Page 25 of The Au Pair Affair

It’s going to be fine.

You have to start believing in good people again sometime.

She wouldn’t spiral over this. During her remaining weeks in Antarctica, she’d sworn to herself the fear wouldn’t hold her back anymore. That phase was over. She just hadn’t expected to be tested so soon, so often. But maybe this was normal life and she’d just been hiding from it so long, she’d forgotten.

The rest of class went by in a blur, Tallulah only registeringhalf of the professor’s presentation. When he dismissed them, Tallulah gathered her notebook, pen, and copy of the syllabus, looking up with a forced smile when three classmates stopped at the edge of her table. “Hey again, Tallulah. Happy Friday,” said Tisha, if Tallulah was recalling her name correctly. They’d spoken briefly at orientation, enough to know Tisha had grown up in India, started her education in medicine, but switched to biology upon realizing her passion lay in lab work and research. “We figured we’d start the semester off right and meet up for drinks tonight. Around nine. You know, in order to establish an official whining circle.”

Tallulah nodded. “Negativity. The only way to cope.”

“You’re welcome to join,” laughed the guy beside her. Evan, maybe? “You, too, Finn.”

“Sure,” responded her table partner.

That’s right. Finn.

Tallulah started to decline. They all seemed genuinely nice and there was nothing out of the ordinary about tossing back a few drinks with other students, especially ones who shared the same field of study. But did she know them well enough?

Stop saying no to opportunities. It’s time to say yes again.

“Okay,” she said quickly, before she could talk herself out of it. “Take my phone number and let me know where you’ll be.” An idea occurred to her. “Would you mind if I invited my friend Chloe?”

“Not at all,” answered Tisha, holding out her phone to Tallulah. “Go ahead.”

“Cool.”

On his way out of the room, Finn’s elbow brushed Tallulah’s and she faltered in the act of entering her contact information into Tisha’s phone. “See you tonight, Tallulah,” he said, adjusting his glasses, before touching her elbow as if to apologize forinadvertently grazing it, which made no sense and only made her creep antennae bleep faster. “Might as well get to know each other now, since we’ll be partners, right?”

She laughed, but it came out flat. “Yeah.” She handed the phone back to Tisha and dried her clammy palms on the legs of her jeans. “See you guys tonight.”

Chapter Seven

Burgess could confidently say he’d never been happier to walk into his apartment.

Perhaps a little too happy. And he blamed Tallulah’s skirt.

When he got off the elevator on the floor of his building, he was met by the sound of music. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was the unbearable wailing of his daughter’s favorite band, Raskulls. There had never been any love lost between him and the British pop group who wore giant phony heads on stage with freakishly happy faces painted on front. The first time Lissa played them in the car, he’d contemplated crashing into a wall just to end the torture. He was dreading the day she asked him to bring her to an actual concert.

They didn’t make strong enough earplugs.

Apparently, Tallulah could put up with the lead singer’s high-pitched warble, but he was only going to last approximately three minutes once he got inside.

Burgess pushed his key into the lock and twisted, opening the door and wincing slightly as the worst music ever recorded got even louder. He opened his mouth to complain, but only silence came out. Because there was Tallulah, bent over his kitchen table in a black leather mini skirt and sheer stockings that ended a few inches beneath her ass. She was holding a dirty dinner plate in one hand, as she’d obviously been on the way to the kitchen to put it into the sink when she must have been derailed by Lissaasking for homework help. She appeared to be leaning across the table in order to see a problem in Lissa’s math workbook and the timing of him walking into the apartment couldn’t have been worse. Or better.

Both.

He was frozen in place, yet burning up with a fever.

She... he... could see the undercurve of her ass cheeks. The black lace of her panties. The incredibly smooth section of her rear upper thighs. She was the hottest thing he’d ever seen in his life, no question about it. Especially when she laughed and it caused her to fall forward onto the table, barely catching herself on a forearm and the tight curve of that backside got even more dramatic and... dangerous. Very fucking dangerous. Because he was imagining the chafe of those stockings against his palms, the supple weight of her ass cheeks in his hands, how she’d shiver and look back at him over her shoulder when he pulled those panties down to her knees.

These were not the types of thoughts he should be having when they were not the only two people in the apartment. Hell, he shouldn’t be thinking about taking off her underwear atanytime, right? She’d given him no obvious indication that she was interested in that. He’d simply walked in at the wrong time, and now he’d be haunted for the rest of his life by fantasies of those stockinged legs wrapped around his neck.

Where was she going in that outfit?

Out?

One thing was for sure, Tallulah couldn’t know he’d seen her like this. Their relationship as boss and employee was fragile to begin with, as was her ability to trust men, in general. Getting caught ogling her absurdly hot ass would not help matters.Don’t think about how it would look slapping off your stomach.

Too late.

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