Page 17 of Bad Wolf's Nanny

Lola stiffened.

Daisy followed her gaze to the large windows.

Dane.

He was crossing the gravel with his usual swagger, a towel slung around his neck, hair damp, muscles under a tight grey shirt flexing as he wiped his face. He must have just come from a run or sparring session, judging by the sweat-slick edge to him.

Lola looked away quickly.

Too quickly.

Cassie noticed. Of course she did.

“Uh oh,” she murmured, lips quirking, “trouble incoming.”

Cassie’s eyes sparkled with amusement, and she nudged Daisy, who followed her gaze, then raised her eyebrows.

“I guess Dane’s back from training,” Daisy said, voice deceptively light.

“I didn’t notice,” Lola said quickly,tooquickly. “I mean, I did notice, of course. It would be hard not to. He’s…well, it seems he’s just…everywhere. It’s hard not to notice him stomping around like he owns the place. What I meant to say was that Inoticed, I just didn’t…care.”

Cassie lifted an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“He does have a certain presence,” Bree murmured, sipping her tea and sending Lola a small smile, “in a sweaty, smirking, throw-you-over-his-shoulder kind of way.”

Lola let out a strangled laugh. “That’s… oddly specific. I hadn’t noticed anything like that about him.”

“You’re not wrong, though,” Poppy added with a grin, ignoring Lola. “Dane’s got a bit of a reputation.”

Lola didn’t ask what kind of reputation, because she didn’t need to. She could guess.

Player. Heartbreaker. Big, bad wolf who got what he wanted and left before the sun came up.

Which was exactly the sort of male she hadno interestin.

None.

Not even when his dark eyes flicked over her in passing and her heart skipped like a scratched record.

Nope. Absolutely not.

She turned her attention back to her tea, trying to ignore the way her skin prickled with awareness. The warmth from the fire was no longer enough to explain the heat rising in her cheeks.

The conversation moved on. Plans for the fall festival, someone’s disastrous haircut story, and Cassie joking about her kids building a trebuchet in the back yard, but Lola found herself only half-listening.

Because Dane hadn’t just passed through.

He’d come inside.

She could hear him now. His laugh was low and rough, unmistakable. The way the room shifted subtly around him, thegravitational pull of an alpha male who didn’t have totryto take up space, because the space offered itself to him willingly.

She glanced over her shoulder.

Mistake.

He was by the coffee table, saying something to another male who threw his head back in a laugh. Dane looked relaxed. Confident. Like he belonged here in every way, she didn’t.

And then, of course, he looked straight at her.