Page 33 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

But was it?

Was it different, or was it just... new? The match is fresh. The chemistry is overwhelming. Of course it feels different. Serena probably felt it too, in the beginning. The rush. The heat. The impossible, electric certainty that this time, this one, this is real.

And then it faded.

I sit up in bed. The sheets pool around my waist, and the cool air hits my skin, raising goosebumps. The clock on the nightstand reads 1:47 AM. The penthouse is silent. Three men breathe behind three closed doors, and I sit here in the dark, hollowed out and terrified.

My body aches. Not with arousal this time, or not only with arousal. There's something else. A pull. A need that goes deeper than physical want, deeper than the scent-match, deeper than the biological imperative that's been screaming at me since I walked through the elevator doors.

Nesting.

The urge has been building for hours. Since Lily's room, if I'm honest. Since he held me and I cried and he showed me what it means to be wanted. The omega instinct deep in my chest says build. Gather. Make a home. It says collect their scents, their clothes, their warmth, and build a place where you belong.

But I can't nest here.

Nesting is for claimed omegas. For bonded mates. For omegas who have been knotted and marked and given a permanent place in a pack. I am none of those things. I'm a nanny with a contract and a scent-match that might fade, and if I nest, if I give in to that primal urge and build something out of their shirts and sheets and warmth, I'll be pretending I belong here.

And if I pretend, and then it falls apart, it won't just break my heart.

It will destroy me.

I get out of bed. The floor is cold under my bare feet. I'm wearing Deklan's oversized shirt again, I changed back into it after Lily's nap, and none of them commented on it, though Knox's eyes had tracked the hem with visible hunger. The fabric falls to mid-thigh, and I pull it tighter around myself, breathing in cedar and rain.

Don't do this, a voice whispers. Don't leave. Talk to them. Tell them what you're feeling.

But I can't. Because talking means hoping, and hoping means trusting, and trusting means believing that three billionaires could want a girl like me for more than a match. For more than a function. For more than a warm body to fill the gap a dead sister left.

And I can't believe that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

I move quietly. I've always been quiet, it's a skill you learn when you grow up in a small house with thin walls and a mother who sleeps between double shifts. I open my duffel bag and stuff my few belongings inside. Two pairs of jeans. Three shirts. Underwear. Toiletries. The worn denim jacket.

It takes less than five minutes.

I leave the oversized shirt folded on the bed. Deklan's shirt. Cedar-scented. A goodbye I can't say with words.

Leave a scent trail, my omega instincts scream. Mark your departure. Let them know you were here. Let them find you.

I ignore the instinct. I shove my feet into my sneakers, no socks, no time, and ease the bedroom door open.

The hallway is dark. The penthouse is designed so that the bedrooms are clustered at one end, a long corridor with five doors. Mine is closest to the living area. Beyond it, three more doors. JD's. Knox's. Deklan's. Lily’s.

I pause outside Deklan's door.

Through the wood, I hear him. Not sleeping, his breathing is too deliberate, too controlled. He's awake. He's probably sitting at his desk with his laptop, running numbers, pretending the world is something that can be quantified and predicted.

I want to knock. I want to tell him I'm scared. I want to ask him to hold me again, the way he did in Lily's room, steady and solid and unwavering. I want to ask him if it's true, if I'm really more than a match, if the way he looked at me when he was on his knees meant what I think it meant.

But Serena's voice drowns it all out.

They get bored. The match fades. You're just convenient.

I pull my hand back from the door and keep walking.

Knox's door is next. From inside, I hear a low sound, not a groan, not a growl, but something in between. He's awake too. Probably hard. Probably thinking about me, I know he can smell me, know the honey-vanilla of my scent is leaking under my door and into the hallway. He's been smelling me for two days, and I know it's been driving him insane because I can hear him sometimes at night, the rhythmic, muffled sound of a man taking himself in hand.

I want to open that door. I want to crawl into his bed and let him do all the things he described in the kitchen. I want to feel his hands on my hips, his mouth on my neck, his cock pressing against me. I want to ask him if the filth he whispers is just dirty talk or if he means it, if he really wants to breed me, claim me, make me theirs.

But wanting isn't the same as having. And having isn't the same as keeping.