CEO Daddy (Crescent Cove 6.50)

Staying away was less complicated. And more cowardly.

“She had a rough start in life,” I said into the silence. “I want to make up for it as much as I can.”

Hannah frowned. “You know I had misgivings about taking the job. She’s a sweetheart, but the main reason I followed through was because I have mortgage payments to make. If I move in with you, what point is there to me keeping this house?”

Before I could reply, she moved to the window and gripped her throat. “I could sell it,” she whispered, almost to herself. “I could.”

“You don’t have to.” Her gaze whipped to me. “If you want to, sure. But I understand needing a backup plan if the job doesn’t work out.”

But it would. It had to. Hannah was literally Lily’s only hope.

Right now, she was mine too.

“I don’t know if I’ll be a good nanny. But I also know I don’t want to be trapped behind a desk either. I want to be in a kitchen, or outside in the sunshine.”

“Or the wind,” I said drily as crumpled winter leaves blew past the window in the breeze.

“Whatever. I want to see the seasons. Be in them. Good, bad, or otherwise. I don’t want to live inside a box. My mother did that, and it kills me that she never really got to see much of anything before she—” She stopped and swallowed. “Before she passed.”

There was no stopping myself from fisting my hands, not when her pain was so physically palpable. “I’m so sorry.”

Such inadequate words, when all I wanted to do was to take the hurt away. Whatever it took.

“It’s okay.” She didn’t smile to make the uneasy moment smoother. That wasn’t her way. She just let it stand as it was.

I respected the hell out of her for that, along with so much else. She wasn’t a pushover. But she had a giving heart. I’d seen it for myself when she interacted with my grandmother and Lily.

And even with me.

“I don’t want to force you into this job.”

She snorted.

“It might not have seemed that way. How you were with Lily changed everything for me. I didn’t want someone off the street to have the position, and I was dead-set on not hiring you—just like I didn’t hire the women I interviewed before you. Neither of them felt right. Neither of them rushed to hold Lily when she cried and held her as if she mattered.”

Hannah nodded.

“But I’m going to be frank with you. My grandmother is leaving town for a few days with her friends, and I have a big expo for the trade paper association. No one else can handle it for me. My right hand man, Vincent, would try, but he’s not me. I’m the face of the company, and I need to be there.”

Hannah waited, again not filling the gaps.

Damn, I liked this woman. It made things more complicated, but maybe it didn’t have to. I was an adult. I could ignore my needs.

I’d done it for so long now.

“I don’t know how I’m going to juggle both this week. Hell, I’m not sure how I’d juggle Lily period if I didn’t have my grandmother, but that’s a separate issue.”

When Hannah still didn’t speak, I swallowed hard and went for broke.

To hell with my pride. Lily was worth me losing every shred of it.

“Jesus, don’t make me beg. I need you, Hannah.”

Nine

“I need you, Hannah.”

Ironic words to replay in my head as I sat on the ice cold examination table in my doctor’s office.