6. Summer Chaos #2
Ava's room smelled like lavender soap and the coconut detangler Zoe used to buy in bulk because Ava liked the label with the smiling turtle. The bottle was different now. Same scent. Some things I kept replacing because changing them felt like a betrayal no one had accused me of.
"What's the problem?" I asked softly.
Ava picked at the hem of her shirt. "The crab book has wrong crabs."
"The illustrator took liberties."
"The illustrator was incorrect."
Riley's mouth twitched. She didn't laugh. That mattered.
Ava noticed everything, especially when adults enjoyed her frustration more than they understood it.
Riley leaned toward the bookshelf. "Perhaps there's another sea-creature book with more accurate crabs?"
Ava went still. Not relaxed. Not open. Just listening.
"The deep-sea one," she said.
I looked at the shelf. Zoe's shelf, once. Color-coded by topic because Ava slept better when the world stayed where she put it. I reached for the blue spine.
"No," Ava said.
My hand stopped.
Her eyes flicked to Riley. "She can read it."
The room changed in a way no one else would have heard. No crash. No gasp. Just one small sentence, and all the air inside my chest tightened. Riley's gaze lifted to mine, asking without asking.
Permission. Boundary. Warning.
I gave a single nod. She took the book from the shelf and settled on the rug, not too close. Ava scooted exactly four inches nearer, then pointed at the cover.
"Start where the anglerfish is."
"Not the beginning?"
"The beginning has baby facts."
"Anglerfish it is," Riley said.
Her voice softened around the first line, warm but not performative. Ava leaned in, her shoulder barely touching Riley's arm.
I stood there like a man watching a door open in a house he had spent years locking. It should have made me grateful. It did. But under the gratitude came a colder truth.
If Ava let Riley in, losing her wouldn't be an inconvenience. It would be damage. And I had already survived losing one woman, even if the scars still felt too ugly to name.
Donny found me in the back office twenty minutes after Ava fell asleep.
He came in without knocking, because blood apparently made manners optional, carrying two coffees and wearing the kind of grin that had gotten him punched more than once when we were younger.
"You look like hell," he said.
I took one coffee. "Good to see you too."
"Not an insult. Just data." He dropped into the chair across from my desk and stretched his legs out like he owned the place.
"Big day. Floral crisis averted. Bride still breathing.
Bianca didn't kill anyone. And your new nanny became this resort's hottest asset since you retired and put your shirt back on. "
I stared at him over the rim of my cup. "Don't call her that."
"What? Nanny?"
"Hot."
His grin sharpened. "That's a very specific clarification."
I leaned back, the leather chair creaking beneath me. The office was dim except for the desk lamp and the blue wash of pool lights beyond the window. Downstairs, Riley was probably doing something helpful because she never seemed to understand where her job ended.
That was a problem. A bigger problem was how badly I liked it.
Donny sobered enough to tap one finger against the lid of his coffee. "I'm not just messing with you."
"That'll be new."
"People noticed her today. Staff, vendors, Bianca. And when people notice something attached to you, eventually investors notice too."
I looked at him. "Riley isn't attached to me."
He gave me a look so flat it could have held a drink. "Sure."
My hand tightened around the cup.
Donny lowered his voice. "Victor Raines already asked whether your 'family-forward rebrand' was intentional."
Victor Raines had the smile of a man who collected leverage for sport and called it strategy.
He liked profit wrapped in sentiment. A widowed ex-champion with a little girl, a luxury resort, and a pretty nanny who could charm brides during a crisis?
That was exactly the kind of story men like him would try to package.
"No," I said.
Donny lifted both hands. "I didn't say you were doing it."
"I said no."
His mouth pressed into a line. For once, he didn't push. Outside, a laugh drifted up from the pool deck. Riley's, maybe. Light. Tired. Too far away.
I stood before I decided to. "Keep Raines away from her."
Donny's brows rose. "And if she asks why?"
I looked out at the dark water, at the reflection of lights breaking apart across the surface.
"She won't."
I found her on the villa's pool terrace after midnight, barefoot, stubborn, and apparently incapable of leaving anything unfinished.
Ava's damp towel hung over the back of a chair. Two abandoned cups sat beside a bowl of popcorn gone stale, and the cushions from the outdoor sofa were scattered across the tile where Ava had built what she'd called a sea-cave before bed.
