“Why?”
Her shoulders moved with each steady breath. “Does it matter? You changed your mind in the end.”
And he’d been torturing himself ever since—changing it back and forth so many times he was giving himself whiplash. She was right. It didn’t matter how it started.
He stepped away, giving her an appropriate amount of space. “Forgive me. I’ll let you get back to your schoolwork.”
He pivoted and marched out of the kitchen, not stopping until he was locked away in his study, sick with regret and harder than steal. He was fucked.
Skylar released a trembling breath as soon as he left the kitchen. She’d be lucky if she still had a job come Monday. This entire week had been a nightmare.
Since their kiss last weekend, they had both been avoiding each other. But this was his home. She wasn’t sure who was the pariah.
They had both participated in the kiss. Maybe he had started it, but she had been fully invested in finishing it. Even now, simply being in the same room as him made her body ignite.
When he looked at her with those hungry eyes, her self-control disappeared. She’d never been one to self-sabotage, so she didn’t understand why she would risk the best job she’d ever had by flirting with her boss.
They were too close, too intimate. That had to be what was confusing her. She needed to establish boundaries that made it impossible to overlook the fact that she was his employee.
She knew better than to touch him, but what about when he touched her? What about when he stood close and her brain lost focus as it repeated the mantra touch me, touch me, touch me…
Was it bad if she let him touch her?
Yes! Ugh. The fact that he shouldn’t touch her only made her want his hands on her more. This was a disaster.
Taking her coffee up to the third floor, she shut the door and tried to focus on her studying. But thoughts of Rhett kept intruding.
What was he doing? When he said sorry, what exactly was he sorry for? Was he seeing someone? What kind of women did he date? And why the hell did she think his plans were any of her business?
She was the nanny. Her job was keeping his kid safe and teaching her things she would need to know before kindergarten. Her job was not kissing the sexy mayor.
She was no better than the rest of the women in this town. That’s all this was, a simple crush. Rhett Buchanan was an attractive man in an authoritative position. He was charming, because the job required it of him. Women probably threw themselves at him all the time.
How many times would she have to bear the humiliation of his rejection and withstand that awful look of regret in his eyes before it sunk in. He didn’t want her that way, and that was for the best, because—hello—she worked for him!
The following day, she’d let Addison watch an extra hour of television so that she could finish her test before noon. It was open book but mostly essays, so she really needed to focus.
When she finished, Skylar shut her laptop and checked on Addison. “Okay, how about we—Oh, no, what happened?”
“I decorated the tree!”
Fragile ornaments were strewn all over the floor and garland was knotted in the branches. The tree leaned cockeyed against the wall, and she rushed over to straighten it before it completely fell over.
“You have to wait for your father to do the tree.”
“But he’s always working.”
“I understand, but he’ll be home this weekend.” A glass ball fell and shattered near Addison’s bare feet. “Don’t move. I have to get the broom.”
When she returned, Addison wasn’t happy. That made two of them.
Skylar spent the next hour putting ornaments back into boxes and trying to reason with a disgruntled four-year-old. She wished she could explain why men were so complicated, but that was something even Skylar didn’t fully understand.
Once everything was put away, she made Addison a PB and J sandwich and promised they could play in the snow after lunch. But before they made it out the door, Erin showed up.
Skylar was used to her sporadic visits at this point but would prefer if she knew ahead of time when the woman was coming. It would make planning errands a lot easier if she knew which day of the week she’d have money for groceries.
“Mr. Buchanan needs you to work on something for him,” Erin said, after giving her another hundred dollars for next week’s groceries.
Skylar glanced at the money and did a double take. “This is two hundred.”
“Right. Like I said, Mr. Buchanan has a job for you.”
A job on top of her usual job? “What is it?” The inexplicable urge to please him frustrated her on some level, but she wanted to make him proud. She wanted to make him smile and look at her and hear him say, “Good job, Skylar.” She suppressed a smile. Maybe he wouldn’t say good job. Maybe he’d say, “Good girl… Show me what a good girl you are… show me what else you’ll do to make me…”