Page 49 of Substitute Bride

He swung open the door and stared at her, looking sleepy and sexy and strangely tense. “Rosie,” he said hoarsely.

She swallowed at the sound of his saying her name like that. Maybe he thought she was here to beg for sex or something. She burst out, “It’s Julie. She’s sick.”

James’s face changed dramatically. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just an earache, but she wanted you.”

He started immediately down the hall, wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants. Rose tried very hard not to look at the lines of his strong bare back or the curve of his butt beneath the fabric as she walked behind him.

Julie reached out for her father as he entered the room, and he got into the bed, sitting up against the headboard and pulling her into his arms.

Rose gazed down for just a minute, wishing with an intensity she’d never experienced that this family was hers.

She loved them. All of them.

But they weren’t hers. She was just the nanny.

“Just let me know if you need anything,” she said in a slightly cracked voice, turning away so James wouldn’t see her expression.

“Stay, Rosie,” Julie whimpered, her head tossing restlessly against her father’s chest. “I want you too.”

Rose sighed and hesitated. She wanted to stay, but it wasn’t going to be good for her heart.

“Will you stay?” James asked, his eyes holding hers.

She nodded, completely incapable of saying no, not when both of them needed her. Julie patted the bed beside James, and Rose crawled in. She was wearing a tank and thin pajama pants, and she wished either her or James or both of them were wearing more clothes.

It didn’t feel like anything sexy, but it felt far too intimate and vulnerable.

There wasn’t much room on Julie’s bed, so Julie ended up cuddled between Rose and James, and James had his arms around them both.

Rose stroked the little girl’s hair, trying to soothe her until she went to sleep, and she tried not to think about how safe and protected and cared for she felt like this.

James wasn’t saying anything. He basically hadn’t said anything to her all day, except the brief conversation about Genevieve. For all she knew he was embarrassed and awkward about having sex with her last night.

He obviously didn’t want her. If he did, he would have said something. If he’d been even the slightest bit polite, he would have said something.

She knew from hard experience that reading things into a man’s silence was the worst sort of stupid. If they wanted you, they would say something, do something. If they didn’t say or do anything, then they obviously didn’t want you enough.

She wasn’t a silly girl anymore. She wasn’t going to throw herself at a man who didn’t want her. But it was so hard.

Because it felt—it felt—like James wanted her. Not just for sex either.

As she snuggled against him and Julie that night, it felt like his love was extended to her, like he was loving both her and his daughter.

She wanted to be loved like that.

She wanted to be loved by him.

10

James was pretty sure he’d made a big mistake.

He’d had a pretty good thing going before—with Rose as his nanny. It hadn’t fulfilled all his needs, but at least he’d had her in his life, and his girls had had her too.

Now—because he’d wanted too much, because he’d let her slip out of the designated slot she was supposed to fill—he was afraid he was about to lose her completely.

If Rose had shown any inclination toward wanting more with him—if she’d acted at all like the sex they’d had had meant even half as much as it had meant to him—he would have thrown caution to the wind and forced himself to tell her his feelings.