Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
I gazed at Beau, standing there like a statue but eyes burning with a fire that I hadn’t thought he was capable of.
“Not … tonight.” He shook his head. Again. It was another plea. He was fighting. With desire. Against those emotions he’d shared with me. His sorrow. His guilt for letting his daughter down. No, tonight was not a night to make the decision to make out with the nanny.
My heartbeat stuttered. Not tonight. But not never. Was Beau Shaw insinuating that there would be a night when this kiss would happen?
Hope bloomed in my chest, even as I hated myself for it. I shouldn’t have been so readily forgiving and willing to kiss the man who had essentially made my life miserable for months. Shouldn’t have so quickly excused his behavior.
Hadn’t I learned?
My eyes roved over Beau’s form, my own body thrumming with a kind of substance that made me feel like I was rooted to the earth. The look he gave me made me feel as if I’d been incorporeal, transparent, invisible my whole life. Like I hadn’t been whole until Beau Shaw looked at me. The way he looked at me made me feel like a true woman, not a lost little girl.
“Okay,” I whispered. No, I hadn’t fully learned. “Good night, Beau.”
His eyes didn’t leave my mouth. “Good night, Hannah.”
With my heart thundering in my ears, I walked away from Beau Shaw, certain my life was about to change forever.
Maybe for the better.
But I should’ve known.
Good things didn’t happen to people like me.
five
HANNAH
After last night, Clara’s birthday provided the most perfect buffer that anyone could ask for.
I told myself I was relieved.
She came running into my room at six in the morning, having been up for an hour already, smelling of sugar and strawberry shampoo, demanding I get up because she was five, and her father said she couldn’t open presents until I woke up.
Her father was at the griddle, making French toast when I emerged, holding Clara’s small hand as she dragged me in.
Clara pointed at every decoration in wonder, my heart swelling at her happiness and joy, even amongst the strange clench in my womb and the prickle of my lips upon seeing Beau’s back. We were standing in the very place where we’d almost kissed last night.
Almost kisses didn’t count, though, did they? Didn’t mean anything.
Clara demanded my attention as I stared at Beau’s back, willing him to look at me, even though I was terrified of what I’d see in his eyes.
“You got me all of these?” Clara gaped in amazement at the gifts on the table.
I hummed in confirmation, my heart still galloping, my body heavy from lack of sleep. Who could sleep in the same house as the man she thought she hated yet actually desired?
“Thank you so much, Hannah Banana!” Clara threw her arms around me, squeezing me tight.
I squeezed her back, focusing on the birthday girl. Her happiness made every cent I spent worth it.
Then came the chaos of playing with her gifts. Beau had gotten her a state-of-the-art telescope that looked like it could’ve been in the house of a professional astronomer. Clara made him put a countdown on his phone until it was dark so she could use it. She marveled at every small gift I gave her, showing her father, who focused on them with rapt attention She poured over the book I gave her, demanding we go show her fairies the gifts.
There were party preparations, outfit choices to be made. Clara was delighted with her fairy wings, deciding to pair them with a Grateful Dead T-shirt, a purple tutu, and combat boots.
I never had a moment alone with Beau. I tried to catch his eye, recapture the warmth of last night, but he made a concerted effort to not look at me, all of his focus going to his daughter. And when he did need to speak to me, it was in the same clipped, cold tone that it had been the past few months.
The man from last night was gone.
I carried the pain of that through the day, cursing myself for hoping, for believing something could be different. I pasted a smile on my face.
Because it was Clara’s day.
And I’d be damned if I didn’t help preserve a little girl’s belief that the world was a magical place.
Even if, for me, it was full of pain and disappointment.
As it happened, more than thirteen people came to the party. It was a large number of potentially infectious people, which made Beau’s expression tight with worry. I’d seen him in the corner, phone glued to his ear. I presumed it was Clara’s doctor, because although his posture was rigid, defensive, he didn’t look like he was clutching the phone hard enough to crack it, nor did he kick anyone out.