I knew I’d had one too many.
But I needed the radiating sting of it, something to hold on to, something to distract me from her. In that fucking dress, skimming over every one of her delicate curves.
What the fuck had she been thinking, dressing like that? It was awedding.
I didn’t miss the men—too fucking old for her, my age, which was too fucking old—feasting on her with their eyes. The waiters—closer in age—ogling her ass. I wanted to pummel all of them for daring to look at what was mine.
But she wasn’t mine.
I tipped the last of the whisky down my throat.
Not mine.
My daughter’s nanny. Years younger. Too good for me. That’s what she was.
Never mine.
Yet when her head tipped up and she directed her eyes to where I was sitting, our eyes locked, and my cock twitched.
Mine, something deep inside me growled.
She smiled, hesitantly, meekly, seeming to be uneasy. As she often was around me. Everything about her was delicate, fragile. More than anything, I wanted to calm her, make her feel relaxed around me.
I scowled at her, pushing my chair back so hard it tumbled to the ground before I stalked away.
I’d fire her.
Tomorrow.
HANNAH
How could a day that literally felt like a storybook happily ever after also be so heartbreaking?
How could I be so filled with love yet also feel smothered in pain?
Because of Beau Shaw.
Because of stubborn, emotionally distant, damaged, noble Beau Shaw.
I saw the way he looked at me in my dress. I felt it. In my fucking cells, I felt that look. I’d feel it on my deathbed.
No man looks at a woman like that without wanting her.
I’d seen men look at women like that. Elliot stared at Calliope walking down the aisle like that.
Kane at Avery. Rowan at Nora. Kip at Fiona.
And Beau. At me.
But unlike those men, Beau acted like it pained him to look at me. To want me.
Which I understood, I guessed. Because it hurt, physically, to look at Beau. To want him while knowing he’d always be out of my reach.
Even if he hung his jacket over my shoulders because he didn’t want me to be cold. Even though his gaze made me feel like a woman.
The drive home was silent except for the gentle hum of the radio. I was driving. Beau’s truck. Because he’d ordered me to. His breath had smelled faintly of whisky, and his eyes were far away.
He wasn’t drunk. No slur to his words. His movements were still sure, confident. But he’d had more than one drink, and he was Beau Shaw. Sensible. Responsible.
