The angles of her collarbones were perfect. I wanted to explore them with my fingertips. My lips.
Then the dip of the dress, descending low—way too fucking low—to reveal two of the most exquisite breasts to grace this earth. Round, perky.
Her hair was piled up on her head, tendrils escaping in soft curls, framing her long lashes. When our eyes met, her cheeks pinked, her plump lips parting on an audible inhale.
My daughter was in the room. Hence why I didn’t have a physical reaction to Hannah. In. That. Fucking. Dress.
“Doesn’t she look like Belle, Daddy?” Clara asked me.
She looked like she could be the face that launched a thousand ships. The body that would lay ruin to cities, empires.
No, she did not look merely like a Disney princess. She looked like she would ruin and redeem a man all in one.
But I could not say that to my five-year-old daughter. To my five-year-old daughter, she was a princess, complete with magic.
To me, she was my daughter’s nanny. A woman barely out of an abusive marriage. A woman who had a few months left with us before she went and lived the life she deserved.
To me, she was also magic.
It occurred to me just then that I’d been staring—almost fucking drooling—at Hannah for an extended period while both of my girls just stared at me.
I cleared my throat then used all of my willpower to look away from her and focus solely on my daughter.
“She does,” I agreed flatly, only for Clara’s sake. “Now, we’ve got to get a coat on you because it is much too cold to be showing that much skin.” I was speaking to Clara, but I wanted to yell it at Hannah.
Too much flawless, tempting skin on display. There would be men at the wedding. Single men. And if any had half a brain and a set of balls, they’d set their sights on Hannah. And there was nothing I could do about it. She wasn’t mine. I had no claim to her. No ring on her finger.
I let the feeling of Clara’s small hand in mine bring me back down to earth. Back to reality.
I walked out of the room without a second glance.
I couldn’t punch someone at my brother’s wedding.
And I definitely couldn’t punch ten men. Couldn’t make every man leering at Hannah bleed. First, because doing so would mean taking out most of the men in attendance—notcounting Rowan, Kane, Kip, and Finn. They were all respectable men with their eyes focused on their own women.
But even the men with rings on their fingers, even the fucking busboys, all of them looked at Hannah, lusting after her with a hunger that made me see red.
She didn’t even notice. She was too busy with Clara. Clara was all she saw. I’d done my best not to pay her any attention the entire ceremony. Which was hard, given that we were seated right next to each other. Her vanilla scent choked me, tortured me. When her smooth arm had brushed against mine, I’d scowled, draping my jacket over her shoulders without a single word.
It was too cold for her to have bare arms, even inside. And I couldn’t keep looking at her skin without going mad.
She was twirling Clara on the dance floor, my jacket hanging over the back of her chair.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off them. They were fucking spellbinding. And I got to go home with them.
They both slept under my roof.
But Hannah wasn’t in my bed.
And every night I went to sleep meant one less day that I’d wake up to her.
“Calliope wore white.” I tore my gaze off my girls only to glance at Calliope, dancing and laughing with them.
My brother sucked on his cigar, in full view of the dance floor.
I’d gone outside to get away, to take a breath, suck down another drink, and try to celebrate with my brother. To revel in the happiness he deserved. I was trying to be a decent older brother, who wasn’t such a grumpy bastard.
But it was hard to be happy when my whole world was down there dancing, and I couldn’t join them.
