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Lucy is clueless about what he’s referencing, but Henley has no issues deciphering it. She tells him to wait, that after back-to-back dance and self-defense classes, she is also in desperate need of a shower.
“Maybe I should join you?”
This isn’t the first time she’s flirted with Thane today. However, it is the first time I have responded. Before she can get an inch away from me, I snatch up her wrist and tug her back.
I haven’t had my hands on her in days, so the zap isn’t just intense. It is palpable enough for Thane and Lucy to feel.
“Or maybe I just need ice cream?”
Lucy’s eyes bulge before they rocket to her uncle.
Thane bounces on his heels, loving her attention. “What do you say, Lulu? Should we head to the ice cream parlor for a pre-dinner treat?”
“Yes!” Lucy leaps into the air before twisting to face me. “Can we, Daddy? Please.”
“They can’t come with us. Your dad isn’t a fan of pre-dinner treats, and you heard Henley.” Thane plugs his nose. “She’s stinky.” He ignores Henley’s huff. “She needs to shower, and I don’t know how your showers here work, but if they’re anything like mine, she might need help.”
“Daddy knows how they work,” Lucy says, her face glowing. “Maybe he can help her?”
Her offer is as innocent as her face, but it doubles the heat burning between Henley and me.
Almost every incident we’ve had has been in the bathroom.
“That sounds like a good plan.” I appreciate Thane handing over the baton for a game he should have never been participating in, but he ensures I know it won’t be a long changeover. “We can only hope it won’t take them all night to clear up the murkiness.” Before climbing the basement stairs, he scoops Lucy up like she doesn’t have legs. “We’ll be back in an hour max. If you need longer than that, you have my number.”
The thumps of his stomps have barely stopped booming in my ear when Henley yanks out of my hold before moving to the side of the makeshift gym to fetch a bottle of water and a towel.
She drags it over her sweat-drenched head, her eyes never veering near mine. Things have changed between us so dramatically. I fucking hate it. It wasn’t like this before we fucked. And yeah, I can admit that I stuffed up with how I handled it the following morning, but what’s Henley’s excuse? She’s acting as if it meant nothing to her.
Too annoyed to hold my tongue a second longer, I say, “This is the exact reason I tried to stay away. I gave into temptation once, and now everything is ruined.”
Don’t take that the wrong way. Henley is a brilliant nanny to Lucy. Her love and attention to detail for every aspect of her inclusion in Lucy’s life can’t be improved. I’m talking about how royally I screwed this up by giving in to the tension burning between us.
“Did I take it too far?” My next question comes out like my words were dragged over gravel first. “Did I hurt you? Is that why you’re not talking to me?”
“Are you kidding me?” Those four words are the most she’s spoken to me in three days. “You stopped talking to me.”
“Because I couldn’t get any words out through the guilt clogged in my throat.” That was more honest than I’m used to, but it finally sees Henley’s eyes locking with mine, so I continue. “I shouldn’t have let things go that far, especially not there.”
Her anger has her missing my last three words. “Don’t worry, your actions over the past three days have ensured it won’t happen again. Thane—”
“Will lose teeth before I ever let him touch you.”
Henley is as surprised by my jealous outburst as I am, but she takes it in stride. “He thinks you’ll never stop using Caroline’s death as an excuse not to move on.”
“Don’t bring her into this.” She hit a nerve. My tone announces this, let alone the groove between my brows. “You can’t talk about shit you have no clue about.”
I realize she’s gunning for blood when she drags another innocent bystander into the mess we’ve created. “I know what it’s like for Lucy.” She dumps the towel in the laundry basket, her back facing me as she adds, “I know what she’s going through and that you have no right to keep her mother’s family from her.”
After gritting my teeth and throwing her a disdained glare that should burn more than her sunburn ever did, I exit the basement before I say something I’ll later regret.
Henley follows me, her impairment too clouded by anger to let this go. “That little girl is in the midst of an identity crisis because she has no clue about her heritage.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I roar, my anger palpable when she thrusts her hand at a portrait of Lucy in the hallway. “We just spent hours with her uncle and aunt today after a nine-hour stint with her grandparents over the weekend.”
