Chapter 18 #2
It occurred to me just then that I’d been staring—almost fucking drooling—at Hannah for an extended period while both of my girls just stared at me.
I cleared my throat then used all of my willpower to look away from her and focus solely on my daughter.
“She does,” I agreed flatly, only for Clara’s sake. “Now, we’ve got to get a coat on you because it is much too cold to be showing that much skin.” I was speaking to Clara, but I wanted to yell it at Hannah.
Too much flawless, tempting skin on display. There would be men at the wedding. Single men. And if any had half a brain and a set of balls, they’d set their sights on Hannah. And there was nothing I could do about it. She wasn’t mine. I had no claim to her. No ring on her finger.
I let the feeling of Clara’s small hand in mine bring me back down to earth. Back to reality.
I walked out of the room without a second glance.
I couldn’t punch someone at my brother’s wedding.
And I definitely couldn’t punch ten men. Couldn’t make every man leering at Hannah bleed. First, because doing so would mean taking out most of the men in attendance—not counting Rowan, Kane, Kip, and Finn. They were all respectable men with their eyes focused on their own women.
But even the men with rings on their fingers, even the fucking busboys, all of them looked at Hannah, lusting after her with a hunger that made me see red.
She didn’t even notice. She was too busy with Clara.
Clara was all she saw. I’d done my best not to pay her any attention the entire ceremony.
Which was hard, given that we were seated right next to each other.
Her vanilla scent choked me, tortured me.
When her smooth arm had brushed against mine, I’d scowled, draping my jacket over her shoulders without a single word.
It was too cold for her to have bare arms, even inside. And I couldn’t keep looking at her skin without going mad.
She was twirling Clara on the dance floor, my jacket hanging over the back of her chair.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off them. They were fucking spellbinding. And I got to go home with them.
They both slept under my roof.
But Hannah wasn’t in my bed.
And every night I went to sleep meant one less day that I’d wake up to her.
“Calliope wore white.” I tore my gaze off my girls only to glance at Calliope, dancing and laughing with them.
My brother sucked on his cigar, in full view of the dance floor.
I’d gone outside to get away, to take a breath, suck down another drink, and try to celebrate with my brother. To revel in the happiness he deserved. I was trying to be a decent older brother, who wasn’t such a grumpy bastard.
But it was hard to be happy when my whole world was down there dancing, and I couldn’t join them.
“It’s a wedding. It’s her wedding,” Elliot replied with a wry grin. “Why wouldn’t she wear white?”
I drew on my cigar again. Everything I knew about Calliope Derrick pointed to her being a force of nature I’d never want to cross. Never in a million years would I have paired her with my easygoing brother. But seeing them together, it just made sense. Even I had to admit it.
Still, her wearing white on her wedding day was a surprise to me. Calliope was not a traditional woman, so I hadn’t expected her to agree to a wedding.
Instead of answering my brother’s question, I gave him a long look.
Elliot exhaled a puff of his cigar, chuckling at my pointed look.
My brother had always been easy to laughter.
Smiling often, glass half full and all that.
Even when our mother died, and our family was dealt a blow we’d never recover from, he didn’t let it drag him down.
He grieved her, of course. But he was able to talk about her with a smile, laughing when recounting memories.
I could barely say her name, let alone look at her picture. To this day, I couldn’t do it. The hole inside me never healed, never scabbed over.
We were different, Elliot and me. He was perpetual sunshine. I was dark fucking storm clouds.
But his laughter had become different. More robust. He seemed happy in a way that I hadn’t thought possible.
My eyes drifted back to where Clara was now perched on Hannah’s hip, and she was spinning her around.
Maybe I’d be able to laugh and smile if that were something permanent. If I didn’t have to prepare to lose the most important woman in my life.
“She’s pretty.” Elliot motioned to the dance floor.
My entire body jerked as if he’d hit me. Because he wasn’t looking at his wife. He was looking at Hannah.
I cannot punch my brother on his wedding day.
“It’s your fucking wedding day,” I spat at him.
Elliot chuckled, unaware of how close I was to laying my hands on him. “And dare I point out that your nanny is pretty, nice, and wonderful with your daughter?”
Technically, it was all true. Except Hannah wasn’t merely pretty.
It was an insult to describe her with such an ordinary word.
But Elliot was pointing it out for the same reason my father had on Clara’s birthday.
Because they were romantics. And because, unfortunately, I hadn’t done a good enough job at hiding my want for Hannah.
They needed to know that their fantasies for my future were ill-founded.
“And in her fucking twenties,” I reminded my brother. And myself.
Elliot shrugged as if an age gap of almost twenty years were nothing. “She’s legal. And she seems older than that.”
She did. Hannah seemed older than she was. Because she was smart, kind, honest. Because she’d been through things that had forced her to grow up.
Because some asshole had stolen her carefree youth from her.
But she was still young.
“Young enough to be my daughter,” I finished my thought out loud.
“Not by a long shot, brother.” Elliot slapped me on the shoulder. “Go ask her to dance.” As if doing the thing I’d been wanting to do all night was that simple.
Having my hands on Hannah’s hips, her lush body pressed up against me. Breathing her in.
No fucking way.
Elliot seemed to read my face. “Or don’t. Stay out here and be a miserable bastard. I’m going to get my wife. Because I’m not a miserable bastard.”
His tone wasn’t biting because he didn’t intend it to be. He gave me a wink before walking away.
