Falling for Your Boss by Emma St. Clair

Chapter Twenty-Six

Zoey

“What is he doing here?”

Maybe I should have kept my tone in check at the sight of Thayden in the kitchen when I come back down from changing after llama-gate. He is Gavin’s friend. But Gav doesn’t seem to mind my tone, and Thayden, of course, is amused.

Growing up, there was a dog in our neighborhood who loved to chase cars. I swear, I watched him get hit more than once. He’d get right back up, tongue lolling and a doggy smile on his face, then run after the next car, limp and all. That’s Thayden. There’s something I have to admire, at least a little, about his willingness to throw himself in traffic, still smiling.

I unceremoniously dump the disgusting black T-shirt into the trash. It could be washed, but I’d just as soon buy a new one. Gavin smiles, and I narrow my eyes at him, though I’m not angry. It was more than satisfying to drench him with the hose. He’s changed as well, looking as good as I’ve ever seen him in a fitted gray T-shirt and worn jeans with boots.

“Great to see you again too, Zoey,” Thayden says with a grin.

That stupid dimple won’t work on me, buddy.

Gavin shuffles a small stack of legal documents that cover the kitchen table. “Thayden is my lawyer.”

“Right.”

“Lawyer and most handsome friend,” Thayden says.

I arch an eyebrow at Thayden, who only chuckles. “Where’s Ella?” I ask.

Gavin’s eyes go soft, and so does my heart. Look at me, letting all my feelings go free. Buttoned up Zoey took a hike several days ago. Shockingly, I don’t miss her that much. Of course, that means I fully expect to pay the price by way of a broken heart. For now, I’m just trying to enjoy the moment and not think too far in the future.

“One of the goats just gave birth in the back barn,” Gavin says. “Mama, Nancy, and Patty took Ella to see.”

“Baby goats!” I practically squeal.

Gavin chuckles. “You can join them now, or I’ll take you out to see in a few minutes, if you want to wait.”

“I’d like that. What’s happening here? Are you discussing custody?”

“A perceptive woman,” Thayden says. “Brains to go along with her—”

“Yes,” Gavin interrupts, and I swear a flush is creeping over his neck. He shoots Thayden a glare. I’m trying to figure out how these two are possibly friends.

“I was going to say beauty,” Thayden says, holding up his hands.

“Let’s stick to the discussion at hand,” Gavin practically growls.

Is he … jealous? The thought thrills me.

Gavin stands, pulling out a chair and then tucking me into the table as though we’re having dinner at a fancy restaurant, not discussing legal matters at the kitchen table. When his fingers trail across the exposed skin above the neck of my blouse, I barely hold back a shudder. Thayden doesn’t miss a thing and looks every bit as amused as he did after Delilah punched him in the stomach. I’m tempted to do the same when I get a chance.

“When did you get here?” I ask Thayden, curious about his sudden presence.

“I flew. I have my pilot’s license, and I commandeered Daddy’s plane.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that his family has a plane, given the expensive car he drove the day I met him. Maybe the surprising thing is his loyalty to Gavin. Couldn't this have waited until tomorrow when we get back to Austin?

Gavin shakes his head. “Does your dad know you took the plane?”

“He’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about me. Let’s worry about you.”

Thayden’s playful tone turns serious, and I cross my arms, more than a little curious how this will go. I don’t know much about family law, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel invested in Ella’s future. Mostly, in making sure she doesn’t go back with Eleanor. Gavin may not have been prepared to be a father, but based on everything I’ve seen, he’ll do a much better job than whatever Eleanor has done. Which hasn’t been good, based on my interactions with Ella.

Thayden is surprisingly compassionate and intuitive, giving suggestions that surprise me. He’s clearly good at his job, and more than that, he seems to care. About Gavin and Ella.

“I think it would be best to hire a private investigator,” Thayden says. “You need to know what Eleanor is up to, and what she has been up to. No surprises.”

“Do you have someone in mind?” Gavin asks.

Thayden pulls out his phone and sends a brief text. “Yes. Expensive but totally worth it. I just messaged him.”

“Great. You know I don’t care about the money. What else?”

Gavin is back in his alpha work mode, and I love watching his serious eyes and the tic in his jaw. It’s even more attractive because they’re talking about Ella. He’s not just in business mode. He’s morphed into protective dad mode. I recognize it because I’ve seen it so often in my own father.

Ugh. I don’t need the reminder of my dad when thinking about Gavin. It makes all my insecurities about the age gap flood back in. As I take down my tight braid, loosening my hair with my fingers, I remember Sam’s text from the night before. The difference in our ages doesn’t have to matter to anyone but me and Gavin.

Except … my dad’s opinion of me does matter. And I can’t see him hopping on board with this. Me, getting involved with a guy who’s closer to Dad’s age, a man who has a daughter. A man who was my boss. Just considering the conversation with him makes me revert to feeling like a little girl.

I realize that the conversation has temporarily halted. Gavin is watching me finger comb my hair with heat in his eyes. Has he ever seen my hair down? Doubtful. Few people have. The last time I wore my hair loose around my shoulders, Abby told me it was like a solar eclipse and insisted on taking a dozen photos. Which promptly made me put it up in a ponytail.

