AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s okay,” she laughed when Shannah tried to tell her it wasn’t natural for the bride not to know what was happening in regard to her own wedding. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
She didn’t feel like she had a clue what she was doing, but the sentiment seemed to ease Shannah’s mind and that was all that mattered.
She’d been relieved to end the call, and the sight of Brock standing in the doorway had only added to her elation.
Like a moth to a flame she had gone to him, closed the gap between them because she felt compelled to be closer to him, even if they never truly touched.
And they didn’t. She asked him about his day, which gleaned an odd answer.
“How are things?”
“Clearer,” he’d said flatly. “Much clearer.”
She wanted to question him, ask for clarification. Brock didn’t give her the chance. Something had changed in his expression. There was a darkness in his eyes, but it wasn’t the broody, mischievous darkness she had witnessed the night before in his bedroom. There was something different in his piercing gaze.
“Are you okay, Brock?”
Camilla reached out to touch his arm, but he bypassed her completely and set his briefcase up on the counter. There was no way he could have missed the stack of plates on the countertop, ready to be placed around the table, no way he couldn’t have smelled the delicious aroma of the roast from the oven. And yet, he turned around, his eyes blazing as they locked
on her.
“Never better, Camilla.” His throat moved visibly. “But I have a lot of work to get done tonight. As for Rynn, I can take it from here.”
She was being...dismissed.
“Brock, if there’s something wrong—”
“As I just said—” He cut her off, his voice raising an octave. Not a shout, but definitely showing off his assertive stance. “I’ve got a busy night ahead of me. Thanks for your help today.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “And Rynn’s going to spend tomorrow with my mother, so your services won’t be needed.”
My services. It was like last night hadn’t even happened. She was just the nanny, not the woman he’d called beautiful while he owned her body in the darkness of his bedroom.
“Okay.” Camilla didn’t know what to say. She was dumbfounded, completely taken aback. And the worst part, she thought, as she slipped on her shoes and tugged her purse up onto her shoulder as she headed out the door, was that she didn’t have a clue what she had done wrong.
Chapter Eight
Brock
Brock was distracted again, but this time, for a different reason.
He felt foolish. More than that, he felt utterly ridiculous for ever thinking that fucking his kid’s nanny was a good idea. For ever thinking that the nanny wasn’t just the nanny at all, but that she was the one.
His one.
Brock had let his loneliness and his primal urges get the best of him. He’d obviously read all the signals wrong, and he’d obviously been very, very wrong about Camilla Benton.
It’s temporary. It won’t last.
“You got that right,” he muttered under his breath. But the only reason his time with Camilla was temporary or short-lived was because she made it that way. He just couldn’t figure out how he had been so blindsided by her, how he didn’t see it coming.
The truth was, he’d been just as willing to jump into bed with her and ignore what was so blatant—they’d moved too fast, and in the blur of those movements Brock had misread Camilla’s intentions.
Brock wondered if Camilla had meant for him to misread the signals she sent. But that thought hurt him more than the rest of it combined, so he tried hard not to let it surface into the forefront of his mind.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t doing a very good job of controlling his thoughts at all.
In his office at the university, he spent the time he should have been grading essays and prepping for his upcoming class that evening instead replaying his night with Camilla over and over in his head, quickly and cruelly followed by the words she’d told whomever was on the phone with her yesterday afternoon. He’d spent the previous evening in a daze, feeling like hell for being so cold and distant with Camilla, and for letting her leave the way he did.
But what did she expect? He had a four-year-old daughter he had to put first, and he wasn’t into playing games and one-night stands. He was a single father, and he had to be a protective, responsible one.
