“No, I mean it.” I stepped closer unconsciously. “You’ve done so much for my family already.”
“I’m employed to help.”
“I hired a nanny,” I said honestly. “What I got was… more than that.”
A vulnerable frown passed across her face before she hid it carefully. “You give me too much credit.”
“No,” I said. “I really don’t.”
The air between us shifted again. Subtle. Risky.
I continued before I lost my nerve entirely. “Let me take you to dinner or something. Somewhere nice. Something that doesn’t involve PTA politics or children threatening bodily harm.”
Her mouth curved slowly upward. “You’re asking me on a thank-you outing?”
“I am.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a date.”
Every coherent thought abandoned my body. “I?—”
She laughed softly, rescuing me before I embarrassed myself further. “I’m teasing.”
I exhaled. Right. Teasing.
Definitely fine. Completely normal reaction.
Then she looked at me with that same unreadable warmth she sometimes got late at night when the kids were asleep and the house became too intimate around us.
“All right,” she said gently. “I accept.”
Relief flooded me so fast it was almost embarrassing. “Good.”
“Good,” she echoed.
Neither of us moved.
And for one dangerous suspended moment beneath the low kitchen lights, with music still faintly playing over the family room speakers and the entire house finally asleep around us, it felt far too easy to imagine reaching for her again.
12
CONRAD
It was close to nine at night when someone knocked at the front door. I was already halfway downstairs before I fully processed why that was strange. Winnie and I had chosen a later time to meet so that the kids would be asleep.
The kids were either asleep or being really good fakers as Lady Ferdinand settled in our family room with one of her mystery novels and a copious amount of tea. And Winnie?—
My brain stalled briefly.
Winnie was the reason someone was knocking.
Right.
Because this wasn’t just dinner. But it also wasnota date, which had become increasingly hard to remember over the last two hours.
I’d changed clothes three times before settling on dark slacks, polished shoes, and a charcoal button-down beneath an old-fashioned wool coat that leaned vaguely twenties-inspiredwithout making me look like I solved crimes by punching jazz musicians.
The speakeasy had been Winnie’s suggestion.
