To Hate Adam Connor

She glanced toward her friends and something changed in her expression. I didn’t like it, especially those calculating eyes of hers. Nothing good would come of it.

“I’ll look after Aiden, and I’ll sign your stupid NDA, too, but I have a request of my own,” she said finally, her eyes meeting mine.

“I’m not hiring you to be his full-time nanny. You don’t get to have requests.”

“I do. And I’m requesting to sleep over at your place for the week. I’ll spend my time with Olive after you come home so you won’t see me, but I’m coming back to sleep.”

Genuinely confused, I frowned down at her and asked, “Why?” Didn’t Jason want her in the house? I mean, I wouldn’t blame him for it, but from all he’d said about her when he’d come to talk me out of pressing charges and getting a restraining order, I’d assumed she was somehow important to him.

“Look at them,” she said, motioning toward Jason and Olive with her head.

I looked and saw what I’d already seen just a minute before: Olive sitting between Jason’s legs as they smiled and whispered to each other. “And?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “They love each other.”

As if that explained everything. “I wish I understood your language, ’cause I’m thinking a lot of things would make sense then, but I don’t, so you’ll have to spell it out. Why the hell would you sleep in my home because they love each other?”

Those goose bumps made an appearance again, and she forcefully stuffed her hands in her back pockets, unknowingly thrusting her breasts out.

I snapped my gaze up.

“I was dating this guy and we were living together, but after we graduated he left the city.”

“He left you, you mean. Smart man.”

Her eyes shot sparks, and she pressed her lips together.

I smiled. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. Go on.”

“My name wasn’t on the lease, so they wanted me out. Since you’re such a smart guy, I’m sure you already know that I’m not close with my grandmother. If I’d gone to stay with her…I don’t even want to think about that. Let’s just say, she drains me, of life, positivity, everything. So, of course, Olive took me in, and I’ve been here for more than two weeks now.”

“I still have no idea where you’re going with this, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart. This is the second time I’m warning you. I hate it when people use that word with that tone.”

Watching me intently, she shifted her weight from her left foot to her right, hands still secured in her back pockets, shoulders tensed and high up.

Before crossing my arms over my chest, I motioned for her to go on.

“Like I said, I’ve been here for more than two weeks now, and this is their home. Granted, they were in London that first week, but still, what if Jason wants to fuck her brains out in the kitchen?”

My arms dropped down.

“Well, he can’t,” she continued. “He can’t because I’m in the house. Not that I’m trying to listen in on them or anything, but I don’t even hear a moan at night and trust me, Olive is a moaner. Anyway, Olive waited a very long time for that guy, and she deserves to have loud, earth-shattering sex, so I’ll be staying at your place. That’ll give them a week to do whatever they want to do wherever they want to do it. I’m hoping to find an apartment as soon as I get a job anyway.”

Frozen in place, all I could do was lift an eyebrow at her. Had I lost my mind, thinking Aiden would be fine to spend a few days with her? Clearly satisfied with the eyebrow lift, she nodded and turned around to join her friends—only she tripped on something and didn’t have enough time to free her hands to balance herself. I caught her by her arm a second before she would have face-planted into an actual plant.

Did I get a thank you? That would be asking too much.

“Goddamn it, Olive,” she yelled into the night. “I’m gonna cut down all your bushes with my own hands!” Then she turned to me and shrugged me off before I could take my hand away. “And what is it with you and my arm for God’s sake? Every chance you get, you latch onto it. Do you have a fetish or something?”

I didn’t remember saying yes to her request, but she’d somehow managed to invite herself to stay at my place.

Chapter Seven

Lucy

With every passing day, I hated Adam Connor even more; how that was even possible…don’t ask me. It had somehow started to become a passion of mine. Why? Because he was…a sly bastard, because he worked out shirtless in his backyard, because he made his son laugh, because his arms were all masculine and sexy, because his arms were peppered with hair, because there was something called forearm porn, because his voice had the ability to give you tiny orgasms, annoying tiny orgasms that forced you to cross your legs or apply some kind of sneaky pressure. I hated those orgasms; they left me unsatisfied and only reminded me that I hadn’t had sex in weeks. Weeks, I tell ya! Leave sex aside, I hadn’t even had a kiss. A freaking innocent kiss. Can you even imagine what that does to a girl? Your body reacts differently to all kinds of things.

Adam Connor being one of them.

Tingles.

Everywhere.

Long.

Short.

Painful.

Pleasure-filled tingles.

You ever had a tiny orgasm just because a guy said—no, whispered, I love you, little man, to his son while he was tucking him into bed? No? That’s just me? Well, excuse the hell out of me then. You should visit your doctor to make sure everything is all right if you don’t get the tingles when you hear Adam Connor telling his son he loves him. So yeah, Adam Connor was an asshole for making me tingle—and that’s me being frugal with my bad words.

Do you finally see where I’m coming from, or do you need me to go on with the list of why I hated Adam Connor so much?

All in all, his voice sucked. Whether he was professing his love to his little man or talking to his ex in hushed tones, his voice sucked just as much as he did.

The first day of my unexpected babysitter job didn’t suck that much, though; I hadn’t had the full effect of him at that point. I had spent most of my day glued to my phone talking to and emailing back and forth with publishing companies, trying to hammer out the best deal for Olive’s books. And you know what, as much as I’d thought I wouldn’t be any help to her, I was starting to realize that I wasn’t half bad at it. So my little green Olive was right after all. The deals that were on the table—I had four so far—were already better than what the other agents had promised to get her. So I was doing a bangin’ job at being the temporary agent.

Then around three o’clock, the big bad bodyguard dropped Aiden off and rudely told me to keep him safe and inside the perimeter of the house, as if he were trusting me to protect the president—not that I wouldn’t protect him, but he was a five-year-old kid, for God’s sake. Still, the rest of the day and the evening went smoothly. We had fun and talked about all kinds of things, from his friends at school to the girl he liked sitting with to why he didn’t like sleeping in trailers. At some point, Olive came out of her writing cave, pushing pause on the edits she was working on for her latest book and joining us for ice cream.

I wish you could’ve seen the way Aiden got all shy around Olive, giving her all kinds of looks. He was going to be a heartbreaker, that was for sure. Just like his asshole father, except Aiden wouldn’t be an asshole; he was too cute for that.