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“What do you want?” I asked, the intended venom in my words nowhere to be found.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he started, pushing the loose strands away from his face, making me almost miss them. “I had to leave work a little early today to relieve my mom of babysitting duties, and I figured I’d check in with you before heading inside. Can we chat?”
No. I should have said no, I should have shut the door. I could’ve hidden away, claimed I was too busy, but that stupid little part of myself that found him far more intriguing than I should have opened the door wider, gesturing with my hand to come in. Stupid. So, so stupid.
Hudson followed me inside. He closed the door behind him as I hopped back up on my stool, threading my needle once again, trying not to think about the fact that he was in my fucking house, too close for comfort again, stepping over some kind of boundary.
Unless fertility doctors had suddenly started making house calls.
“Have you given any thought to watching Jamey?”
Jamey. That was his name. It fit him perfectly. “Uh, a bit, but I haven’t decided yet.” I held the needle between my front teeth as I picked up another appliqué and held it against the dress form.
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to say yes.” He stood near the door, hands in his pockets, the muscles of his forearms flexing. I wondered if his hands were in fists. “I know you work from home, and that you’re good with kids. It would work out well if you’re up for it. I’d pay you, of course, and I think it would help with the whole fake fiancé thing.”
He’d already told me this. Had he really stopped by my house just to reiterate what he’d said to me yesterday?
“I know this doesn’t exactly help with the situation, but my parents are leaving for a cruise on Friday, and I really, really need someone to watch him. I’ve tried shifting my appointments around and getting the other doctors to take some of them, but I just can’t make it work.”
I glued my gaze to the appliqué, knowing damn well if I looked at him and those annoying, fascinating, puppy-dog-eyes any longer, I’d lose any sense of mind I still had. “I need to think about it, Dr. Brady.”
“You know you can call me Hudson, right? You’re my neighbor.”
“You’re also my doctor, apparently,” I quipped.
Pain shot through my thumb and I gasped, realizing I’d shoved the needle right into the tip. I pulled it free, hissing in my breath, as blood pooled around my nail bed, smearing itself across the appliqué. The very, very expensive appliqué.
“Fucks sake,” I mumbled, shoving my thumb into my mouth to control the bleeding.
I could hear his footsteps as they approached. My back steeled, my body going rigid, and I shoved the needle into the dress form in annoyance.
“Are you alright?”
“Fine,” I said around my thumb, the word muffled and pointless. Hopping off the stool, I shuffled across the room to the open-plan kitchen, knocking the water faucet on with my free hand. Of course, he followed me.
“Are you bleeding?”
“No,” I lied. I shoved my thumb under the running water, rinsing away the evidence.
The way he stared at me was fucking criminal. A combination of worry and smugness, the classic, manly ‘let me help you.’
“There’s blood on your lip.”
I licked the drop of blood away. “No there isn’t.”
He leaned against the glazed wooden countertop across from my sink on his elbows, lifting his head to get a better view of my thumb. “Stab it with the needle?”
“No,” I lied again.
He reached into the little pocket on the front of his shirt, plucking out a band-aid and a little square of gauze. The perfect timing couldn’t have annoyed me more.
“Why do you even have that?”
He chuckled as he flipped the handle for the faucet, turning off the water. “I’m a doctor, Sophie.”
“Yeah, a fertility doctor. Surely you don’t need band-aids every day.” I sucked in a breath as he reached for my hand, grabbing my thumb and dragging my arm across the counter toward him, making my pulse skyrocket. He placed the gauze against the tiny puncture wound, drying it off. If his being in my house was crossing a boundary, then this was at least ten steps over the line, no matter how much it made my stomach flutter.
“I have to do a lot of blood work,” he said, the words coming out slow and calm. The blood pushed out through the wound again, just a drop, and he wiped it away with the gauze. “And Jamey isn’t the most coordinated.”
