Page 3 of The Au Pair Affair

As they shook hands—and she apparently gave her notice to quit before she even started—he could taste the orange in the back of his throat. And speaking of throats, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off hers, because she seemed to be having a very difficult time swallowing, if the visible knot below her chin was any indication. Her palm was a little damp, too, which didn’t bother Burgess, a man who spent hours every week surrounded by sweaty athletes and their, oftentimes, putrid stenches. Hell, their goalie had a good luck jockstrap that he didn’t wash during winning streaks. Sweaty palms were a pleasure.

But why didshehave them?

Their meeting in California had gone in three stages.

One: he’d been caught off guard by her beauty. The almond shape of her bottomless brown eyes, framed by sweeping black brows and brimming with intelligence, inquisitiveness, kindness. The tan glow of her complexion, the way she wrinkled her nose to acknowledge someone’s point. All of her. Later, he’d found out about her Turkish heritage and that she was born in Istanbul, where her family still resided... and he’d Googled whether or not they played hockey in Turkey, immediately feeling like a jackass.

Two: he’d been further blown away by her sense of humor and ability to connect so easily with his daughter, which was no easy feat. He was considering hiring a parenting coach at this point. These days, the kid was either outright ignoring him or crying hysterically.

Three: he’d realized Tallulah was eleven years his junior, a future grad student who had plans to get plugged into the Boston social scene—thus, his polar opposite—and promptly categorized her as someone who would be inappropriate for him to pursue romantically.

Labeling her off-limits, however, hadn’t stopped him from offering her a room and a job in his apartment, but yeah. His uncharacteristic impulsiveness that afternoon was a discussion for a different day. The topic on the table was the fact that she’d already decided to quit—and after spending a week debating whether an aspiring marine biologist would prefer her pillows firm or floppy, he wanted to know why.

Burgess set down his Protein Avalanche smoothie and took a seat at Tallulah’s table, waiting for her to sit down across from him, which she did after a moment. He considered the stiff set to her shoulders, the way she continued to grip the handle of her suitcase, and decided he didn’t like any of it.

With a quick clear of his throat, he leaned forward, folding his hands on the table. “You packed and got all the way to my smoothie shop before deciding to quit. What happened?”

She slowly sat down, wet her lips, her eyes dropping briefly to her phone. “I’d prefer not to say.”

“Is it the neighborhood? You don’t like it?”

“The neighborhood is gorgeous,” she scoffed, looking out the window toward The Beacon, where he resided on the top floor. “The building is lovely, too. I’m starting to regret choosing marine biology over professional hockey.”

His grunt passed for a laugh. This was the person he remembered from lunch. Direct and clever. A little self-deprecating. Wildly unique.I should let her quit. It would be easier on my sanity to not have this beautiful girl sleeping under my roof.

Or would it be the opposite?

“Then what’s the problem?” Burgess asked. “You don’t want to be Lissa’s nanny?”

“Oh no, that’s not it at all. Lissa is a sweetheart and she’d barely need me, she’s such a little grown-up.” She waved a hand and his eyes caught on the simple silver bands that were such a contrast to the natural tan of her fingers. “You made me such a generous offer. And Wells and Josephine speak so highly of you. Really.”

Burgess took the lid off his smoothie, sipped and waited.

“I’d be happy to help you find someone else. I’m sure people would be trampling me to get this position. It’s kind of a dream come true,” she said, giving him a bright smile, a dimple appearing in the apple of her cheek. Damn, she was... a very disquieting combination of hot and cute. She had these long waves of black hair that almost reached her elbows where she propped them on the table, hugging them almost... nervously?

That hair acted as a shield for her body, which happened to be the hot part of the equation. So it was probably a good thinghe couldn’t see a lot of it from across the table, because he was having a hard enough time concentrating with blood oranges juicing themselves on his brain and every downward sweep of her eyelashes making his thoughts fuzzy. This is how it had been in California. One measly lunch had led to months of staring off into space trying to remember the exact shade of her eyes.

Stay on track.“If a position as my nanny is such a coveted one, why don’t you want it?”

She took a breath, pulled her elbows in tighter. Watched him closely, as if weighing his reaction. “I’m nervous about living with a man I don’t know very well.”

While her answer caused an unpleasant shift in his stomach, he’d sensed a difficult explanation coming from the time he’d glimpsed her across the smoothie shop. Something in the way she’d braced as he approached had tipped him off. Was he insulted? No. Actually, he felt like kind of a moron for not considering before that she might be hesitant to live with a near stranger. Neither had Tallulah, apparently.

Until the very day her employment was set to begin.

Burgess started to ask Tallulah whether the sudden change of heart stemmed from a healthy fear of strangers or something else, but her phone buzzed with an incoming text. Murmuring an excuse me, she slid a finger across the screen.

Tapped an icon.

A video popped up that he recognized all too well.

Because his agent had sent it to him this morning.

Apparently his shot to O’Hanlon’s nose had gone viral.

Was...thisthe reason Tallulah had stalled out in the smoothie shop? Yes. The answer was obvious. She’d been watching it before he arrived. Did that mean... was shescaredof him?

“Sorry,” she blurted, fumbling with the phone to get her text messages open instead. “Wrong app.”

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