Riley had already changed out of the black dress.
She wore shorts and a thin resort sweatshirt that slipped off one shoulder as she gathered the cushions.
On the outdoor table behind her sat the clipboard from the preview, several marked-up timelines, and a stack of sample menus Bianca must have sent home with her.
"You're off the clock," I said.
She startled, then turned. "So are you."
"I own the clock."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is."
A tired smile tugged at her mouth. Moonlight silvered one side of her face, catching in the loose waves of her hair. She looked softer here than she had in the ballroom. Less polished. Somehow more dangerous.
I nodded toward the paperwork. "What's all that?"
"Bianca asked what I thought about the ceremony turnaround schedule."
"And you couldn't tell her tomorrow?"
"I could."
"But?"
"She gave me a clipboard."
"Your greatest weakness."
"One of them."
The answer came too easily, carrying enough suggestion to tighten something low in my stomach.
I looked at the cushions in her arms. "You don't have to clean up."
"I know."
"That usually means a person stops."
"I'm not most people."
"No," I said before I could stop myself. "You're not."
Her smile faded into something quieter.
The air changed.
I felt it before she did, that pull between us turning the humid night heavier. Her gaze dropped to my mouth for half a second. Not long enough to accuse. Long enough to remember.
So did I.
Her back against a hotel door. Her fingers twisted in my shirt. The sound she made when I kissed her neck. The way I had stopped when every brutal, selfish part of me had wanted more.
Riley looked away first and shifted the cushions higher. "I should put these away before Ava decides they're structural components again."
"She'll rebuild tomorrow."
"She had architectural drawings."
"She drew a square."
"With specifications."
She stepped around me. Her bare foot hit the damp patch beneath Ava's towel, the cushions tumbled from her arms, and her body went sideways.
I moved on instinct.
One arm locked around her waist. My other hand caught hers before she could reach for the tile. She landed against me with a soft gasp, her free palm pressed to my chest, her breath breaking against my throat.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Her sweatshirt had slipped lower, exposing warm skin and the delicate line of her collarbone. My hand spread over her back, too possessive, too familiar, remembering the shape of her like it had no right to forget.
"Careful," I said.
Her fingers curled against my shirt. "I was."
"No, you weren't."
Her eyes lifted to mine. "Maybe you make me careless."
The words settled between us, soft as breath and twice as dangerous.
Maybe you make me careless.
I should have stepped back. I should have released her hand, set distance between her body and mine, reminded both of us that she worked for me, lived under my roof, read sea-creature books to my daughter like she belonged in the quiet places of our lives.
I did none of it.
The pool lights moved over her face in broken blue ribbons. Her lips parted, not much, just enough to drag every ounce of discipline out of me. My thumb shifted against her back. A mistake. A confession. Her breath caught.
"Riley," I said. It came out rough.
Her eyes flicked to mine. "Tell me to move."
I couldn't.
That was the problem. I could take a hit from a heavyweight and stay on my feet. I could look a boardroom full of predators in the eye and not blink. I could survive grief by turning myself into something harder than it.
But this woman pressed against me under moonlight, asking me to be the responsible one, and all I could think about was how she had tasted when she stopped being a stranger.
"I'm trying," I said.
A small, shaky laugh left her. "Doesn't look like it."
"No."
My hand slid fully into hers. I meant to let go. Instead, I held on.
Her gaze dropped again, and this time there was no pretending I didn't see it. No pretending my body didn't answer. Heat pulled tight in my gut, low and brutal, and the space between us became a thing I could feel against my skin.
One inch. Then less. Her fingers flexed in mine. The night narrowed to her mouth, her breath, the damp warmth of her body still caught in my arms.
I lowered my head.
A scream ripped through the villa.
Ava.
I released Riley so fast she stumbled back a step.
"Daddy!"
The second scream broke what was left of me.
I was already moving.
"Luca," Riley called behind me.
"Night terror," I shouted over my shoulder—explanation and apology in two words. "Stay here. Please."
I didn't wait to see if she listened. The path blurred beneath my feet as another scream cut through the night. The doctor had said the episodes usually passed in minutes. He'd never explained how long a minute could feel when your child was trapped somewhere you couldn't reach.
By the time I hit the doors to the suite, only one thought remained.
Ava needed me.
And whatever had almost happened with Riley could never matter more than that.