Page 12 of The Live-In Temptation (Steele Brothers of Starlight Cove #2)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

XANDER

Chloe had been in our life for a grand total of six days, and yet she’d already shifted everything . It was irritating as hell.

Between the glitter every-fucking-where, the shoe orphanage, and the motivational Post-it Notes stuck to the bathroom mirror, I barely recognized my space. She’d taken my ordered and tidy house and turned it into a den of mayhem. Not to mention how she’d infiltrated my goddamn dreams.

I couldn’t take it anymore, and I had to get out.

My mom had the weekend off from the library, and she’d asked me to drop by.

Since moving back to full-time hours, she was missing the afternoons she’d gotten used to spending with Emma.

Visiting her gave me the perfect excuse to escape my once peaceful, now completely unhinged house, so I was all too willing.

“Can I do it, Daddy?” Emma asked as we walked up to my mom’s back door.

“Go for it.” I stepped aside and pulled off Emma’s mitten, allowing her to press her thumb to the scanner.

When it flashed green, her eyes lit up with joy, and she beamed up at me. “I did it!”

“Great work, peanut. I heard Mimi say you’re the best door unlocker she’s ever met.”

“Really?” Emma whispered, her eyes wide, tone threaded with awe.

I huffed out a laugh. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to seeing the world through her eyes.

A world filled with magic and wonder and possibility.

I was thirty-eight years old, which meant those years were long gone for me.

But even when I’d been Emma’s age, I couldn’t imagine I’d been as bright-eyed as she was.

Not with the life my brothers and I’d had.

“Really,” I confirmed. “You should ask her about it.”

I pushed open the door, and we stepped inside, the scents of fresh-baked cookies and laundry detergent hitting me.

Ever since I was a kid, I’d associated that combination with home.

After living the first twelve years of my life in the back of a tour bus, a home that smelled like something other than stale beer and pot was a welcome change.

“Mom,” I called as Emma shrugged out of her coat and tugged off her snow boots—the matching set, thanks to Chloe—as fast as humanly possible.

“Is that my little angel and her daddy here to visit me?” Mom called from the living room. She stepped into the kitchen, a bright smile on her face.

“Mimi!” Emma ran full speed toward my mom and crashed into her legs for a hug. “Did you really tell Daddy I’m the best unblocker in the world?”

Mom glanced up at me with a raised brow, and I quickly flipped the dead bolt to clue her in. She smiled down at my daughter. “I did say that. The very best, and your uncles are all very good at unlocking doors, so you had a lot of competition.”

Emma straightened, beaming at my mom and regarding her with nothing but love.

I didn’t know if it was because Mom had been the first person other than me Emma had met, or that she’d done so right here in this kitchen, but the two of them had forged a bond I was grateful for.

Especially since Corinne hadn’t had any family.

That meant we were it for Emma.

“We have so much to catch up on,” Mom said, clutching Emma’s hand and guiding her into the family room. “I want to hear everything you did at school this week. And you have to tell me all about your new nanny.”

While Emma was soft-spoken, quiet, and incredibly shy with those she didn’t know or hadn’t developed a relationship with, once she was comfortable around someone, all bets were off.

She spoke a mile a minute, filling my mom in on everything she’d done in school, as well as her week with Chloe—the torture yoga that had starred in too damn many of my dreams included.

“And how does Daddy think things are going?” my mom asked.

“What do you think, Daddy?”

I grunted out a non-answer because no way in hell was I getting into that with Emma in earshot. “Why don’t you go grab the stack of library books Mimi brought home for you and pick out your favorite one to read?”

“Okay!” She scrambled off the couch and ran down the hall toward the bedroom my mom had taken great pleasure in redecorating for Emma.

As soon as my daughter was out of sight, Mom turned to me with a raised brow. “That good, huh?”

I scrubbed a hand down my face and released a groan. “She’s a fucking disaster, Mom. There’s no schedule, no routine. And the house is a mess.”

“I was just there Thursday afternoon, and it didn’t look like a mess to me.”

“Did you see the shoe orphanage?”

My mom’s lips twitched as if she was highly amused by the entire situation. “Yes, I saw. And I thought it was a great idea.”

“It’s ridiculous, is what it is.”

“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive, Xander.”

In my life, they were and always had been. And I fully intended to keep it that way.

“Mimi!” Emma ran back into the living room at full speed before dive-bombing the couch. She scrambled up and sat next to my mom, holding up a book. “LoLee has this one!”

“LoLee?” my mom asked.

“It’s what she started calling Chloe,” I grumbled.

