Page 38 of Late Nights & Love Lines
“Can I come in?”
“What?”
“Can. I. Come. In?”
“It’s your house.” I swear she growls at me.
And I’ve lost all my brain cells because I storm into the bathroom.
Rowan stands behind a curtain that isn’t see-through, but it does show the silhouette of her body.
“What the hell, Sebastian? If you storm in on all your nannies in the shower, you’re going to have a freaking lawsuit on your hands.”
“You told me I could come in, and don’t change the subject. You said that you’d wait for me, and you didn’t. You’re injured, Rowan. How can you take care of my kids if you can’t even fucking walk?”
“Yeah, well, I also have prickers stuck in my skin that hurt like a bitch, so I needed to try and open my pores.”
“You…what?”
“My back and hips are on fire with tiny pinpricks. I must have slid down, at least partially, on a pricker bush. The damn things hurt like hell.”
My gaze darts all around the room in time with my frustration. “But Kade doesn’t have a scratch on him.”
She steps up onto her tiptoes to glare at me. “No, he doesn’t. Because I take my job very seriously. Do you really think I’d let him get hurt if I could do something about it? Hand me my towel.”
Reaching over, I pull her towel down from the hook and hand it to her. “Let me get this straight. You twisted your ankle, possibly broke it?—”
“It’s not broken,” she huffs and lowers her toes so I can no longer see her eyes, but her hand slips out from the curtain, and she knocks on the cabinet two times.
“Did you knock on the cabinet for good luck about your ankle?”
“You can never be too careful. I don’t want to jinx anything.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and count to five. “Fine. You hurt your ankle, badly,” I modify. “Then you sat in the Jeep for hours—hours, Rowan! —with slivers in your skin and you never once thought to speak up?”
Her towel flops over the top of the shower rod, and I clench my jaw tightly to keep a groan from escaping.
“Hand me that towel robe thing,” she demands, pointing to the sink.
I pick it up and hand it over the curtain. If she were anyone else, I’d feel so uncomfortable I probably wouldn’t be able to form words, but with her, I have no control over myself, and the need to get everything out is stronger than my willpower. It’s a strange thing unique to this woman—the guard I protect myself with crumbles in her presence.
She rips the curtain open, and I might swallow my tongue.
She’s wearing a tiny purple towel with elastic that holds it up over her breasts like a tube dress.
“Would you have rather I let Kade take the brunt of that fall?”
“Don’t be daft.”
“Daft?” She turns her fiery gaze my way. “Since you’re the one standing in a bathroom, with your hired help, I would say you’re the one who’s daft. Are you trying to get sued for sexual harassment, Seb?”
She’s never called me Seb before. It’s…intimate.
“Because Pappy told me that you’re working your ass off on fixing a false image some asshole is painting of you. A lawsuit from whatever nanny you hire will not help your case.”
It’s interesting that she’s talking about a future nanny but says nothing about herself in this situation. But she’s right, I can’t believe I barged in on her in the shower. What in the actual fuck was I thinking?
She turns her back on me, and that’s when all the rational thoughts attempting to make an appearance evaporate into thin air. Not only are her shoulders and legs scratched all to hell, but there are tiny burrs sticking out of her skin.
