Chapter four
Willow
Lily is the most beautiful child I've ever seen.
She's small, two years old, barely talking, with dark curls that stick up in every direction and eyes so dark they're almost black.
Deklan's eyes. Mara's eyes, I realize with a pang, though I never met her.
These are the eyes of a child who lost her mother, and even though she's too young to understand what that means, the grief lives in her.
In the way she clings. In the way she goes silent for long stretches, staring at nothing.
In the way she reaches for a hand that isn't there.
I find her standing in her crib, fists wrapped around the railing, face screwed up in that particular pre-cry scrunch that means she's been awake just long enough to realize no one came the second she opened her eyes.
"Hey, sweetheart," I say softly, approaching the crib with my hands visible, moving slowly. I learned this in my child development class, approach from the front, low to the ground, non-threatening. "Good morning. Did you sleep okay?"
She looks at me. Blinks. Her lower lip trembles.
And then, instead of crying, she lifts her arms. Up. Pick me up. Now.
The gesture is so universal, so trusting, that something cracks open in my chest. This child, this motherless child being raised by three men who never planned on parenthood, looks at me, a stranger, and says pick me up with her whole body.
So, I do.
She's light. Too light. She fits against my hip like she was designed to be there, and the moment I settle her, she buries her face in my neck. Her small fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt, Deklan's shirt, the oversized one I slept in, and she breathes in deep.
She's scenting me.
I go still. Of course she is. She's a toddler in an Alpha household; scent is her primary language.
She's cataloging me, filing away my scent, honey and vanilla, the omega markers she's biologically wired to seek.
And something in her tiny body relaxes, the tension in her shoulders loosens, and her grip on my shirt softens.
"Mega," she murmurs against my neck. The word is barely formed, more sound than syllable, but it's there. Clear as anything.
Omega.
She recognizes what I am. What she's lost. What she's been missing. My throat closes up, and I hold her tighter.
"Yeah," I whisper. "Yeah, baby. I'm here."
I carry her to the kitchen, and the scene that greets me makes my heart stutter.
All three men are there. JD stands at the stove, sleeves rolled up, flipping pancakes with the focused precision of a man who approaches everything, cooking included, with CEO-level intensity.
Deklan sits at the island, laptop open, glasses perched on his nose, a mug of black coffee steaming beside him.
And Knox is leaning against the counter where I left him, but he's changed, black t-shirt now, dark jeans, and he's slicing strawberries with a paring knife, his movements quick and practiced.
Three men. One kitchen. One child. One omega.
The pheromones hit me the moment I cross the threshold.
Pine, smoke, cedar, all three scents layered on top of each other, thickened by the heat of the stove and the close quarters.
My body responds before my brain can catch up, slick coats my thighs and my nipples tightening against the thin cotton of my shirt.
Lily lifts her head from my neck and looks at the men. Then she looks at me. Then back at the men.
"Unca Knox!" she squeals, and her arms stretch toward the Alpha with the golden hair and the knife.
Knox sets down the paring knife and reaches for her with a grin that transforms his entire face. Gone is the predator from the kitchen earlier. In his place is a man who looks at this child like she hung the moon.
"Hey, monster," he says, settling her on his hip. "You sleep well?"
She responds by grabbing his nose.
"She woke up hungry," I say, and immediately feel like an idiot for stating the obvious. But JD glances over his shoulder at me, and something in his expression, not quite a smile, but close, makes the embarrassment fade.
"Pancakes in two minutes," he says. "She likes them cut small. No syrup, she gets it in her hair."
"Noted."
I stand there, hovering, unsure of my role.
Am I supposed to take Lily back? Help with breakfast?
Sit down? The nanny contract was specific about duties, childcare, meal prep for Lily, light household management, but it said nothing about what to do when your three employers smell like sin and look like that, and your underwear is still soaked from the conversation you had with one of them forty-five minutes ago.
"Sit," Deklan says without looking up from his laptop. "You're hovering."
"I'm not hovering. I'm... assessing."
He looks up. One eyebrow arched. The ghost of something, amusement? Irritation? Flickers behind his glasses. "You're hovering. Sit down. Eat. She's fine."
I sit. The stool is high, and when I climb onto it, my bare legs dangle. I'm acutely aware that I'm still wearing Deklan's oversized shirt and nothing else, and that the hem rides up when I sit. I tug it down, but the fabric is thin, and every time I move, it shifts.
