“That was unforgivable,” he added, as if condemning himself might change his feelings. Or hers.
Delaney had feared seeing regret in his expression, but now she was consumed by it. She should have stopped him.
She hadn’t, and now she’d probably lose her job. Like she’d already lost her heart.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “It wasn’t,” she said. “Unforgivable. Considering I didn’t stop you.” Kissing him back the way she had… “I was just as…” Involved. Invested.
Carried away.
It was impossible to meet his eyes, so she focused on Charlotte’s partially open door.
Charlotte, the sweet, traumatized four-year-old who’d just woken from a nightmare. “She needs me.”
“I know.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I know.” He took a step back. “Forgive me. Miss Wright.”
Before she could respond, he swiveled and walked away, then disappeared into the room at the end of the hall. He closed the door softly, but the sound reverberated with the echo of their mistake.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Noah finished shaving, having lingered over scrambled eggs with Charlotte.
Miss Wright had hurried through her meal as if she were late for a flight. Even in their short time together at breakfast, tension had stretched like a rubber band.
Two weeks had passed since that world-altering kiss, and he couldn’t get it out of his mind.
He’d spent more time away than usual, thanks to the mess the vandals had made of the office. The intruders had opened client files and strewn their contents across the floor. Cubicle walls had been knocked down, desks flipped. Fortunately, most of his staff had taken their laptops home for the night, but the server had been bashed with a hammer.
The vandals had had a handful of minutes before the police arrived. They must’ve had a plan to inflict the maximum damage in the least amount of time.
Insurance would cover the cost of replacing the equipment, and the data was stored on an external server. He would never again tease his programmers for their obsession with backups.
The police had no solid leads. Four figures, probably men, wearing coats and sweatshirts with the hoods up, had beencaught on the security camera mounted over the door. He hadn’t had cameras installed inside. Noah had felt that would be an invasion of his employees’ privacy, but he regretted the decision now.
This wasn’t the city. There’d be no CCTV footage of cars passing by or parked in front of or behind the row of businesses.
At this point, there were no leads beyond the words spray-painted across one wall:Back out.
Obviously, Hayes and his people were behind the break-in and vandalism. But Noah couldn’t prove it.
And he wasn’t going to be intimidated.
He finished shaving and chose clothes for the day, thinking of Charlotte.
Which inevitably brought him back to Delaney…
The sweet, innocent, alluring woman he couldn’t get out of his head.
Not Delaney.Miss Wright!
His employee.
Somehow, though they lived under the same roof, they’d hardly interacted since their kiss, operating like the clockwork figurines in the antique clock in the foyer, moving through the same house without truly inhabiting the same space. When they ate breakfast every morning, she was thankful that he’d cooked and was always kind to Charlotte but hardly spoke to him. When he returned home in the evening, she gave a succinct report of Charlotte’s day before retreating to her room.
She’d even quit eating dinner with them.
It was all very proper, very professional.
And it was driving him insane.
