Now what was she going to do?
CHAPTER THREE
Noah stared at the closed door, his hand still gripping the brass knob with enough force to leave impressions in his palm.
The potential nanny had reeked of cigarette smoke. He wasn’t about to let someone who smoked anywhere near Charlotte.
But potential nanny’s smell hadn’t been his only problem, and Noah knew it.
The real problem was his own outsized reaction. Those wide eyes, pale blue like clear water, the way her teeth had caught her lower lip when he’d rejected her, the curve of her waist beneath that fitted blazer…
Sheesh. What was he doing?
Delaney Wright was exactly the kind of woman who could ruin his life.
Marianne’s face flashed through his mind—another beautiful woman. The divorce two years before had been messy and public, and the rumor mill still swarmed with stories of things he’d never done, never thought to do. The rumors hadn’t been Marianne’s fault, but she could’ve trusted him. She might haveif she’d cared more about their marriage than her potential settlement.
Noah hadn’t met a female he could trust since Mama died.
After the break-in that morning, he needed someone reliable, someone with integrity. In his experience, young, single women were the opposite of trustworthy.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs had Noah spinning.
Charlotte froze halfway down, eyes wide as if he might shout at her. She’d changed into her favorite T-shirt—the pink one with the sparkly butterfly—and stretchy pants, her blond curls sticking out at odd angles.
“Hey, Charlie-Bear. You’re awake.” He kept his voice low and steady, as he’d learned to do with his jumpy niece.
She continued down on bare feet, her hand trailing along the banister. “Who was the pretty lady?”
He kept his smile in place. Charlotte hardly ever spoke. And now she’d wasted words on the nanny he’d sent away.
“Nobody important.”
Charlotte’s lower lip pushed out in the expression that often preceded tears. “She looked sad.”
Noah hadn’t watched Miss Wright leave—had forced himself to turn away from the windows beside the door the moment he’d closed it. The last thing he needed was to have the image of her walking down his front steps burned into his memory.
“You must be hungry.” He moved toward the kitchen. “How about breakfast?”
Charlotte’s small hand slipped into his.
“Apple sandwiches and eggs?”
She shrugged. He knew she’d prefer a bowl of sugary cereal and milk, but he’d refused, and she didn’t argue like an ordinary four-year-old might. She was compliant, as if she feared…something.
He had no idea what. His goal was to be the father figure she’d never had, to make her feel safe and secure in his home. Soon, God willing, he’d be able to spend more time with her. But not until he completed the merger he’d been working on for months.
The familiar routine of scrambling eggs helped steady his nerves. Once they were cooking, he pulled an apple from the bowl on the granite countertop and began slicing it.
The mundane task should have calmed him, but his mind kept drifting back to the nanny he’d rejected.
He’d been rude. Unforgivably rude. His mother would have threatened to box his ears.
She’d threatened that punishment a thousand times during his childhood, and to this day, he had no idea what it would feel like.
Charlotte had climbed onto one of the barstools and was watching him, her little eyes squinted with worry.
Oops.
