Page 31 of Catching Trouble

“Please,” I rasped. Was I begging her to leave or asking my brain to stop whirring into overdrive?

With another shrug, she turned to leave.

“Chloe. The hat.”

She stopped, snagging my gaze over her shoulder. “I quite like it, but if you insist.”

She pulled the chef’s hat off, unleashing her ponytail to swing across her shoulders. I gulped.

The less time she spent at the club, the better. For me.

As she walked away, Fifi emerged from the kitchen, dark brows knitted. “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re sending her home? She’s the reason we just had thebiggest weekday brunch crowd sinceopening. They were having a ball.”

They may have been having a ball, but hot drinks didn’t pay the overheads. “Did they eat?”

She squared her jaw. “They did. That’s why I’m helping in the kitchen. I wasn’t expecting the rush, so I didn’t roster an assistant for the chef.Andthey drank enough coffee to wake the dead. I don’t understand what the problem is?”

A heaviness settled in my chest. I didn’t either. Did I fear Valerie’s judgment, or was I envious that Chloe had been the only one to make my daughter laugh since she’d been here? Was I jealous of my nanny’s sparkle? That the customers looked at her as if she walked on water?

No. None of those were the real problem.

Shewas.

Something about her got under my skin.

Ever since she’d arrived, I’d tossed and turned at night, haunted by the image of her tangled in my net. The way her chest rose and fell in her pink bikini as she caught her breath at the bottom of my boat. The way she moved under the garden shower. Every frame played on a loop in my brain.

It wasn’t just the way she looked. It was the tilt of her chin when she challenged me. The way she asked questions I didn’t want to answer.

Chloe was pushing my buttons, and she knew it.

Worse—I wasn’t able to push back.

“Maxime?”

I snapped my attention to Fifi. “Oui?”

“Tell me. What’s going on in that brain of yours?”

I sighed. “Chloe is supposed to be here for Sophie, not make drinks for the masses.”

Fifi took my arm, rubbing her thumb over my skin. “Look, Sophie barely speaks to hersupposednanny, anyway.”

“Is she rude to her?”

“No, not exactly.It’s like she’d rather Chloe wasn’t here at all. The poor kid’s probably bored out of her mind, stuck at home. She needs fun. Excitement. She’s twelve, not two. Let her live a little. Even if that means hanging out here at the club, in the real world.”

My gut twisted. Fifi wasn’t telling me anything new, but her words scared me.

“I don’t want Sophie hanging around a club full of people drinking alcohol. Her mother wouldn’t approve.”

Fifi muttered something to the ceiling. Pulling me to the bar, she swept her hand around the club. “Who’s drinking? There’s nobody here. The customers left the same time as your redhead.”

My heart skipped. “She’s not my redhead.”