With You (You, Only You #1)

Chapter 8 Claire

Here's the thing about catching feelings for your employer: it doesn't happen all at once. It happens in tiny, treacherous increments that you don't notice until you're already drowning.

The week after Victoria's attack had been.

.. different. Quieter. Nathaniel had started appearing more, not hovering, exactly, but present in ways he hadn't been before.

He'd pop into the morning room during lessons to "check on progress," lingering in the doorway while Millie showed him her latest project.

He'd started coming home earlier, joining us for the last thirty minutes of the afternoon session.

"You don't have to babysit us," I'd told him on Wednesday, after he'd spent twenty minutes pretending to review emails while Millie and I worked on fractions.

"I'm not babysitting." He'd looked up from his phone, something unreadable in his expression. "I'm... observing."

"Observing what?"

"Progress."

"Millie's progress or mine?"

The corner of his mouth had twitched. "Both."

It was infuriating, but not in the way you’d hate someone for it, rather I wanted to find a way to press his buttons for a change.

By Thursday, Millie had noticed the shift too. "Daddy's home a lot now," she'd observed during our reading time.

"Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah." She'd smiled, small and hopeful. "It's nice. He used to always be at work."

"People change sometimes," I'd said carefully. "Sometimes they realize what's important."

"Miss Claire…” She'd looked up at me with those serious gray-blue eyes, her father's eyes. "Do you think Daddy's lonely?"

The question had caught me off guard. "Why do you ask?"

"Because he only has one friend, Uncle James… and he looks at you the way he looked at mommy."

I'd had absolutely no idea what to say to that. So I'd changed the subject to Charlotte's Web, and pretended my face wasn't on fire.

Now it was Saturday, and I was deeply regretting every life choice that had led me to this moment, me sprawled on the morning room rug, completely out of breath, while a seven-year-old danced around me in triumph.

"Tag! You're it again!"

"Millie." I gasped for air. "I've been 'it' for the last ten minutes. This game is rigged."

"You're really slow, Miss Claire." She giggled. "Come on, get up! Chase me!"

"I'm twenty-six years old and questioning my health. Give me a second."

"That's old," she said seriously.

"I'm going to remember you said that."

She shrieked with laughter and darted behind the reading chair, her braids flying.

The morning room had become an obstacle course: furniture pushed aside, pillows scattered, and all semblance of the dignified tutoring space completely demolished.

I didn't care. Millie was currently on break, and her joy was worth any amount of chaos.

I hauled myself up and made a show of sneaking toward her hiding spot, my footsteps exaggeratedly slow. "Fee fi fo fum," I intoned. "I smell the blood of a cheating little girl..."

Millie's giggles gave away her position. I lunged and froze mid-stride.

Nathaniel stood in the doorway, shoulder against the frame, arms crossed. He wasn't smiling, but his expression wasn't disapproving either. I couldn’t quite figure him out but he didn’t say anything to interrupt the moment.

"Mr. Sterling." The greeting came out breathless and slightly mortified. I was pretty sure my hair looked like a bird's nest. "I didn't hear you come in."

"You were busy, and it’s Nathaniel." His voice was low, amused. "Don't stop on my account."

"Daddy!" Millie popped out from behind the chair. "Claire's it, but she's terrible. She can't catch anything."

"I can catch colds," I muttered. "Does that count?"

Nathaniel's lips twitched. "Maybe you should give her a head start, Millie."

"She's had a million head starts!"

"Then she clearly needs practice." His eyes met mine over Millie's head. "Carry on. I'll just... observe."

Observe. There was that word again. I should have told him to leave, to stop watching, to let me do my job without his distracting presence. Instead, I found myself chasing Millie around the furniture again while hyper-aware of his gaze tracking my every movement.

It wasn't predatory, nothing like Victoria's assessing glares. This was warmer. Heavier. I felt it like a physical touch when his attention followed the swing of my hair, the flush on my cheeks, the way I laughed when Millie faked left and went right.

