HourspassedbeforeIwas able to return home.
The house was quiet when I stepped inside. That smothering quiet that spoke of emptiness and heartbreak. I stood numbly in the dark foyer. The adrenaline had long worn off and now I was spent.
I toed off my boots and set them on the mat next to the door. My stomach growled and my throat was parched, but mostly Iached for my bed. It wouldn’t be long before I needed to wake up to go back.
As I crossed toward the stairs, I noticed a lamp on in the living room. It was so small it cast nothing more than a glow over the couch.
Curious, I headed to it, the floorboards creaking under my feet.
Palmer came into view as I rounded the couch, her body sprawled across the cushions. She was asleep, her long, golden hair fanned out around her head and falling over one side of her face. I gritted my teeth as that warm feeling stirred beneath my ribs. It was unsettling.
She was my damn nanny. I paid her to live here and watch over Hailey.
I ground my back teeth together.
Yeah, whatever it was I felt for her needed to be squashed immediately. She wouldn’t want anyone like me anyway. She was twenty-seven years old. It made my forty years feel ancient.
She made a small whimpering noise, and my frown deepened. I squinted, trying to study her closer in the dim lighting.
Her mouth was pressed into a tight line, muscles rigid beneath her pale skin. A sheen of sweat coated her forehead. Her chest rose and fell at a rapid pace, like she was gasping for air and couldn’t breathe.
My pulse spiked, and I reached for her without much thought.
“Palmer.” I barked her name loud enough to wake her, and then shook her shoulder when she didn’t move.
Her eyelids flew open. She gasped, hands flying, reaching for something I couldn’t see. Her chest seized as she started to cough, and I grabbed hold of both her shoulders, trying to assess whether she needed medical attention.
When her stare found mine, she blinked. One of her hands fisted into my shirt as she continued to cough.
Some of the bleariness and terror leached from her expression, replaced with confusion. Her coughing slowed, as did her breaths.
“Roman?”
She was trembling, but the slowing of her breathing and her lucidness were reassuring.
“You all right?” I asked, my voice like gravel, deep and husky. As if I hadn’t used it in days.
Her mouth dropped open, those full lips of hers gaining my attention for a split second before I forced them away.
She continued to stare at me, and I brushed my fingers over her forehead, moving back the blonde strands that stuck to her clammy skin. She wasn’t feverish.
“I—” she began.
Even though I couldn’t see it fully in the dimness, I sensed the blush creeping up her neck.
She took a deep breath. “I think I was having a bad dream.”
My brows pulled together. “A nightmare?”
She nodded. Part of me wanted to ask her what kind of nightmares haunted her. There wasn’t much I knew about Palmer’s past. My brother, Fox, who had done her background check for me, didn’t tell me the details he’d dragged up about her life. Everything that wasn’t need-to-know, I asked him to keep to himself. She was an employee who deserved privacy. Fox could find out about anything, even the things people wanted to hide.
But right now, I wanted to know what caused the fear in her eyes when she’d woken. What had happened to her to put that sort of terror in her?
Palmer sat up, distracting my internal thoughts, and adjusted that sinful satin robe as the throw blanket fell away from her. One of my hands was still on her shoulder, and I reluctantly pulled it away.
“I should get to my own bed,” she said in a breathy, nervous whisper.
I lifted my hand to—what? Touch her? Comfort her? I didn’t comfort people I barely knew. She probably wouldn’t want me to anyway.
