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Has she forgiven me—for forcing her out of my penthouse that day, thinking I was doing the right thing? Is she here because she feels it too—the way I’ve missed her, every damn day since?
My chest tightens. My pulse kicks. I swallow hard.
Is she here because she still wants this—wantsme?
I watch her on the security feed. She shifts from foot to foot. Blows out a breath. Tilts her face to the sky.
Come on. Ring the doorbell. Please.
She glances over her shoulder. Sighs again. Then lifts her chin.
And finally, the doorbell rings.
24
Priscilla
"What are you doing here?" The impact of those mismatched eyes feels like I’ve slammed headfirst into an immovable object. One, glacial blue, resembles an icicle which could lance through my chest and draw blood. The other, an untamed golden-green, brims with feral energy. Taken together, they're a fierce contradiction, a clash of elements, untamed and unrelenting; a warning as much as they are a lure.
I drink in his patrician nose, the high, diamond-hard cheekbones, the angles of his jaw, the cords of his throat standing out against his skin. When he folds his arms across his chest, the biceps strain the button-down he’s wearing… All of it hints at tightly leashed power.
I forgot how much of a full body impact meeting Tyler is. I clutch the straps of my handbag—the same one he rescued from being crushed by the doors of the train—for support. Then tilt my head back, and further back, so I can meet his gaze. Not that I forgot his height. Or the breadth of his shoulders that fill the doorway to his house.
Clearly, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Every part of him seems harder and more unforgiving than when I last saw him. He’s all angles and harsh edges. But something beneath those edges calls to me, deeper than it should. Except for the shadows under his eyes, and the hollows under his cheekbones. Together with his rumpled hair and the loosened tie, as well as the rolled-up sleeves of his shirts, it only adds to his sexiness. Goddamn. Tyler in his single dad era is going to be my downfall. I’ve never been attracted to the fathers of the children I took care of before this.
But this guy! In the year since I first met him, his appeal has skyrocketed. He was—and still is—that billionaire alphahole who has a confident, I-own-the-earth air about him. But it’s tempered with something else in his eyes. Something that makes him more humane, more approachable. Something that makes me ache. A shiver squeezes my belly. My pussy clenches.
One look at him, and I want to climb him like a tree and lick him all over.Ugh. This is bad. You should go. Pivot and walk out of here. You must be out of your mind to think about coming here for the job.
His eyebrows knit over his nose. There’s a question in his eyes, but his expression is not unkind. Far from that. He takes me in from head to toe, and back to my face, like he can’t believe I’m here. Is that my imagination or… Is he happy to see me? And I don’t mean in that way. Though I would be thrilled if he were happy to see me in that way too. He’s looking at me like I’m something he thought he'd lost.
He's looking at me with desperation. With relief. With something very close to signaling that he missed me.
He clears his throat. “Priscilla?—”
It’s like someone took a pin to the bubble of hope building in my chest. He called me Priscilla. Not Cilla. The shift lands like a slap. His tone is formal. Distant. I was mistaken in what I saw in his eyes. Maybe, he stopped seeing me as the woman he once brought home? The one he said he saw a future with? Maybe, everything between us has changed since I last saw him?
My mind spins, questions crashing into each other—but even through the ache, I can’t stop drinking him in. Like I always do.
He’s so big, and the heat from his body is so intense, it feels like I’m standing in front of a furnace. Or the gates of heaven?
Nope, not going there. Not when I’m here to do a job as a professional.
“Can I come in?”
I’m sure he won’t refuse. Still, I’m relieved when he steps aside. I walk past him, the heat of his body wrapping around mine like memory, trying hard not to breathe in deeply of that very masculine, musky scent of his as I do.
I survey the hallway, which has a table on which are keys, spare change, a soft toy. The table is high enough that it’s out of reach of an almost two-year-old. The soft toy is familiar. It relaxes me further. I take in the hooks on the wall.
From one hangs a man’s coat, XXL-size. Clearly, his. On the others are a couple of smaller coats. One pink. One purple with unicorn motifs. From the living room, the sound of a children’s program reaches me. Peppa Pig, if I’m not mistaken.
The remaining tension drains from my body.
"I’m here for the nanny position," I declare.
Silence greets me. I turn to find him staring at me. Those heterochromatic eyes of his grow wide. His thick eyebrows draw down. That beautiful face, which has haunted my dreams for the last year, takes on an expression of hurt. One which confuses me.
It’s as if he expected me to say I’m here to be your girlfriend, but I said something else entirely. His chest rises and falls. Then he shakes his head and seems to compose himself. “You’re here for the nanny position?"