Knox catches my eye from across the kitchen. His gaze drops to my legs, bare from mid-thigh down, then rises back to my face with a slowness that makes my skin burn.
"Pancakes," JD says, setting a plate in front of me. His knuckles brush mine during the handoff, and the contact is electric, brief, accidental, and enough to make my breath catch.
He hears it. I see his jaw tighten. His nostrils flare.
"Eat," he says, and the word comes out rougher than he probably intended.
I eat. The pancakes are good, fluffy, slightly sweet, cooked to golden perfection. JD Blaine, billionaire CEO, makes excellent pancakes. The disconnect between the man in the tailored suit and the man at the stove is so jarring that I almost laugh.
Lily eats in Knox's lap, tiny pieces of pancake disappearing into her mouth at an alarming rate. She chatters between bites, not words, exactly, but sounds and gestures that Knox interprets with practiced ease.
"She wants more strawberries," he says. "And she's telling me about a dream she had. Something about a dog? A big dog?"
"Bow-wow," Lily confirms, nodding emphatically.
"See? Big dog."
Deklan watches from behind his laptop. His expression is neutral, but his eyes keep drifting, to Lily, to Knox, to me. Assessing. Cataloguing. The Beta strategist, always thinking three moves ahead.
I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.
I wonder if he sees the way my body reacts to all three of them, the constant thrum of arousal I can't suppress.
I wonder if he knows I spent the night dreaming about his mouth on mine, his hands on my face, his controlled exterior cracking open to reveal the hunger underneath.
He pushes his glasses up his nose and looks back at his screen.
But not before I see his pulse jump in his throat.
After breakfast, JD and Knox disappear to get ready for work. Deklan remains at the island, typing steadily, and Lily toddles around the living room, arranging stuffed animals with the solemn focus of a surgeon.
"Mr. Kros?" I say.
He doesn't look up. "Deklan."
"Deklan." I swallow. "I wanted to ask about Lily's routine. Her schedule, her preferences, anything I should know."
He stops typing. For a long moment, he just stares at his screen. Then he closes the laptop, removes his glasses, and rubs the bridge of his nose.
When he looks at me, the grumpy mask is there, but it's thinner in the morning light. More transparent. I can see the exhaustion underneath it, the grief, the weight of a man holding too many things together with nothing but willpower.
"Her schedule," he says, voice flat. "She wakes at seven. Breakfast by seven-thirty. Playtime until ten. Snack. Nap at eleven. Lunch at one. Playtime until three. Nap if she'll take one. Dinner at five. Bath at six. Bed by seven-thirty."
"She doesn't like sweet potato," I say.
He blinks. "What?"
"I noticed last night, there was baby food in the fridge. Sweet potato. Her face when I checked the labels, " I smile slightly. "My cousin was the same way. Sweet potato made her gag. But she'd eat butternut squash like it was candy."
Deklan stares at me. The silence stretches long enough that I start to fidget.
"You checked the baby food labels," he says finally.
"Yes?"
"And you remembered what she might not like based on what? Instinct?"
"Based on her expression when I held up the jar. She didn't say anything, but her mouth did this thing." I scrunch my face, mimicking the disgusted expression Lily had made. "Same face my cousin made. Sweet potato aversion."
Something shifts in Deklan's expression. So subtle I almost miss it. The grumpy mask cracks, just a hairline fracture, and underneath, his dark eyes soften.
"You're observant," he says.
"I'm a nanny. It's kind of the job."
"You're more than a nanny." The words come out rough, almost reluctant. Like he's admitting something he doesn't want to. "The agency said…" He stops. Clears his throat. "Never mind."
"The agency said what?"
He puts his glasses back on. The mask slides back into place. "Nothing. Take Lily to the park this morning. She likes the one on Eastwood, the one with the fountain. Be back by eleven for her nap."
He opens his laptop. Conversation over.
I sit there for a moment, watching him type, and I wonder what the agency said about me. I wonder what was in my profile that made three billionaires request me by name. And I wonder what Deklan almost said before he caught himself.
You're more than a nanny.
What does that mean?
I gather Lily, change her diaper, she fights me on it, tiny legs kicking, and I have to sing her a song to distract her, and dress her in overalls and tiny sneakers. I find a jacket for myself in my duffel bag, a worn denim thing that's seen better days, and we head out.