Page 148 of Mended Hearts

February

The Nanny Diaries: Oliver Hart Falls For The Help

Double Trouble: It Looks Like Oliver Hart Is Off The Market—andHis Brother’sSister-In-Law Is The Lucky Lady

Rich, Hot, and in Love: Heir to Hart Dynasty Seen With Brunette Bombshell

* * *

“Are we out of yogurt?”

“We?”I didn’t bother glancing up from my laptop.

Ollie and I had decided to ‘soft launch’ our relationship after we told the kids we were dating at the beginning of February. We picked the restaurant, showed up looking like fire, and Ollie obliterated any questions when he kissed the life out of me in our booth in the back. Unfortunately, a soft launch was not what the tabloids had in mind. They were having way too much fun with it, in my opinion. A bunch of parasitic dumpster ferrets.

“You. I meant areyouout of yogurt?” Paxton clarified as he popped out from behind my fridge like an oversized jack-in-the-box. The man was anything but subtle. He’d been hovering constantly for weeks. If Kaia was out, Pax was miraculously around. I wasn’t sure if they thought I’d spontaneously keel over—entirely disregarding the board-certified physicians monitoring me like overpaid hawks—or if he really was just sick of his roommates, like he claimed.

“Yeah, I need to go shopping.”

“Dammit.”

“You have your own house, you know?” I shut my laptop with a sigh. “And I’d bet your bumbling band of meatheads has an abundance of Greek yogurt and chicken breasts for you to pillage.”

“And go without your sparkling personality? Howeverwould I survive?”

“Peacefully, I imagine.”

He snorted. “Give me a list. I’ll tackle groceries.”

“And risk being spotted in public?” Being a star quarterback came with paparazzi, but dragging a once-downtrodden team back into playoff contention before falling short had put a neon bullseye on his back. On second thought, maybe hewashiding out here—for both the peace and the yogurt.

“I said I’d tackle them, not that I’d go myself.”

“You don’t need to order me groceries, bubba.”

“And you don’t need to feed me five-thousand calories a day, punky. So shut up and make a list.”

“You’re crabby.”

“Look who’s talking.”

I scowled at him, but he wasn’t wrong. I was exhausted. Eighteen weeks pregnant and still waiting for that miraculous second-trimester energy boost everyone promised. It had yet to appear. “I have an excuse.”

“Juniper sang her way through her pregnancy with you and Kaia, so cling to that loosely.”

I deadpanned. “Mom is a freak of nature.”

“Valid. But hey, you’re keeping food down again.”

“That part is nice.”

“And your obsession with Indian curry has only grown.”

“Christ, you have been here a lot lately.” I raised an eyebrow. “Everything okay at home, darling?”

Paxton flopped onto the couch, the frame groaning under his weight. He poked at the takeout container he’d just retrieved, kicking his feet onto the coffee table like he paid rent.

“They’re gross,” he grumbled.