Chapter 7
seven
HANNAH
The birthday party, coupled with the episode about the credit card bill, made things even frostier in the house.
I hadn’t thought Beau could be any colder or more distant, but I’d been wrong.
His disdain for me seemed to emanate from his pores, exhibited by the way he tensed when he was forced to interact with me, let alone make eye contact.
And he did. Every time we spoke. I didn’t know why he did it, if looking at me was so abhorrent.
To torture me, perhaps? Because whenever our eyes locked, my knees trembled, my lower lip started to shake, and I forgot that I was actually an intelligent—well, educated by books, not any fancy college—grown woman.
A grown woman stuck with an estranged husband and his growing debts, but a grown woman, nevertheless.
My appetite plummeted as my stomach curled in knots every time I was around Beau.
Thankfully, he was around less than usual, given Clara’s recovery and his going back to full time at the restaurant.
But his presence was everywhere. His scent.
The food he made and packaged for us every day.
The sparkling counters I was afraid to spill on.
The lingering sting on my skin from when our fingers occasionally brushed.
I hated that such an asshole had tangled me up so much that it was affecting me physically.
This was made worse when Beau commented on my appetite, or lack thereof.
“I don’t cook for you to look at it,” he’d murmured tightly—so Clara couldn’t hear the hostility in his words—when I’d brought my practically full breakfast plate to the sink.
I’d done my best to make it look like I’d eaten the eggs and sausage and vegetables—all organic, all tasty, some of the best food I’d tried—but I couldn’t make myself chew and swallow more than a few mouthfuls.
Not with Beau’s presence like a dark cloud, not after receiving another email about my plummeting credit score and one from a credit card company who couldn’t make any promises about reversing the charges.
My cheeks flushed at Beau’s comment, shame about the wasted food already filling me.
I grew up knowing what hunger, true hunger, felt like.
I grew up having to sprinkle sugar on half moldy bread just to choke it down.
I understood that throwing away food this fresh, tasty, and expensive was sacrilege.
But it was either throw it out or try to force it down then throw up in front of Beau.
“Sorry.” I steeled myself to look up into his harsh, gray eyes. “You really don’t have to cook for me.”
His lips flattened into a thin line. “Are you sick?” he asked aggressively. “You haven’t eaten enough breakfast the past three mornings.”
My eyes widened at him paying enough attention to me to notice that. I’d thought he was doing everything he could to not notice me. Then again, I was wasting food that he paid for and prepared, so for once, Beau had a right to his ire.
“I’m not sick,” I quickly replied, knowing that me being sick and not telling him was highly irresponsible.
Clara was getting better at a remarkable rate, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t risky, even life-threatening, for her to get sick.
That was why we were slowly reintroducing her to other children, with precautions.
“You’re not sick. So you don’t like my food?” Beau continued staring at me with that crushing expression that made my toes numb.
Though I had no reason to give Beau any kind of compliment, words tumbled out of my mouth. “I like your food. I love your food. Your food is the best thing I put in my mouth.”
Beau’s chilly expression changed for a split second as he silently blinked at me, his eyes widening and darkening with a sliver of hunger.
Heat crept up my neck as I witnessed it up close, where I couldn’t explain it away as a trick of the light. My nether regions tingled in awareness, my breath shallowing.
As quick as it arrived, the intense look in Beau’s eyes vanished, and he took the plate from me.
“You’re not sick, you like the food, so you need to eat it.” He spoke in his typically harsh tone, his eyes cutting down my body. “You’re too fucking skinny.”
My blush deepened at his gaze and his comment, which was highly inappropriate considering he was my employer. And he was wrong. I was not too skinny. Even when I was skipping meals, I never looked thin because curvy was my default.
My clothes were feeling a little looser, but nothing that should’ve been noticeable to a man who only looked at me when there was no other choice.
A stronger person would’ve told him off for commenting on my weight, would’ve told him that I could eat however much or as little as I wanted.
But I was not a stronger person. Not where Beau Shaw was concerned. And not when Clara came running into the kitchen asking me to help with her hair.