This is your employer, I reminded myself sternly. The man who bulldozed into your life. Stop feeling... whatever this is.

My body wasn't listening.

Millie's boundless energy eventually hit a wall. One minute, she was giggling maniacally; the next, she'd collapsed on the rug beside me, yawning so wide I could count her molars.

"I'm sleepy," she announced.

"That's what happens when you run circles around your elderly tutor," I joked.

"You're not elderly. Just old."

"Thank you for that distinction."

Nathaniel pushed off from the doorway. "Come on, pumpkin. Bedtime." He crossed the room and scooped her up effortlessly, her small body immediately curling into him.

I watched him hold her, his large hand splayed across her back, her head nestled against his shoulder, and a dangerous feeling knocked on my heart’s door. It was tender. It was real. And I was in serious trouble if watching a man carry his daughter made me feel like this.

I started gathering my materials, stacking books, and capping markers. My usual exit ritual.

"Miss Claire?" Millie's sleepy voice stopped me. She was peering at me from Nathaniel's shoulder, eyes already drooping. "Will you read me my story tonight? Please?"

I froze, a folder in my hand. My gaze shifted to Nathaniel, Is this okay? Is this crossing lines?

He gave a small shrug, but something shifted in his gray-blue eyes. Not just permission. He wanted me to choose. "It's up to you."

"Please?" Millie whispered. "Daddy does the voices wrong."

"I do not do the voices wrong," Nathaniel protested.

"You make Charlotte sound like a robot."

"Charlotte is a spider. Spiders are very methodical."

"She's a wise spider. She should sound wise."

"How does wise sound?"

"Like Miss Claire."

Nathaniel looked at me. I looked at him. Something passed between us, amusement, maybe, or the shared helplessness of adults confronted with a child's irrefutable logic.

"One story," I heard myself say.

Millie's sleepy smile was worth every alarm bell ringing in my head.

I followed them up the grand staircase to Millie's room: lavender walls, twinkling star lights, the kind of childhood fantasy I'd never had. Nathaniel laid her gently in bed while I found the worn copy of Charlotte's Web on her nightstand.

I settled into the chair beside her bed and began reading. My voice filled the quiet room, weaving Charlotte's wisdom and Wilbur's innocence into the space between us. Nathaniel lingered in the doorway, a dark silhouette against the hall light, before disappearing silently.

By the time I finished the chapter, Millie was fast asleep. I marked the page, tiptoed out, and pulled the door closed with a soft click.

The hallway was empty. Quiet.

I should have gone straight to the front door. Instead, I found myself drawn toward the soft glow emanating from the kitchen.

Nathaniel stood at the island, two glasses of wine already poured. He looked up as I paused in the doorway.

"I owe you a drink," he said. "For the story. And playing tag." He gestured to the stool opposite him. "If you have time."

Every intelligent instinct told me to decline. To get in my car and drive home and maintain professional boundaries.

But I walked in and sat down.

We drank in silence for a few moments. The kitchen had become… our space, I realized that now. The site of our first real conversation, our first shared vulnerabilities. It felt natural to be here with him, separated by a granite countertop and the space we willfully leave between us.

"She hasn't asked anyone for a bedtime story since Michaela," he said finally. "Not even Mrs. Lee."

Her name lingered; he was very caring in the way he enunciated each syllable. I'd been curious about her, the ghost who shaped this family's grief, but I'd never dared ask directly. Tonight, in the dim kitchen, that question felt permissible.

"What was she like?" I asked softly. "Millie's mother?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "Light," he said finally. "She was... light. Art history major who could debate Renaissance techniques and then cry-laughing at a cartoon. Uncomplicated in the best way."

"That sounds nice."

"She made me believe there was a point to the striving. That building something only mattered if you had people to share it with." He stared into his wine. "I was so focused on the horizon, I didn't see the cliff crumbling at my feet."

"The headaches." His body language turned drastically rigid. "She told me something was wrong. I handed her aspirin and told her to take a bath." His voice went flat. "The day it happened, she called four times. I was in a board meeting. By the time I got home..."

