She waved a hand in front of her face as she fought to contain her delight. “You should.” More laughter. “Your face.” Burying her own face in her hands, she smothered the sounds of her mirth.
He didn’t think it was that funny. Then again. His brain had already calculated he was thirteen years older than her. Over a decade. She was far too young for him.
Wait.
When had he started thinking about her being for him?
Sure, he was attracted to her. He’d admitted that. But he’d had no intention of doing anything about it.
Had he?
Shit.
He had no business thinking about Lory that way. She was in her twenties. Him his forties; okay just, but still. He was too old for her and she was too young for him which of course meant the same thing.
She wasn’t for him.
And none of this bizarre train of thought mattered because Jake would never let a woman close again. It didn’t matter how much he wanted to pull Lory close or find out everything about her. He wouldn’t allow anyone the kind of power over him or Mad that kind of closeness would give them.
He needed to get back on track and send Lory on her way.
“Okay.” He grabbed the laptop and spun it around to face him. “Let me see how to make these video calls happen.”
From the corner of his eye he saw her frown at him. He wanted to smooth out the creases between her brows, wanted to do something to turn those lips up into that blinding smile again.
All of those thoughts were why he clamped his jaw tight, ground his teeth until they ached, and quickly sent an email to the right agencies about the four nannies he wanted to chat with.
The sooner they set this up, the sooner Lory would leave and he could get back to normal.
He could only hope, out of sight meant out of mind.
Except hadn’t he spent the last week not seeing her?
And hadn’t he spent that same week doing nothing but thinking about her?
Shit.
He was fucked.
12
Mallory chewed her thumbnail and studied the woman with Maddox in the yard through her window. The nanny had started today. She knew the woman had been here twice earlier in the week to spend time with both Maddox and Jacob so they could all get comfortable with each other.
Besides that, she had no idea what had been happening in Jacob’s—or Maddox’s—life.
After sitting in on the video calls with Jacob, she’d agreed with his decision to hire thirty-five year old Shelly Armond. The woman had excellent references and been employed by three families—all long term—in her seventeen years as a nanny.
On paper she was the perfect candidate.
In person…not so perfect.
Mallory didn’t understand why this woman rubbed her the wrong way. This was the first time she’d seen Shelly outside of her video interview and she wasn’t even close. All she had to go on was a bird’s eye view of the woman.
Maddox caught her eye. He ran around, a toy helicopter in his hand, a big grin on his face. Mallory could tell he was chattering about something. Her gaze moved back to his nanny where she sat on the back step.
Maybe her dislike of Shelly was because she paid more attention to the phone in her hand than the boy playing in front of her. In the ten minutes Mallory had watched the pair, not once had Shelly gotten up and interacted with Maddox. In fact, she was pretty sure the woman hadn’t said a word to the boy. That alone didn’t sit well with Mallory.
Then again, her dislike might have something to do with the way the other woman was dressed.
