Page 23 of A Nanny for the Reclusive Billionaire

“No, you’re right.” She coughed, trying to disguise the crack in her voice. “I shouldn’t have taken it without permission. Or forced you to come here. The whole point was to bring you and Oliver closer together. Not stir up painful memories.”

“If I’m honest, it wasn’t anywhere near as painful as I’d expected it to be. It was more…”

He looked out across the horizon and ran a hand through his windswept hair as he searched for the right word.

“Poignant?” she offered in a half whisper. That was how it felt whenever she visited the hospital where she’d lost so many friends. Sweet and sad and strange.

“Yes, that’s it.” His shoulders sagged, and he removed his sunglasses to pinch his brow. “Poignant.”

His unshuttered eyes found hers, and they shared a moment of profound understanding, one wounded warrior to another. The intensity of their connection shocked her. It was like for that brief sliver of time they shared one breath, one pulse, one heartbeat.

She looked away, breaking the invisible thread between them, and sat down on the blanket, hugging her knees to her chest and staring out at the ocean. “I can see why she loved it here.”

Mallory felt rather than saw Rhys take a spot on the blanket next to her. “It was Beth’s idea to buy this island. She wanted somewhere for us to relax and unwind as a family, away from the city.”

“She sounds like a smart lady.”

“Smarter than me in a lot of ways.” He stretched out his legs and toed off his Tevas. “I never really appreciated this place until she was gone. Spent too much time worrying about work.”

Fighting the temptation to focus on the toned, tanned legs teasing her peripheral vision, Mallory swiveled her head in the direction Oliver had wandered. He sat cross-legged, bucket in one hand and shovel in the other, digging in the sand just above the waterline. Reassured that the son was out of harm’s way, Mallory turned her attention back to his father. “You were trying to build a future for your family. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“So what’s my excuse now?” Rhys lay back, resting on his forearms, and studied the cloudless sky. “Our future is pretty secure.”

She followed his example, leaning back on her elbows and gazing upward. “You’re here, aren’t you? It’s a start.”

“Only because you practically kidnapped me.”

“How you got here isn’t important. What matters is that you’re spending time with your son.” She gestured down the beach toward Oliver.

Rhys closed his eyes and released a long, heavy sigh. “Beth was so much better at this than me.”

“At what?” Mallory asked, genuinely confused.

“The fun stuff. She was the hip, cool parent. Picnics. Parties. Playdates. I was the serious, stressed-out one who never learned how to relate to my own child.” His eyes opened, shredding her with the hurt she saw in their whiskey-brown depths. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

She offered up a hesitant smile. “I’m a good listener.”

“No.” He grimaced. “I mean yes, you are, but it’s not that. I’m not sure why, but I get the feeling you understand me in a way no one has since…”

“Since Beth?” she finished for him, her voice so soft it barely rose over the sound of the waves breaking on the beach.

He was saved from answering by his son, who came running up to them, his bare feet pounding on the sand, a shard of worn glass held aloft in his clenched fist. “Check out what I found. It’s got writing on it.”

Mallory shared one last look with Rhys, but the moment had passed, for better or worse.

Better, she told herself.Definitely better. Whatever strange, psychic current seemed to arc between them, she wasn’t going to let herself become a walking cliché. The naive nanny falling for her rich, unattainable boss. She was there for one reason and one reason only. To help put the pieces of this fractured family back together.

Her sister had the wrong Julie Andrews movie. Mallory wasn’t Fräulein Maria. She was a modern-day Mary Poppins.

Rhys took the piece of pale green glass from his son and turned it over in his hand.

“What does it say?” Oliver asked.

“It’s hard to tell.” Rhys ran his thumb over the raised letters. “Looks like it might have been part of an old Coca-Cola bottle. See right here? You can barely make out theC-O-C.” He handed it back to his son.

“Cool.” Oliver held the glass up to the light, squinted at it, then dropped it into his bucket with a hollowthunk. “Wanna help me find some more?”

“Sure.” Rhys stood and took his son’s hand.

“You too,” Oliver demanded, waving his bucket at Mallory.

“I think I’ll stay here with a good book.” Mallory twisted to fish her e-reader out of her beach bag. “You and your dad go ahead. You don’t need me tagging along.”

Liar,she scolded herself as they walked away hand in hand, the boy a fairer-haired carbon copy of his father. Yes, she wanted Rhys to reconnect with his son. But they could do that with or without her lurking in the background. Truth was, it wasn’t Rhys and Oliver who needed space from her.

It was she who needed a healthy distance from the tall, dark, and dangerous one of them.