Baby for the Billionaire(64)

“Then her needs must come first.”

“I agree. But that doesn’t change what happened today.” He straightened and took a step in her direction. “Nor does it change what’s occurring between us right now. If our reaction to one another is this bad after one day, what will it be like after a week … a month … a year?”

“Stop it, Jack.” He could see she wanted to continue her retreat, wanted it with an intensity that flowed off her in hot, desperate waves. A painful vulnerability settled over her, one that affected him more profoundly than he thought possible. She held up her hand to halt his forward progress. “Are you trying to convince me to quit? If that’s your goal, you’re succeeding.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to quit. But I’m not going to pretend that the attraction between us doesn’t exist. In order to make our relationship work, we have to deal with what we’re experiencing and decide how to handle it.”

“Fine. That’s easy enough.” She sucked in a quick breath while scrambling to take charge of the situation. Not that he’d let her. “We ignore it. We are careful to never be alone together. And we absolutely, positively keep our hands off each other.”

“My hands were only a small portion of the problem.”

Her gaze flashed to his mouth. “Hands. Arms. Lips. And every other part of your body.”

He continued toward her, booting her chair out of his path. It skittered across the flagstones with a squeak of surrender. “That’s one option, I suppose.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Please, Jack. It’s the only option. If we can’t control ourselves, I’ll quit. I won’t have any other choice. I can’t lose control. I can’t. Not ever again.” She ground into silence as he halted a mere foot away.

Curiosity consumed him. “What happens when you lose control?” he asked softly.

To his concern, her chin quivered. “Nothing good.”

“A lesson hard learned?”

“Exactly.”

“Then I won’t touch you first.”

Jack hated making the promise. He was a ruthless man. A man who let nothing stand between himself and his goals. A man who’d learned the hard way to give no quarter. But a single anguished look from a pair of tumultuous golden eyes had him relenting. Softening. Clearly, he’d lost his mind.

Annalise’s relief was palpable. “Thank you, Mr. Mason,” she said formally.

He turned from her, furious with himself for not taking advantage of what he’d been able to accomplish so far. Time was still of the essence. He needed to move her from the role of nanny to the role of wife as soon as possible. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her in the process.

“No problem.” He glanced over his shoulder, forcing out a teasing smile. “If you change your mind, feel free to say something.”

Her mouth relaxed into a shadow of her old grin. “You’ll be the first to know, I promise.”

His cell phone vibrated and he checked the caller ID. “It’s my lawyer,” he explained to Annalise before distancing himself from her and taking the call. “What’s gone wrong now?”

“Aren’t we in a glass-half-empty mood.”

“Do I have reason to be?”

“Only if you haven’t found someone,” Derek admitted. “I found someone.” He spared Annalise a brief glance. She’d joined Isabella beneath the tree, sitting close enough to participate in his niece’s play, without invading the little girl’s territory. “The trick will be keeping her. I may have pushed too hard, too soon.”

“That’s not like you.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Jack responded wryly. Like having difficulty keeping his hands off her. “What’s wrong now?”

“Actually, it’s mixed news. I managed to postpone Mrs. Locke’s next visit. Told her you and the new nanny and Isabella were all going off on a little trip together so you could bond.”

Bond. The word continued to haunt him and had him clamping his back teeth together. “I thought you said the news was mixed. That sounds like good news to me.”

“It would be if Locke hadn’t also informed me that she plans to make a final report after her next visit.”

“What?”

“Calm down, Jack. I’m going to fight it and I’m pretty certain I’ll be able to delay things again. But it would help if you had a loving wife cum nanny in tow the next time the Locke woman comes calling.”