I sipped my whisky.
I knew I’d had one too many.
But I needed the radiating sting of it, something to hold on to, something to distract me from her. In that fucking dress, skimming over every one of her delicate curves.
What the fuck had she been thinking, dressing like that? It was a wedding.
I didn’t miss the men—too fucking old for her, my age, which was too fucking old—feasting on her with their eyes. The waiters—closer in age—ogling her ass. I wanted to pummel all of them for daring to look at what was mine.
But she wasn’t mine.
I tipped the last of the whisky down my throat.
Not mine.
My daughter’s nanny. Years younger. Too good for me. That’s what she was.
Never mine.
Yet when her head tipped up and she directed her eyes to where I was sitting, our eyes locked, and my cock twitched.
Mine, something deep inside me growled.
She smiled, hesitantly, meekly, seeming to be uneasy. As she often was around me. Everything about her was delicate, fragile. More than anything, I wanted to calm her, make her feel relaxed around me.
I scowled at her, pushing my chair back so hard it tumbled to the ground before I stalked away.
I’d fire her.
Tomorrow.
HANNAH
How could a day that literally felt like a storybook happily ever after also be so heartbreaking?
How could I be so filled with love yet also feel smothered in pain?
Because of Beau Shaw.
Because of stubborn, emotionally distant, damaged, noble Beau Shaw.
I saw the way he looked at me in my dress. I felt it. In my fucking cells, I felt that look. I’d feel it on my deathbed.
No man looks at a woman like that without wanting her.
I’d seen men look at women like that. Elliot stared at Calliope walking down the aisle like that.
Kane at Avery. Rowan at Nora. Kip at Fiona.
And Beau. At me.
But unlike those men, Beau acted like it pained him to look at me. To want me.
Which I understood, I guessed. Because it hurt, physically, to look at Beau. To want him while knowing he’d always be out of my reach.
Even if he hung his jacket over my shoulders because he didn’t want me to be cold. Even though his gaze made me feel like a woman.
The drive home was silent except for the gentle hum of the radio. I was driving. Beau’s truck. Because he’d ordered me to. His breath had smelled faintly of whisky, and his eyes were far away.
He wasn’t drunk. No slur to his words. His movements were still sure, confident. But he’d had more than one drink, and he was Beau Shaw. Sensible. Responsible.
“You trust me to drive your truck?” I’d teased.
“You’re a great driver, Hannah,” Beau had said without a smile. “I trust you.”
The three simple words stole the breath from my lungs. They weren’t uttered in a warm tone; they were practically barked at me.
But they were important, settling somewhere inside my heart. To have Beau Shaw’s trust was priceless. I guessed I knew I had it in theory because he let me drive Clara places, let me care for Clara when he wasn’t around. But it being implied and said aloud were two different things.
Especially when I was staring at him in a shirt and tie, hair tamed, and I was wearing his jacket.
Clara had quickly fallen asleep on the short drive home. It was well past her bedtime, and she’d done a lot of dancing.
Beau sat ramrod straight in the passenger seat, staring directly ahead. My hands were at ten and two, my heart a hummingbird in my chest.
Though I did consider myself a good driver, I was nervous about driving Beau.
Especially with the reminder of his eyes on me when I was on the dance floor with Clara. The hunger in them.
Would he ever make good on that hunger? Or would I eventually leave with only fantasies about what Beau Shaw’s kiss would feel like?
“Will she be okay?” Beau asked, breaking the silence between us.
I blinked at the question and his tone—quieter, much more vulnerable than he sounded on an everyday basis. I’d only heard him speak like that the night before Clara’s birthday and the night Calliope almost died.
“Clara,” he clarified. “Being around all those people… I know they say her immune system is good, but fuck.” I saw him run his hand through his hair like he did when he was overwhelmed.
“I don’t know. Can’t know. It’s like they’re reading crystal balls.
And you’ve got more medical knowledge than me.
So in your opinion, is she going to be okay? ”
I kept my gaze on the road, despite how badly I wanted to look at Beau. He was deferring to me because he respected my opinion. My knowledge. I’d never had a man do that before.
“I don’t have a crystal ball either,” I told him honestly. “But based on what I’ve heard from her doctors, from what I’ve seen of Clara firsthand, the odds are overwhelmingly in her favor for a full recovery. For you to one day walk her down the aisle.”
Beau let out a harsh, heavy sigh, one that sounded like it held all the weight he’d been carrying.
All the worry. It hurt me. Hearing how Beau was still weighed down by the pain of Clara’s illness.
That he felt he had to shoulder it alone.
That he had to punish himself, never allowing himself to be happy in case the moment came when it all fell apart again.
I acted on instinct, barely thinking before one of my hands left the steering wheel and found its way to Beau’s thigh.
Not high, not in a dangerous or sexual position. I’d simply intended to comfort him. I’d needed to touch him.
His thigh was warm, powerful under my palm. And his entire body froze when my hand made contact. I tensed too, terrified I’d made a terrible decision, that I’d well and truly crossed a line.
Then Beau’s palm landed on top of mine. It was so large it covered my entire hand. It was dry. Strong.
It didn’t stay there longer than five seconds. But for five seconds, I got to linger in a fantasy. One where I was allowed to touch Beau Shaw. Comfort him. One where Beau Shaw did more than let me drive his car.
One where Beau Shaw let me into his heart.
But after five seconds, I lost Beau’s hand. And my fantasy too.