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I blinked through the torment that raged in the space between us. Sorrow flared in the middle of it, pouring out from the fury of his storm.
“Fuck, Paisley, I hadn’t even met her before Kimberly died.” Shame filled his voice, and I barely registered that it was the first time he’d called me by my first name.
Because I stumbled back against the wood, unprepared for that blow.
How?
He must have read it on my face because he scrubbed a big palm over his, trying to control himself. “We had a…” He stumbled over the confession before he forced out, “A falling out. I hadn’t talked to her in more than five years. I knew she’d become a mother. Had done my best to keep tabs on her while respecting her wish to keep me out of their lives. After she died, her will stated that she wished Evelyn’s custody go to me.”
Agony radiated from him, filling the oxygen like lead. “You asked me if I had the ability to love her, and the truth is, I don’t know how. The only person I’ve ever loved is my sister. And she’s gone.” His voice wheezed with grief. “And she left a child with me. One I have no idea what to do with.”
“You might think you don’t have the capacity to love her, but you do. You do because I saw it when you came into the clinic. I saw it in your worry. I saw it in the way you held her after. That’s love, Caleb, whether you believe it is or not.”
It was the first time I’d called him by his first name, too.
This was no longer business. It was personal.
I guessed I’d solidified that last night.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, those blue eyes gluing my shaking boots to the floor.
His aura wisped through the space.
Power and wealth and deep-seated secrets.
He moved even closer, and I leaned farther against the door.
My fingernails scratched at the wood, as if it could ground me, keep me standing and steady.
He inched forward, nearly touching, and for all the trying I was doing, it was no use. My shaking hand reached up, and I curled my fingers into his shirt.
A fool who wanted to hold him.
The pain.
The secrets.
The shadows that crept through his tormented gaze.
His head shook, his voice hard. “My only job is to keep her safe.”
“You’re more than that.”
Vulnerability bled into his tone. “I’m not equipped for this, Paisley. I have no idea why my sister chose me to care for her daughter…to raise her…after everything I’ve done.”
“I think you’re equipped for so much more than you believe. You wouldn’t have accepted her into your life if you weren’t.”
“I owe it to my sister.” Agony sheared out with that, and I wanted to ask him a thousand things. What had happened to her, and why did they have a falling out?
I pressed my palm to the thrashing of his chest, wading deeper into the darkened abyss of his sea. Waters dragging me under.
That panic shivered just under the surface. The whole reason I knew I needed to leave.
Because if I didn’t go now, it was going to be too late.
I was falling. Falling into a man who wouldn’t be there to catch me.
He must have read what was in my expression because he pushed closer, plastering me to the wood, hands clinging to the caps of my shoulders. His mouth at my ear and his spirit weaving into mine.
“Please don’t walk out that door.” His plea was sandpaper. Rough as it scraped into my consciousness. “I need you to stay.”
He ran just the tip of his nose along the length of my jaw.
“What do you mean, stay?” I hated that it came out a stammer.
“I want you to take Ms. Sandberg’s place. Stay here. Live here.”
That panic screamed.
So, of course, I was trying to cover it with the lightness that didn’t stick. “Tell me you never had Ms. Sandberg pressed against the door like this.”
Caleb growled, and he angled back, cupping my jaw in one of his hands. “I’ve never had anyone like this, Paisley. Have never needed anyone the way I need you.”
Oh, but that statement was so conflicted.
Convoluted.
Tangled up in too many things that I had no idea what he was asking of me.
I was pretty sure he didn’t know, either.
“I’m not a nanny.”
I had no qualifications for that.
And being under the same roof as him?
Staying with Evelyn like this?
My spirit soared. Diving low. Falling fast.
Caught up in this mystery of a man who had tapped into something inside me that no one had before.
“I’m not asking you to be her nanny. I’m asking you to continue to look at her the way you do, spend time with her the way you do, and I’ll pay you for it. There is no one I trust the way I do you.”
