Page 61 of The Nanny Goal

But they also smell like him. Like coconut shower gel and warm skin.

“Where did Emery go?” Alexei asks Inessa.

She giggles and rubs her eyes.

“I’m here,” I say softly.

No matter what my complicated feelings are in this moment, I’m grateful he got her to stop crying.

“Rub her back,” he says, just as softly. Like we’re conspirators. Like he’s helping me diffuse a bomb or something.

To do that, I need to crawl onto the bed, too.

I take a deep breath and join her.

I stroke my hand down her back, and her eyelids flutter shut. She fights it, trying to talk to her dad in Russian, but with each gentle stroke up and down her spine, her eyelids stay shut a little longer, and pretty soon they stay closed.

“Keep rubbing,” he whispers. “Another minute or two and she’ll probably be out for the night.”

I hold my breath, and he stays quiet, and my entire focus is on the slow rise and fall of her back beneath my fingertips.

When I lift my hand, she stays asleep.

I silently make an excited face at Alexei, and he gives me a thumbs up.

“Can I leave her here? She’s in the middle of the bed.”

“Yeah, she’s okay there.”

I move some pillows to the side of the bed, giving her little bumper guards in case she rolls. But the bed is massive, and she’s a tiny slumbering loaf in the middle of it.

As quietly as possible, I tiptoe out, turning the light off and leaving the door open.

“Thank you,” I say, still whispering as I head down the hall to the library. “I didn’t know what to do. She just kept getting more and more upset. It wasn’t like last night at all.”

“It’s because she is getting more familiar with you.” He shrugs. “I know it’s difficult. But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s more faith than I probably deserve.” I flop on the day bed and hold my phone above my tear-splotched face.

And that’s when I realize that Alexei is reclining in a hotel room, also on a bed—and he’s not wearing a shirt.

CHAPTER19

ALEXEI

As Emery relaxes, probably for the first time in hours, she gathers herself and finally focuses in on me—and immediately gets flustered.

Does she know how revealing her wide, startled gaze is?

I should end the call. Inessa is asleep. There’s no reason for us to keep talking.

Except the way her cheeks go pink and her eyes dart left and right before finally settling on looking just above the camera…that feels like a reason to stay on the line.

That feels like a reason to do a lot of things I shouldn’t.

“Good game tonight,” she says. “Really good.”

Maybe she thinks that’s a safer subject than my bare chest, but she’s wrong. The fact that she tuned in means more to me than it should. “You watched?”

---