Page 20 of The Au Pair Affair

They went back to staring out over the rooftops. Burgess spoke again after a moment, “I don’t like the reminder that I’ll be retiring someday soon.” He paused. “I don’t like wondering if maybe I should have retired already. I think that’s what happened in that preseason game last week. I got asked before the game started if I still felt capable of playing with the young guns... and I don’t know. I think I just overcompensated trying to prove I could. I know how ridiculous that sounds.”

“I don’t think it sounds ridiculous. I don’t have the mindset of an athlete, but I can put myself in your... skates.” They smirked at each other and a little more of her wariness melted away. “Having a long career like yours is an accomplishment in itself. But you’re also at a disadvantage, right? Everyone has watched you play for over a decade and they can draw comparisons. Then they have all thesestatsto refer to—”

“This is really helping, Tallulah.”

“Sorry.” She laughed. “But I do get where you’re coming from.”

Still leaning on his left forearm, he reached back again and massaged that spot at the bottom of his spine. His low groan was also swallowed up by the wind, but she heard it.

“Back hurt?”

“It’s fine,” he grumbled.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Itis.” He straightened to his full height and braced his legs apart. Crossing his powerful arms over his chest, causing those sharp-cut triceps to wink at her like they were sharing a secret. “We might as well talk about this nanny gig.”

Tallulah pushed off the wall and faced him, squaring her shoulders. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

“I’ll do anything I can to make it work.” He looked away from her as he said it, almost like he was slightly embarrassed. “You just waltzed in this morning and... Christ. I couldn’t even see your fingers while you were braiding her hair, they moved so fast. Then tonight?” He shook his head. “I know it’s not your job to be our family counselor, but you’ve got this way of calming everything down. I really don’t like people telling me to pull my head out of my ass—ask my coaches. But for some reason, I really, really don’t mind when you do it.”

As he spoke, pressure started to build in her chest, like a balloon filling with water, expanding, expanding. She’d already known he needed some help connecting with his daughter—and no, it wasn’t her job. But she wasn’t a half-in, half-out kind of person. She’d inherited the all-or-nothing trait from her parents, who’d grown up in a closely knit neighborhood of Istanbul, raised to step in and help one’s neighbors at a moment’s notice without expecting anything in return. It might have been eight years since she’d lived with her parents, but she’d never stop valuing the act of lending a hand, especially her own.

However. This whole situation screamedmessy.

If only she could stop thinking about him openly saying he loved Lissa in the kitchen and the way her lip had quivered in response. Whowouldn’twant more of that progress for a father and daughter? And was she forgetting the not so little fact that a room in Burgess’s dope as hell apartment camefree? With a salary on top of it?

At this point, her bank account’s stomach was growling.

“Are you ready to tell me what’s holding you back from taking the job, Tallulah?” He took a very deliberate breath, in and out. “It’s getting harder and harder not to ask what I want to know.”

A cold iron pressed to the center of her sternum. “Burgess...”

“Did someone hurt you?” he asked, with a steep rise of his chest. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me it’s none of my business. And you’ll be right.” She watched his hands turn to fists in his pockets. “But understand me, I will make it my business if you ask me to.”

Over the course of their last two meetings, he’d obviously gotten the impression that her wariness of men stemmed from somewhere bad—and he was right. After all, it couldn’t come from somewheregood, could it? This was her private heartache, though. Did she want to share that with him? She wasn’t required to, by any means. Still, she found herself... wanting him to know. Wanting him to understand her wariness. Moreover, she didn’t want him harboring wrong impressions about what happened. “Nobody hurt me... physically. Not in a technical sense.”

He started, stilled, followed by his breath escaping in a gust. “No?”

“At least not in the way you’re thinking. Maybe what actually happened is better. Or maybe it’s worse. I might never know or understand.” Images she wanted to forget went screaming through her head like a movie in fast forward. The faint outline of hangers,the sliver of light beneath a door, the hysterical sounds on the other side. “But he would have hurt me, given the chance. And in some ways, I do feel... like I’m carrying scars.”

His eyes closed momentarily, fingers stretching and releasing at his sides. “I already hate everything about this. Please tell me, anyway.”

