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“Yeah?”
“Please don’t hurt me.”
My hands trembled as I gathered her even closer to me. “Never.”
The way she hugged me back told me I didn’t need to request the same thing from her. I already knew the answer. We would never hurt each other. Willingly.
* * *
Even as thepieces fell into place, there was still a fair amount of negotiation to be done. At first, Heather was adamant about not moving in with me.
“Too fast,” she said as she scrolled through apartments for rent on her phone. “It’s not like we’ll never see each other if we don’t live together. I’ll at least be in the same town. Wow, rent here iscrazy.”
“I’m not letting you pay rent,” I said. “I’ll buy you a condo if you don’t want to stay here in the house with us. I’m just saying there’s enough room here that you could have your own wing if you really wanted—a private kitchen and access to a personal chef included. Or you could even stay in the guesthouse at the back of the property. It’s 3,000 square feet and has a great view of the mountains.”
At first, when she slowly lifted her eyes from her phone to stare me down, I thought she was going to get angry. Then, she laughed. “You are impossible,” she said, shaking her head. “Has anyone ever told you that? Completely incorrigible.”
“Is that a yes on the condo?” I didn’t dare to hope, but here we were.
“I don’t want you to buy me anything.” She lowered her eyes again and smiled. I loved Heather when she was feisty, but it did something else entirely to me when she was genuine and shy. “I want to stay here.”
“I’ll bring in a team to redesign your wing. You can have whatever you want—whatever paint, decor, fixtures, furnishings.”
She shook her head and blushed. Fuck, I loved it when she blushed. “No, I want to stay here—with you. I just don’t know how it’s going to work with Collins.”
That was another negotiation, as well as a conversation that made me fall for Heather even more.
“To me, you and Collins are a package deal,” she told me just after that pivotal night when we had decided to be together. “I love her. She really is a jitterbug.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” I told her, my heart near to bursting.
“With that said, though, I can’t continue serving as her nanny.”
“I understand,” I said slowly. “It makes sense.”
“It’s not anything personal, or because I don’t want to,” Heather said quickly. “It’s just to protect everyone involved and to keep everything as ethical and sound as possible.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself. I know it’s the right thing to do.”
Heather bit her lip. “Do you want another nanny?”
“Do you think I squandered my chances with all of those leads you generated for me?”
She sighed. “Yes. Yes, I do. It was a stupid thing to do.”
“It was what got you to stay here.”
She laughed. “Do you really think that’s how you hooked me? I know you could’ve figured out something for Collins in a snap if you had to.”
“So why did you stay?”
“For you, idiot.” She squished the tip of my nose with the tip of her finger. “And Collins. But in a different capacity.”
“As a mother figure?”
Heather pressed her lips together. “I don’t know. If she needs that—I know she already has a mother.”
“A mother who isn’t in her life,” I emphasized. “A mother she doesn’t remember ever meeting.”
