Chapter Five #2
"Lucky bastard," she mumbles. "Have you tried calling Natasha?"
"Her phone goes straight to voicemail." I pull out my phone, showing Isla the string of unanswered texts.
Movement catches my eye through the pantry's slatted door.
Trey passes by, Adeline perched on his shoulders like she belongs there.
His massive hands grip her legs securely, and despite his size, his touch looks impossibly gentle.
The sight makes my chest ache, remembering how gentle yet strong they were when he helped me into the back of his SUV.
"Speaking of things you could be doing instead of wallowing…" Isla's tone turns sly. "Did you hear Trey's nanny quit?"
I keep my expression neutral, though my pulse jumps and my ears perk up. "Oh?"
"Mmhmm," she says, grabbing more decoration off a shelf and then pushes the pantry door open and heads back towards the kitchen island.
I follow behind her. "Something about following her heart in a Sprinter van across the country.
" She begins to arrange the candles on the cake as if she isn't up to some meddling of her own.
"You know, since you have nothing else to do for the next two months and you're destitute … "
"Oh no… I know where you're going with this. Don't even think about it."
"What?" she says, shrugging her shoulders as if her suggestion is harmless.
"You literally own a staffing agency for this sort of thing.
Plus, you and Adeline already get along great at our movie nights, and you need funds.
" She glances toward the living room. "Besides, it might be good for you to focus on something else for a while. "
Or someone else, as her tone implies.
"I can't." But even as I say it, I'm remembering how it felt in his SUV that day. Safe. Protected. Like for one moment, I could breathe.
"Why not?"
Because every time I look at him, I feel something I shouldn't. Because over the last week, since he was my getaway driver, I've thought more about those forest-green eyes and those hands gripping my hips than I did about Jameson in six months of engagement.
Because in less than two months, I have to marry someone else or lose everything I've built.
"It's just a bad idea. I haven’t nannied for a family in almost a decade."
"Hold that thought," she says, staring at the cake. "It's missing something."
She heads back to the pantry, and then I catch Trey's eye again.
He makes his way over, and my heart rate kicks up. "Hey," he starts.
"Hi," I say back.
Really? A single syllable? That's all you're going to give him after he saved you from your wedding. I should be ashamed of myself.
He clears his throat. "How have you been?" he asks, his deep voice sending shivers down my spine.
"Fine, thanks." Whoa, good job Vivi. You can control a boardroom of ego maniacs, but you can't come up with more than two words to say to this man?
He nods in response and then glances down at his beer.
Say something you fool.
"I should thank you again for what you did for me—"
His eyes shoot back up to mine. "You don't have to thank me," he says. "I'm glad I was there to help."
"But I do need to thank you. I would have been stranded out there looking like a drowned rat if it weren't for those missing cufflinks." I try to lighten the moment. "Thank God for those ballet moms you were trying to avoid." I tease with a smirk.
His laugh is low, rich. "Trust me, you looked like anything other than a drowned rat. You looked beautiful." The words seem to surprise him as much as me, and I watch the muscle in his jaw tick as he realizes what he said.
"Thank you," I say quickly, trying to ease his discomfort. "So, Isla tells me you're down a nanny?"
"Yeah." He takes a long pull from his beer, and I find myself tracking the movement of his throat. "The nanny gave barely any notice. She fell in love or some shit with a guy online. She’s off backpacking through Europe or something.”
"It happens." I offer, though my own experiences with love have been less than stellar.
"Backpacking through Europe?” he asks.
“No,” I laugh. “Falling in love.”
He just shrugs as if he knows nothing about how falling in love just happens to someone.
"What? A tough ex-special forces guy like you doesn't believe in it?"
His dark green eyes lock onto mine, and the intensity has me wondering what it would be like to be pinned under him with his eyes only on me. God, it's been too long since I've gotten any. That has to be what this is about.
"Who said I don't believe in love?" His voice drops lower. "I believe in it…with the right person."
The way he says it, the way his gaze drops to my lips for just a heartbeat…heat floods my body. It has me wondering exactly what woman Trey would consider the "right person.”
One thing I do know, this is dangerous territory.
I'm not technically engaged anymore since he's not returning my texts or voicemails and is currently sharing a honeymoon suite with Natasha—or so I suspect—but as far as the Holiday family and my company are concerned, I have seven weeks to fix this mess and marry Jameson or lose everything.
I can't even think about what my life would look like if I fell in love with Trey Hartley. Not that he's offering it anyway.
Oh God, I'm spiraling.
"Just so you know, I set the record straight with Mrs. Fraiser. She does not believe that we're married," I tell him. "I told her the situation so you're in the clear."
She had looked very disappointed about us not being married, but said that she read the news about my situation and patted my hand, saying, "Maybe this was a gift to reconsider. And that maybe the universe was trying to tell me something."
Isla appears with a lighter for the birthday candles and a dozen hungry, sugar-deprived children on her heels.
"Time for cake!" she announces.
The spell breaks. Trey steps back into the crowd of other parents and Hawkeyes players, and I feel the loss like a physical thing.
Forty-nine days. That's all I have to either salvage my company or lose everything I've built.
Getting involved with Trey Hartley, in any capacity, would be like lighting a match in a room full of gasoline.
But as I watch him with Adeline, his arm slung over her shoulders, watching as Berkeley blows out her candles, I can't help thinking that maybe that's exactly what I need.
Something hot enough to burn…to remind myself that I'm alive.