Page 81 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
And then there was Libby’s room. He didn’t dare open that door, but the signs of her presence were littered throughout the house. A yoga mat in the kitchen. Two empty mugs in the sink. Her red wrap, along with Sebastian’s trousers and T-shirts, resting in a basket on top of the dryer. It was a bloody miracle he could maintain his hardened exterior when he entered the space where they’d made love for the first time. Each night, one grating question circled through his mind.
What was he hiding from?
Was it Granny Fin and her knowing gaze?
Was it Sebastian begging to be a boxer?
Or was it Libby Lamb and that pulse of tantalizing energy that passed between them?
Alone in his room, before he’d succumb to sleep in a fit of fatigued muscles, he’d whisper her name.
Libby Lamb.
Try as he might, he couldn’t turn off the nanny reel in his head. She was bloody everywhere. From the ruby-red punching bag to his jet-black gloves hanging on a hook in Aug’s gym, every color screamed her name. And speaking of every color. He’d caught the arc of a rainbow after an afternoon downpour, and even that made him think of her—and her bag of vibrators.
But when he closed his eyes, he only saw one color, amber.
The image of her sparkling amber eyes never gave him a moment’s peace. Aug would call out a combination, and before his gloves hit the bag, she was there. His body called out to her. Her memory took up every inch of space in his consciousness. Touching her, kissing her, holding her in his arms as he dissolved into a sea of pleasure. There was no escape. And it wasn’t only the sex and the thrill of making her come hard that had his mind reeling.
Despite the insanity of their vibrator calamity, Libby grounded him. She steadied him. Those amber eyes teased him with the promise of home—a home for his battered heart. He’d recognized the sensation well. He’d experienced it before, and he’d known it for more than a decade.
He recalled the day fate knocked the breath right out of him.
East London, eighteen years ago.
He was a fourteen-year-old lollygagging around Aug’s boxing gym.
It was another rainy day in the city. He’d grabbed his bag, preparing to head back to Granny Fin’s place to make dinner and to help her with the twins. It was another ordinary day at the gym until that average Tuesday turned into the day that changed everything. Two bolts of lightning scorched the sky, and in the space of those charged flashes of light, the door to the gym swung open. Like something out of a movie, the prettiest girl he’d ever seen dashed inside to get out of the rain.
Meredith.
Had she left her house ten seconds earlier, or had she walked more quickly, or had a million other tiny insignificant things crossed her path, she would have popped into the shoe store one door down from Augie’s gym or maybe gotten a little further and entered the sweets shop.
But she hadn’t.
She’d slipped into the gym, sopping wet. She wiped the rain from her cheeks, then looked him square in the eyes and grinned like she knew her life was about to change.
Those two flashes of lightning cracked open a new chapter in his life. All that faffing around, toying with the idea of becoming a boxer, hemming and hawing like a rudderless boat, solidified into a drive to be the best—for her and his family. Money was tight. They were barely getting by, living off his grandfather’s pension. He was the man of the house, and at that moment, he manned up. He devoted himself to the sport and put his faith in Aug to train him to become a champion. Augie held the candle, but Meredith was the spark.
And that begged the question, if Mere had captured his heart with two strikes of lightning, could Libby Lamb have done it with two strikes to her gong?
Had that infuriating clanging sound pulled him back from the edge?
Could he love again?
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, internally berating himself. He was a daft mug to moon over a proposition like that.
He couldn’t have Libby. He didn’t deserve anyone.
No true north existed for Erasmus Cress anymore.
He’d have to get his head in the game on his own. But the more he tried, the worse he got. His sprints were rubbish—his timing, absolute shit. He’d tried to shut out the noise and silence, the gnawing questions rattling around his mind. He’d barely looked at his mobile. After an onslaught of emails and texts from Briggs droning on about bloody promotional bullshit, he’d turned the blasted thing off, effectively divorcing himself from everything in his professional and personal life.
Well, saying he had a personal life was a bit of a stretch.
He was the definition of an absent parent and an indifferent grandson.
What was he to Libby?
