CLAIRE SHUT OFF HER LAPTOP and made her way down the hall from the home office she shared with Luke to the living room. Bella was scooting around on her blanket on the floor while Hailey, the twenty-something-year-old babysitter, watched her. It wasn’t a perfect situation, but Hailey was a thousand times better than the baby nurse had been and Claire had actually been able to get through most of the estimate without losing her mind.
It was actually Mike, the guy she’d promoted to her new foreman, who’d recommended Hailey. The guys still acted as if she was breakable when she showed up on the job site, but while Mike was cooing over Bella, he’d mentioned his niece was looking for a job as a nanny.
He’d come through for her in more ways than one. He’d worked his way up through the company from journeyman to master electrician and finally to foreman. Before Luke and the baby, she’d worked alongside him, and she knew he understood how she wanted her jobs handled. Having him on a site was almost as good as being there herself. Something she was itching to get back to.
Although every time she had the thought, Bella would do something amazing, like scoot across the floor, giggling because she’d learned something new, and Claire would realize how much she’d miss if she wasn’t home every day. She wanted both worlds and felt ripped in two. At the same time, she realized how many women didn’t have the choice—either they couldn’t go back to work or they didn’t have the option to stay home. Even in her conflict, she knew how lucky she was.
“How’s she doing?” Claire leaned against the arm of the sofa and gazed down at her smiling daughter with her tiny new tooth.
“She’s going to be a race car driver, I think,” said Hailey. “She’s wearing a path in the floor racing back and forth.”
“You’re pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you, baby girl?” Claire reached down to scoop her baby up into her arms. “Momma’s proud of you, too.” She pressed a kiss to the top of her daughter’s head before she set the squirming child back down on the blanket to resume her scoot racing. “Has she eaten?”
“Not yet,” said the younger woman. “I was going to fix her some cereal and give her a bottle when she started to run out of steam. Unless you want to feed her?”
Claire hadn’t made a conscious decision to wean Bella, but after Luke brought it up she’d begun to think about it. Once Hailey started to help with the baby, it had been easy to let her give Bella a bottle when she needed it. Claire still nursed her in the morning and before bed, but she’d cut down on nursing her in the middle of the day. It made her sad, but it also freed up time for her to do some of the things she’d been neglecting. Which in turn made her feel even more guilt. It was a circle she couldn’t work herself out of.
“No, that’s okay,” she said trying not to sound too pathetic. “You can feed her when she winds down.” Claire watched her daughter for another couple of minutes before heading back down the hallway to her office and another stack of paperwork.
When she opened her email, there was a message from Luke’s private account and she smiled the way she did every time she thought of her husband. She clicked to open it and found a blacked-out video clip box with a play arrow. Checking over her shoulder to make sure she’d closed the door, she clicked Play. Her screen filled with waves crashing against jagged black rocks. The raw power of the waves breaking themselves open mesmerized her and she watch the clip twice before she closed out the video.
She had no idea what Luke was playing at, but the idea of sitting on that beach, feeling the spray on her face, called to her like a siren’s song. Her challenges couldn’t help but seem small in the face of all that power. Maybe she’d keep the tab open on her browser so she could watch the waves whenever she needed a break. She hit Reply.Trying to tell me something, Masters?she typed and then hit Send. His response was almost immediate.
Don’t say no.
She stared at the screen for a moment, anticipation and apprehension warring for a spot in her sleep-deprived brain. He’d pushed her since the moment they’d met, but he’d also taken her on so many sexy adventures and shown her things she’d only dreamt about. Until him. Having Bella changed everything, but she still wanted time with her husband like they had before. Time to reconnect and discover new things together. Time to make love the way they used to, for him to push her physically. When they started, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other, and she’d done things with him she’d never experienced with another man. Remembering sent ribbons of heat winding deep inside her.
You didn’t ask me anything, did you?she typed.
His response took longer this time, and she’d started to wonder whether he’d gotten called away when her email dinged with a new message.
I’m not asking. I’m taking you away.
She didn’t bother to reply. She picked up her phone and dialed his direct line, bypassing his assistant.
“Don’t say no,” he repeated when he answered the phone. “I mean it, Claire. I’m not negotiating on this one.”
“What do you mean you’re not negotiating?” she asked, apprehension getting a jump on anticipation. “You don’t get to decide that. I can’t just run away because you decide it. I’ve got a business and a baby.”
“You don’t say.”
“You know what I mean.” She loved him more than life but no one had ever gotten under her skin the way Luke could.
“Of course I know what you mean. I also know what you need, Claire. What we need. You haven’t had a real break since before Bella was born. You need to rest, sweetheart, and we need time together.” He paused and she waited him out. Her husband was tenacious as hell when he wanted something but that didn’t mean she’d let him roll over her. “I have to go to Hawaii to look at some property. It’s just for a couple of days,” he said when she didn’t speak. “We fly out, spend two days and fly back home.”
“And do what with Bella?” Surely he wasn’t considering taking a baby on a twelve-hour flight. And he couldn’t expect Claire to leave their daughter at home. There weren’t any loving grandparents to leave her with. Hailey was great but too inexperienced, and there was no way in hell she’d leave her with the old baby nurse.
“I’ll figure it out.”
“I’m not leaving her with someone I don’t trust. I mean it, Masters,” she said, confident he’d never be able to find someone she could trust with their baby girl.
“Like I would,” he said and she could hear the edge of anger sliding into his voice. “Stop underestimating me. It’s getting old. She’s my daughter too. I’d never let anything happen to her.”
She knew that. Luke was protective almost to a fault, with her and their child. That didn’t mean she’d ever be comfortable leaving her baby. Even if it was just for a couple of days. In Hawaii, feeling the waves break around her.
“Fuck, Luke.”
“I’m counting on it, sweetheart.”
