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“So what do you think?”
Ethan looked over at Sadie and saw the gleam of triumph in her eyes. He couldn’t blame her. “I think you were right. Julie will work out.”
“Wow. I was right. I like hearing that.”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “Don’t get used to it.”
She laughed and, God, the sound of it slammed into the center of his chest and tightened everything inside him. After their conversation that afternoon, he would have bet every penny he had that Sadie would make him pay, by dishing out silence and cold, hard stares. It was how every other woman he’d ever known had gone about payback. About making sure he understood just how wrong he’d been in whatever personal situation was happening at the time.
He should have known that Sadie would be different here, too. She was behaving like they hadn’t had an argument at all.
“I don’t know,” she said with a grin. “I think I’m on a roll. You’re offering Donatello’s more money. You hired Julie in spite of her little girl...”
True, he had upped his offer for the Laguna chocolate shop. He hadn’t heard anything yet, but Sadie had made a good point that he hadn’t thought about before. Donatello’s was a small shop, but they’d been in their location for forty-five years. They’d built a family business just as his own family had. That was something to respect, and a part of Ethan was ashamed that until Sadie spoke up, he hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t let himself notice. And that admission was a hard one to make.
As for Julie, that had turned out to be the easiest damn decision he’d ever made. Yes, there was now another child in his house, but even Ethan had to admit, at least to himself, that Alli was a cute kid. Didn’t mean he was getting soft. Only that he had eyes, he assured himself.
“It was her chicken dinner that sold me,” he admitted.
“Can’t blame you for that. It was delicious. Now you know why she insisted on cooking for us. To prove she knows her way around a kitchen.” Sadie leaned back on the couch and propped her feet up on the low table in front of her. She had tiny feet. Why was that sexy? He shook his head to clear out distracting thoughts.
“Yeah,” he said, remembering the dinner Julie had fixed for them. “Makes me wonder why I put up with Alice all those years.”
“Because you hate change?”
He looked at her and caught the impish gleam in her eyes. “Must be it,” he agreed. Though for a man who hated change as much as he did, there’d been plenty of it in his life lately.
Most of it revolving around the woman smiling at him. But then, so much of his life over the last five years had revolved around Sadie. She’d been a constant in his daily life. At work, which was really the only life he had, she was irreplaceable. And he was only just now figuring that out. So what did that say about him?
Frowning, he glanced around the empty room, then back to where Sadie was reclining on the deeply cushioned couch. Suddenly, he realized that they were alone in the house but for baby Emma. Julie and her daughter wouldn’t be moving in until the following day.
And in spite of everything he’d said only that afternoon, he wanted Sadie so badly it was an ache inside him. To hell with rules. Plans. If she wanted him, too, why shouldn’t they have each other again?
“So with Julie willing to watch Emma, I guess you don’t really need me to stay the full month, right?”
Startled, he realized that hadn’t occurred to him. The firelight streaming from the hearth danced across her features and shifted in shadows that seemed to settle in her blue eyes. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He had almost three more weeks to go with Sadie and damn it, he wanted them.
He’d already wasted too much time, worried about consequences when she clearly wasn’t.
“We still need to find a nanny,” he said firmly.
“Yes, but Julie will be able to watch Emma until you do, so...”
Ethan pushed up off the far end of the leather sofa and walked over to her. Reaching down, he pulled her from the couch, and when she was standing right in front of him, he said, “Yeah, I paid you to stay a month. I still need you here.”
