Southern Playboy (North Carolina Highlands 4)

“Playing with you and Liam feels like real play, you know? It’s fun for fun’s sake.” He meets my eyes. “I haven’t had this much fun in forever, Amelia. Maybe that’s part of the reason I got carried away. I missed it, playing the way we do. There’s no pressure. No expectation to make it capital Best Thing Ever. It’s like . . .” He looks down and digs his toe into the floor. Looks back up. “It’s a breath of fresh air I really needed.”

I know the feeling, and it’s lovely.

So lovely I’d risk things I shouldn’t to keep having it.

“I’m not sure I should work for you anymore,” I blurt. Now it’s my eyes that burn.

Rhett’s go wide, and he takes a step forward, the creases in his forehead deepening. “What? Amelia, no, please—do you feel like things aren’t going well? Are you not enjoying it? The job?”

“No!” I say. “The job has been great so far. Hard, but great. I do miss the classroom, and I miss the company of other people. Kids and adults. The isolation of nannying is tough. But Liam is such a peach, and you being around . . .” You being around is making it so much better and so much more difficult all at once. “It’s a good job. That’s not the issue.”

“Was it what happened this afternoon? I promise—”

“Can we really trust ourselves right now? We’re not even a week in, and we’re already crossing lines left and right. Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead before Liam gets too attached—”

“He’s already attached.”

A flare of anger ignites in my gut. “Don’t you dare guilt me into staying.”

Rhett holds up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. Low blow. I’m just trying to do what’s best for Liam, and Amelia, you’re the freaking best. You know it, I know it. He knows it.”

“Thank you,” I grumble. “I am pretty great.”

“We’ve established that fact. Now tell me what you need to make this work, and you’ll have it. Talk to me, Jabba.”

He keeps making me grin when I should be going. I want to hate it, but I don’t.

“Listen, Rhett, I want the world for y’all—for you and Yoda. I can already tell you two have a special bond, and I want to nurture that. I want to see Liam grow and thrive, and I want to see you thrive right alongside him. But I want to thrive too. I want the best for myself. And I’m putting that in jeopardy by, you know, casually falling into the arms of my employer.”

“Hey, that was an accident,” Rhett says with a smile. “What was I supposed to do, let you break your face? It’s such a pretty face, A.”

I give him a look. He looks back. At last, he drops his arm. “Liam fucking adores you, and so do I. I’m not gonna beg, but I am gonna tell you you’ve turned what could’ve been a nightmare into a dream. Is it perfect? Hell no. But you can’t tell me it’s not good. Having you around—it’s allowing me to fall in love with my son in a way I didn’t think was possible a week ago. Please, A. Please don’t go.”

I swallow the lump in my throat that’s appeared all of a sudden. “It’s cool of you to say that. Thank you.”

“Now tell me what you need.”

“Honestly?” I catch a tear in the crook of my first finger. “I don’t know what I need. You’re right to say this is good, which makes me think we shouldn’t change a thing. But this . . . this thing between us—“

“The tension?”

“Yes,” I breathe, hugely relieved and secretly thrilled to know I’m not the only one caught in its throes. “We have to nip it in the bud. To make that happen, I’m not sure if we need a time-out, or if we need to communicate more, or, I don’t know, jump each others’ bones and get it out of our system . . .”

I mean it as a joke, but I know it’s a bad one the second the words come out of my mouth because the look in Rhett’s eyes sharpens and my pussy clenches, and I’m inundated by very graphic, very tempting fantasies of what “getting it out of our system” would look like exactly.

“Wow,” I blurt, because blurting shit is apparently my MO today. “That was a stupid thing to say. Stupid and unprofessional.”

Rhett laughs, making my embarrassment fade ever so slightly. “It’s all right. I told you I’d give you whatever you asked for, and if that’s it, well.” He looks up at me, suddenly shy. “I take it you haven’t heard from the Married Asshole?”

It’s my turn to laugh. “I’m going to have to change his name in my phone to that.”

“How about you delete his number instead?”