Page 70 of Double Fault

I know better than anyone how hard it is to let Maddie down.

“I… I guess I could stay for a bit.”

“Yay!” Maddie scoots to the far end of the couch and pats the space she’s left between me and her.Oh, fuck.“Sit here.”

Sabrina’s eyes flare wide with fear, like she’d rather do anything but, though without complaint, she eases onto the cushion.

Maddie spreads her blanket over her nanny’s lap so they’re sharing, then snuggles up to her side, using Sabrina’s arm as a pillow.

I force myself to look at the TV, though I’m not actually paying attention. I can’t focus on anything other than the woman at my side. It’s torture being this close to her. Wanting her but knowing I can’t have her.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, gathering my self-control.

My eyes are closed when she puts a gentle hand on my forearm. “Are you okay?”

“Headache,” I lie.

We’re already halfway through the movie, so I only have to make it another hour or so.

Thankfully, Maddie is zonked out less than fifteen minutes later.

“I’ll carry her to bed.” I toss the blanket off my lap and move the popcorn bowl so I don’t accidentally knock it over.

Sabrina holds still, her hands clasped in her lap, while I lift Maddie off the couch. As I head for the stairs, she stands and starts straightening up the room.

“You don’t need to do that. Go to bed.”

“It’s not a problem,” she insists, picking up the popcorn bowl.

She won’t look at me. Probably because she’s picking up on the weird energy I’m sending out.

“All right. Thank you.”

I take the stairs slowly, then ease my little girl into her bed and tuck the covers up and around her. It’s cliché, I know, but it really does feel like we just brought her home from the hospital. She was so tiny. Like a little tater tot. That’s what I had told Annie. Now that baby is closer to being a teenager than a newborn.

I turn her sound machine on and plug in her nightlight, then press a kiss to her forehead and ease out of her room.

Movement catches my eye, startling me a little, and I find Sabrina frozen in the hall, almost to her room.

“Did she stay asleep?”

I nod.

We linger there in the hall, about six feet of space between us. It would be so easy for me to close that distance. Kiss her the way I’ve been thinking about since that first time.

I’ve tried so hard to get that night out of my head, but it’s damn near impossible.

Before I can do anything stupid, she takes a step back and breaks the silence between us. “All right. Well, good night, then.”

Thank fuck one of us is thinking rationally.

“Mhm.” I clear my throat. “Night.”

She disappears into her room, and I stare at my door for a solid thirty seconds before I head into the master bathroom for a cold shower.

CHAPTER 19

SABRINA

---