“Well, that’s sweet,” Mom said, apparently seeing no problem with the fact that my daughter and my nanny already had nicknames for each other after less than a week.

I did, though.

The last thing I needed was Emma getting attached to someone who wasn’t going to stick around. She’d already had enough of that for a lifetime.

“Can we make the gooey glitter stuff like LoLee does?” Emma asked.

Mom tipped her head to the side and regarded Emma. “Gooey glitter stuff?”

Emma nodded rapidly. “It’s sparkly and smells like bainbows. Daddy doesn’t like it ’cause it feels like a jellyfish.”

I didn’t like it because it was messy and disgusting and, yes, because Chloe insisted on putting glitter in every-fucking-thing she possibly could.

Yesterday, I found sparkles in my goddamn boxer briefs.

How the fuck they’d gotten there, I had no idea.

Because no one—glitter-laden or not—had been around my dick in a very, very long time.

“Do you mean homemade slime?” Mom asked with a smile.

“Yeah!”

“Well, I’m not sure it’ll be exactly the same, but we’ll try our best. And next time I see Chloe, I’ll ask her what magic she uses to make it smell like rainbows.”

“And also, what kind of glitter. LoLee has the best sparkles.”

“Is that right?” my mom asked, sliding a glance to me.

“Oh, I’m very familiar with her glitter,” I said dryly.

My mom shot me a look, and I immediately shut down whatever well-meaning delusions she’d concocted in her fantasy land.

“Don’t even think it.”

Instead of answering me, she turned to Emma and gave her a list of ingredients to hunt down so they could make the slime. And then my daughter was off like a rocket, and there were just three of us in the room—me, my mom, and the unmistakable glint in her eye.

“No.” I pointed a finger at her. “I mean it, Mom. Get that thought out of your head.”

“What?” She shrugged, but her innocent act wasn’t working on me. “The only thing I’m thinking is that Chloe seems to have made herself part of the family already.”

“It’s been a week. And she’s not staying,” I said firmly, ignoring the unease churning in my gut at that thought. Unease stemming solely from how that would affect my daughter.

Obviously.

“Neither was Bert Johnson. He was just passing through in ’99, and now he coordinates the annual chili cook-off.”

“Chloe isn’t Bert. She’s just…” I trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence. She was just…what? A pain in my ass? A perpetual wet dream? A glitter gremlin I couldn’t seem to get out of my mind?

Luckily, the back door swung open, and Lincoln came strolling in, saving me from myself.

“Morning, my lovely family. I came to see if the rumor about Xander’s scowl deepening a full centimeter since he hired the hot nanny was true.” He gave me a quick glance and nodded. “Two seconds in, and I can confirm.”

“Get out,” I said without hesitation.

Mom laughed, swatted my shoulder, and greeted my brother with a hug. “It’s a little early for goading, Lincoln.”

“No such thing, Mom.” He turned toward Emma, his hand outstretched for their special handshake. “How’s my little bean today?”

“Good! Me and Mimi are making slime!”

“Is that right?” he asked, and I didn’t have to be looking at him to know his attention was on me. “That sounds like something your nanny introduced you to.”

“How did you know ?” Emma asked, awe in her voice.

“Lucky guess.”

Emma and my mom dove into making the slime, their attention focused completely on that. Which meant mine was, unfortunately, on Lincoln.

He sat down on the chair next to me. “If you want my opinion?—”

“I don’t.”

“Bean obviously loves her.” Lincoln shrugged, as if that was all that mattered. That should have been all that mattered, and instead, I was allowing my dick to rule my life. “And while you’re definitely homicidal with her in the picture, I don’t really see how that’s any different from usual.”

“You’d be homicidal too if she turned your home into a glitter-fueled circus.”

Lincoln leaned back in his chair, propped his feet on the coffee table, and aimed a lazy grin in my direction. “I don’t know, man. If I had her for scenery, I’m pretty sure I’d take whatever she dished out and ask for seconds.”

There was absolutely no good reason why my brother’s interest in Chloe should have ignited something inside me. Regardless, it did, and my retort was automatic. “Shut your damn mouth, Linc.”

“That’s a quarter in the swear jar, Daddy,” Emma said without looking up from the mess of goop in front of her.

“See?” I gestured to the crap all over the table. “This is what I mean.”

Mom huffed out a laugh and looked up, still helping Emma mix the slime. “I think you need to have more of an open mind about her, Xander. Because, frankly, she sounds very fun.”

“Who said any of us needs more fun?” I grumbled.

Lincoln snorted, and my mom shook her head.