Page 118 of The Au Pair Affair

Which was exactly what she wanted.

Right.

In the distance, Tallulah leapt from the platform and Burgess curled his fingernails into his palms, squeezing until he could feel blood being drawn. His heart rifled in his chest, the humid air growing even soupier and harder to inhale. She’d be on the ground in ten seconds. Eight. If the line could hold his weight, hers would be a piece of cake. Unless he’d weakened it by going first.

Oh Jesus.

He planted his hands on his knees, cold sweat breaking out on every inch of his body, the feelings completely gone from his hands and feet.Get your shit together.She’d be landing soonand she couldnotsee him like this, hyperventilating over the possibility of her being harmed. The enormous and tragic and unyielding way he felt about Tallulah could no longer be his responsibility. Not when his touch made her feelpanicked.

Loving her up close was no longer an option. He’d have to do it from afar.

Later, when he was alone, he’d let the longing and regret burn him alive. But he wouldn’t make Tallulah feel guilty on top of everything else he’d inflicted on her. Not today, probably the last time they would ever be alone again.

The whooshing sound of the zip line cut off abruptly, followed by the most beautiful laughter to ever exist, and Burgess straightened, pasting a serene expression onto his face and quickly swiping at the sweat on his brow. There she was, alive, safe, having her helmet removed by Ozzie, the young man with a long braid who’d just done the same for him. Burgess’s fingers itched with the need to take over the task. He hated anyone being that close to the woman he still considered his own, touching her even in a perfunctory way, but this was the hell he’d signed up for by failing to recognize the treasure he’d once held in his hands.

“Wasn’t it amazing?” Tallulah breathed, looking over at him.

“Yeah.” His voice sounded like a rusted door hinge. “It was.”

Finally, she was freed from the harness, and she bounded over to him, obviously on an adrenaline high, ready to throw herself into his arms. And his heart shot up into his mouth, the anticipation so heavy that his legs turned to concrete. When she was only a couple of steps away, however, the exultant expression bled from her face and she slowed, holding up her hand for a high five instead. Burgess absorbed the contact like a beggar.

“I saw a monkey while I was up there, peeking out over the tops of the trees,” Tallulah said. “Did you see anything?”

“Birds,” he lied. He’d seen nothing but point B.

Was he really learning from Tallulah, then? As he’d claimed on the platform?

No, he wasn’t. He needed to do better.

Like he’d said, if all she left him with was a will to do more, experience life beyond hockey, he needed to focus on that. Needed to cherish what she’d tried to teach him.

“I felt the wind,” he said, mentally putting himself back up on the zip line. “I’m used to the wind, but not it being so warm.”

Some of the tension left her shoulders. “No, we like our cold, don’t we?”

“Yeah. I’m not sure Josephine and Wells took us into consideration with this wedding.”

“I’m not sure, either,” she said, humor dancing in her eyes. “It’s December. We’re supposed to be in coats and mittens.”

“Do you wear mittens?”

Way to sound like a wistful fool.

He couldn’t help it, though. He’d been caught off guard by the image of her walking through a snowy morning in Beacon Hill, wearing his sweatshirt under a parka, breathing warm air into a pair of woolen mittens.

“Yes, I wear mittens,” she said. “They’re superior to gloves.”

“How? There’s no finger mobility. You’re basically a lobster.”

Did she have any idea that her smile was causing a volcanic eruption in his chest?

“Because you can wave like this,” she responded, demonstrating a four-finger wave that was so fucking cute, he needed to lie down.

“That’s the only reason?” he rasped. “Waving?”

“And your fingers stay warmer, because of the body heat. They’re like little people in there, huddling together to survive a storm.”

“I don’t want to think of my fingers as people.”

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