Perhaps because his concern was so tangible, she found herself continuing in a quiet voice. Working her way up to telling him things that only her family and Josephine knew about. “We moved to Florida from Istanbul when I was fourteen. My father was a developer and his firm had investment properties they wanted him to oversee. My mother had a really hard time adjusting. She missed the old neighborhood. But my sister, Lara, and I... we loved it in Florida. Made friends easily. They werealwaysat our house.” A metallic taste coated her tongue at the simple act of picturing his face. “My sister was more selective when it came to dating, but I was an equal opportunity flirt. One of my sometimes boyfriends, as my sister called them, was Brett—and heseemedto understand that our relationship was only casual. We were mostly friends. And everyone adored him, including me. I mean, he was part of our family. He taught me how to drive a stick shift. He gushed over my mother’s kofta.” In her mind’s eye, she could see Brett approaching her on campus, holding a freshly printed class schedule and appearing equally surprised to see her. “Around the time my family moved back to Istanbul, I went to college, roomed with Josephine. Eventually we got an off-campus apartment. I dated. A lot. Brett and I stayed in touch online, but our interactions became farther and farther apart. He seemed to be back home, working for his dad’s car dealership. And then one day, my final year of undergrad, he was just... there. He’d transferred to FSU and rented the apartment right beside mine and Josephine’s.”

Burgess dragged a hand down his face, keeping his hand overhis mouth. The words “Jesus Christ” were muffled, but still full of the same dread she could feel building in her chest.

“Even knowing what I know now about him, I’m still not sure I would have noticed the signs that he was a monster.” Deep breath. “But he’d been internet stalking me since... since I was living at home. It escalated when I left, went to college. And the pictures I would post, having fun at parties or entering short-term relationships... it incited him. Later, I found out from the police there were folders on his computer filled with saved pictures. Short stories that amounted to fantasies about what he would do to me one day as payback for not taking him seriously.”

Burgess remained quiet. Listening. Watching her intently. His chest moving up and down, faster as she moved toward the worst parts of the recounting.

“He waited until Josephine went home for Thanksgiving to visit her parents in Palm Beach. My family doesn’t really celebrate the holiday, so I stayed behind and...” She wet her parched lips. “I was in the hallway getting my mail and I felt someone come up behind me and put something over my mouth. A terrible smell and then... black. I blacked out. Waking up in the dark is the next thing I remember. I didn’t realize until later that I was locked in his closet. He was pacing on the other side. I could hear him muttering, saying these disgusting things about me. This guy from the neighborhood. My supposed friend. I think... honestly, based on some of the things he said, I think the plan was to kill me before I ever woke up, but he lost his nerve.”

Burgess cursed. Put his hands on his hips and turned in a circle, like he suddenly found himself confined, just like she’d been. “Oh my God, Tallulah.”

“He didn’t let me out for almost two days.” Eight words to gloss over forty hours of sustained terror and uncertainty, fear and discomfort and helplessness. Somehow, however, Burgess seemed to pick up on that. He stopped moving, holding eye contact withher, like he wanted to absorb the worst of her memories. “It was like the entire building was empty except for us, because of the holiday. It didn’t matter how much I screamed. Eventually I couldn’t anymore. My voice gave out. Someone came to the door—a friend of his—and Brett left with him, probably afraid he’d hear me. I spent an hour prying up a loose floorboard and when he finally opened the closet door, I swung as hard as I could. I knocked him out. And I just started running. I ran until I found someone coming out of a restaurant who could call the police for me. I still couldn’t speak, but I wrote down what happened and...” She stopped to gather herself, kind of surprised she’d made it to the end of the story. “He went to prison on a five-year sentence, but he didn’t make it that long. As I understand it, another prisoner attacked him while in line for the shower.” Her gaze turned another shade of serious. “I don’t celebrate his death. I also have no idea how I would have lived when he was released, you know?”

“No. I can’t imagine. Going through that. Then waiting around for the day he walked free. I just...” He huffed an unsteady breath. “I’m not as big a person as you, apparently, because right now I’d like to shake the hand of his killer.”

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