Thankful for her presence, in more ways than one, I bent down to address her, fighting the burn in the bridge of my nose, a warning of the impending tears.
I wouldn’t waste my tears on this man. I couldn’t.
The next morning, my portion was slightly smaller, so I forced myself to eat, even though I felt the weight of his gaze.
We had no more conversations about my eating habits after that.
My brain continued to run itself ragged, trying to figure out why Beau cared in the first place.
Luckily, there were things to distract me.
The warmth in the air seemed to disappear overnight, chilly mornings and dried leaves littering the ground ushering in fall.
Clara enjoyed it, the air puffing in front of her rosy cheeks, collecting leaves we found interesting, bundling up to stand on the beach to watch the ocean, and coming home to hot chocolate.
She noticed the change in the air, but she didn’t notice the change in the temperature of the house.
As far as she was concerned, everything was great.
And that’s how it would stay. She wouldn’t notice her father being a dick, nor would I let him make me feel like just the nanny.
I wanted to leave a mark on Clara’s life, to have her remember magic when she thought of me.
I didn’t know whether it was selfish of me, but all I wanted to do was contribute to Clara’s childhood being a happy one.
Hence me dredging up the courage to do what I was about to do.
“Do you have a sewing machine?” I asked Beau, leaning on the doorframe to his office.
He had been sitting in front of a computer, with what looked like an Excel spreadsheet on the screen. The room itself was sparse; with a desk, computer, and files arranged so neatly that it made me want to come in and mix them all up to see Beau pop a vein.
There were some old toys piled in the corner.
The weathered rocking chair with a pink wool throw draped over it was very much at odds with the cold, utilitarian feel of the room.
But that was the embodiment of Beau. Cold, brash, harsh on the outside, except when Clara painted his body and soul with brightness and warmth.
Beau turned in the chair he was sitting in, but not before I saw his shoulders stiffen.
I watched him visibly take a breath. As if he had to prepare himself to face me.
Like I was the scary one.
A laughable concept.
And when he turned, I had my own swift intake of breath. Beau was wearing reading glasses. Slightly rounded, way more hipster than I would’ve expected from him, somehow making him look even more ruggedly handsome and sensitive at the same time.
“A sewing machine?” Beau repeated.
I nodded mutely, still trying to quell my primal reaction to Beau in glasses.
“Do I look like I do a lot of sewing?” he asked me gruffly. But not harshly. There was no softness in the way he spoke to me lately, but the outright hostility was melting away.
He wasn’t going out of his way to be around me, but when we were around one another, he seemed to almost gravitate toward me. The way he oriented his body, the way he looked at me. I knew all of this because I could barely keep my eyes off him; I noted his every inhale.
I was quietly going mad. Beau invaded my thoughts far too often. I dissected everything he said to me, every look, wondering if I was imagining the thick attraction that seemed to coat my skin when we got too close to each other.
I pointedly gave him a once-over. Jeans. Thermal that molded over his large biceps, groomed, dark brown beard with shades of silver. Silvery-blue eyes, bracketed with worry lines.
His hands were large, masculine, yet I’d watched him delicately arrange berries in the shape of a heart for his daughter’s breakfast. I’d watched those fingers make perfect braids from the fine strands of Clara’s hair.
He looked—and behaved—like a gruff alpha male who spoke in grunts and barely smiled. Not many people knew he could paint a five-year-old's nails without so much as a smudge. That I’d once caught him dancing in the living room wearing a tutu that matched his daughter’s.
“No.” I shook my head. “You do not look like you have a sewing machine.” I wondered why I’d even asked him. “Nora looks like someone who has one. I’ll ask her.”
I turned to get out of his space and away from the conversation that likely pained him, since it was extraneous to our unspoken agreement—we spoke about what pertained to Clara, and that was it.
“Why do you need a sewing machine?”
I froze in the doorway, just as I was about to make my escape. I was shocked. Was Beau willing to ask me a question, to prolong our interaction? I turned slowly. He was in his chair, wearing his default expression—empty with a side of grumpiness—and unfortunately hot as hell eyes on me.