He shows me the guest room next, then the room Penelope uses when she’s with him— all pinks and books and stick-on glow-in-the-dark stars and stuffed animals and tiny sneakers lined in military-straight rows by the wall. The tenderness in his face when he opens that door makes something warm bloom in my chest.
He loves her so much. It’s there in every detail.
I don’t realize I’m smiling until he looks at me and catches it.For a second, neither of us says anything.The air goes strange again, heavy and quiet, before he looks away first and keeps walking.
By the time we head back downstairs and out toward the patio, I am so aware of him that I’m basically one giant exposed nerve ending in boots.
Cold air brushes my cheeks as he opens the back door. The pool stretches ahead under the winter sky, steam curling faintly from the surface.
“Is it heated?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Of course it is.”
He glances at me. “You say that like it’s offensive.”
“Itisoffensive. I’m from the tax bracket where outdoor water in January is called a slipping hazard.”
His mouth curves for real that time, quick and gone, but enough to make my stomach somersault.He steps toward a control panel mounted near the door. “There’s a retractable cover forsafety. Penelope knows not to come out here alone, but I don’t rely on that.”
Of course he doesn’t.
“If for any reason I forget to put the cover on after my laps, this is how you do it.”
He presses a button, and suddenly sharp, loud mechanicalwhirrips through the air way louder than I’m expecting. I flinch hard before I realize what it is and grab the nearest solid thing.
Which is, unfortunately for me, Grayson.
Both hands clutch at his sweater. My body slots into his chest like I’m a damn child scared of thunder.
Heat.
Muscle.
The clean, musky scent of him.
His arms come around me on instinct, steadying, catching, and for one horrifying second, I’m fully plastered against my boss.
I suck in a breath. “Shit.Oh my god?—”
I start to pull back, mortified, but his hand closes around my upper arm just enough to stop me in my tracks.
I look up.
His face is close. Way,waytoo close. His eyes drop to my mouth and stay there, and the whole world narrows to the sound of his exhale and the way he’s looking at me.
He hesitates.
And then his mouth is on mine.
It’s not rough, but it isn’t tentative either. His lips are warm and soft and devastatingly sure for the half-second it lasts. I don’t even have time to comprehend it.
And I just… freeze, completely. It’s not because I don’t want it.I want it so much my brain turns to fucking mush.
But every instinct in me locks up at once — shock, panic, the job, the house, Penelope, the fact that I have spent days acting like I’m definitely not staring at this man’s hands and mouth and shoulders every chance I get.
By the time I even begin to catch up, he’s already pulling away, his expression changing faster than I can try to process.
