually, he couldn’t stop thinking about her, and they needed to kiss—and so on—every day for the foreseeable future.
Then she’d be involved in some sort of sordid sex-pact that involved sneaking around behind the backs of innocent children and throwing all her dignity to the wind, and what have you.
She looked down at the kids, and thought of their chubby-cheeked smiles and wild imaginations and exhausting energy, and decided once and for all that things were better like this. Much better. Because she’d