"Nathaniel."

"She was on the floor. The pain…" He stopped, swallowed. "I've never seen anything like it. We didn't make it in time. The aneurysm had ruptured. She was gone before we could reach the hospital."

The guilt was a palpable presence, sitting between us. I understood it, that desperate need to assign blame, even to yourself, because chaos is too terrifying to accept.

"You couldn't have known," I said.

"Couldn't I?" His eyes met mine. "I should have paid attention. I should have been there. Millie needed her parents, but I let work consume me until it was too late."

"Do you think the guilt ever goes away?"

He considered the question. "No. But it changes shape. Some days it's sharp. Other days it's just... there. Background noise."

"That's not exactly comforting."

"I'm not very good at comforting." A ghost of a smile. "In case you hadn't noticed."

"I've noticed." I took a sip of wine, gathering courage. "I understand it, though. The guilt. Needing a reason, even if it's a terrible one."

"Your mother?"

I nodded slowly. "I spent years thinking if I could just be perfect enough: good grades, clean house, never any trouble, I could earn back what she took when she left.

If I were enough, she'd have to stay. But she died before I could prove anything.

" The words came out steadier than I expected.

"So I'll never know... That's the worst part, I think. Not knowing."

We sat in that shared understanding, two people who'd learned too young that love could be conditional, that the people you needed most could disappear without warning.

Somewhere during the conversation, the distance between us had shrunk. I was leaning forward over the granite, close enough to see the gold flecks in his gray-blue eyes, the lines of fatigue at their corners. Close enough to smell his cologne, it was woodsy, clean, mixed with wine.

"Claire." His voice was rough.

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you didn't take the reward money that night."

I blinked. "Why?"

"Because then you'd have had a reason to stay. Obligation. Debt." His gaze held mine. "This way, every day you come back, it's a choice. You're choosing to be here."

"I'm here for Millie."

"I know." A pause. "But I'm glad you're here."

The air grew thick. His gaze dropped to my hand, resting near my wine glass. Slowly, giving me every chance to pull away, he reached out.

His thumb brushed across my knuckles. Barely there. A question. A test.

The touch jolted through me like electricity, burning up my arm, coiling in my chest. My breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat.

This is it. The precipice. This is exactly what Victoria's waiting for.

I snatched my hand back and stood so abruptly my stool scraped against the tile.

"It's late." My voice came out too bright. "I should go."

Understanding crossed his face, followed by something that looked like regret. He didn't try to stop me. "Of course. I'll walk you out."

"No, that's okay. I know the way."

I grabbed my bag and practically fled.

In my car, doors locked, engine running, I gripped the steering wheel and waited for the shaking to stop. It wasn't just fear. It was the aftershock of that touch, that look, the profound vulnerability we'd shared.

What was that?

I knew what it was. That was the thing. I knew exactly what it was, and it terrified me.

This was my fatal flaw, lit up in neon: CLAIRE CROSS, PROFESSIONAL FIXER OF brOKEN MEN. I'd done this before. Mistaken gratitude for connection. Confused shared pain with intimacy. Convinced myself that if I could just save someone, it would prove I was worth saving too.

Nathaniel Sterling, with his empire of guilt and his fortress of grief, was the ultimate project. A wounded man who needed saving from his own past, his own choices, his own poisonous marriage.

That's all this is, I told myself fiercely, pulling out of the driveway. Hero complex. Pattern recognition. Not real feelings.

But even as I made promises, strict boundaries, professional distance, Millie's tutor, and nothing more, I could still feel the ghost of his touch on my skin. Still see the way he looked at me when he said I'm glad you're here.

I'd walked into this war zone for Millie. I hadn't planned on falling behind enemy lines.

Professional boundaries, I reminded myself. Strict. Unbreakable.

The problem was, I'd never been very good at building walls.

And Nathaniel Sterling was already standing on the other side, looking at me like I was the answer to something I didn't even know he was asking.