Gavin’s eyes move fast over my hair, my shoulders, the slim view of my collarbone through the open top button of my blouse. They skim over my cheeks and lips, pausing there, and move up to my eyes.

I feel as though his gaze has marked me, like there is a visible path on my skin formed by his eyes. I’m glowing under his admiration. If I were a cat, I’d be purring and bumping my head into him, begging shamelessly for more.

All day long, I’ve longed for more of his touch. Ached for more kisses. But we’ve had Ella. Plus, his parents, Nancy, and Patty. There has been no time, and definitely no privacy. Not for kissing, and not for a conversation about what we’re doing, and where this can possibly go.

I need to tell Gavin that I’ve resigned from Morgan-Beckwith. I need to decide if I’m going to extend the contract and keep helping with Ella. Taking money for it seems wrong, especially because of what’s happening between Gavin and me. I don’t want to feel like there’s money hanging between us, even though I was the one who suggested it yesterday.

Was that only yesterday? It feels like a lifetime has passed.

My breath catches as Gavin continues to smolder at me. If looks could take action, this one he’s giving me would be a ravishing one. I’d like to do a lot more acting and a lot less looking.

“Should I give you two a minute?” Thayden asks, and the moment between me and Gavin shatters like glass.

Embarrassed, I pull my hair into a low, messy ponytail. We’re in his parents’ kitchen. With an audience. I take deep breaths, steadying myself.

“We probably should talk,” Gavin says to me in a low voice. “Later.”

“We should.” When I look up at him, I don’t like the way his gaze has moved from smoldering and ravishing to something altogether more businesslike.

Thayden clears his throat. “One thing that would help you with custody is stability.” Thayden’s eyes flick to me, then back to Gavin. “Like, a wife. Though I know you said you’d never want one of those again.”

His words are like a pulse bomb, leveling the room with an invisible current of awkward tension.

Gavin doesn’t want to get married again?

When Gavin says nothing, nothing at all, Thayden continues. “Are you still thinking about moving here and taking the ranch over from your parents in a few years?”

What?!

Gavin doesn’t want to get married, and he plans to take over this ranch? We need to talk way more than I realized. I can feel myself hardening back into the Zoey who keeps everything under tight control. I’m panicking, wondering if I’ve misread Gavin, if I know him at all. I keep my eyes fixed on Thayden’s hands, typing on his phone.

“I honestly don’t know,” Gavin says slowly.

“About marriage? Or about the ranch?”

My eyes are going to burn a hole right through the table. Inside my sneakers, I clench my toes until my feet cramp.

“I’m … not sure what I want,”

The words aren’t directed at me, but they land a blow just the same. Gavin doesn’t know if he wants to get married again. He doesn’t know if he wants to move here to take over the ranch. I can’t help but feel like he doesn’t know if he wants me.

It’s presumptuous to consider living here, since Gavin hasn’t asked and from the sound of it, may never ask, but I think about it all the same. Could I live on this ranch, if it came to that? Would I want to give up my goals of working in marketing?

If women want to give up their careers for family, that’s a fine choice. But it has to be a choice. I feel both backed into a corner with no choices and at the same time, like I’m not being chosen.

My goals, which have driven me for years, seem oddly insignificant now in light of Ella and Gavin. My life in Austin empty compared to being around Gavin’s family, and even Patty and Nancy like two honorary grandmothers. But I can’t see myself quitting all that I’ve worked for either.

He hasn’t asked you to give anything up for him. And he might never ask, since it sounds like he doesn’t want to get married again.

The panic I felt last night before texting Sam returns with a vengeance. I was wrong to listen to her. If my head had kept a tight rein on my heart, it wouldn’t feel like it’s breaking in my chest right now.

My knees are jiggling under the table and my hands have formed fists when the door bursts open. Ella, looking every bit like the child she should be, darts in carrying a brown and white baby goat in her arms. Norah is just behind her with a bottle in hand and a giant smile plastered on her face. Patty and Nancy trail in behind her so that the kitchen is full of sound and laughter and warmth.

Yet I’m still cold where I sit.

“It’s a baby,” Ella gushes, her voice high with excitement. She glances at me, but then she stops just before Gavin, who’s closer to the door. “Look, Daddy. A baby goat and I get to feed it.”

Ella doesn’t seem to notice that she called Gavin Daddy. It clearly just slipped out. But she’s the only one unaffected.

Norah presses the fingertips of her free hand to one eye, then the other, like that’s going to hold back the flood of tears escaping. Thayden busies himself with the papers on the table, organizing them back into folders, but I see his nose twitching. I have employed the strongest poker face I have because I cannot allow anyone in this room to see how invested I am in Gavin and this girl. Especially when I don’t know what place I even have in their future.

I can’t see Gavin’s expression, but slowly, he opens his arms, and for the first time, Ella crawls into his lap. I can only see the view from the side, but that’s more than enough. It’s almost too much.

Norah hands Ella the bottle. The baby goat shuffles and squirms, eager to get its lips around the bottle.

“The mama’s dry,” Norah says. “Sometimes it just happens. They don’t have what they need to take care of their babies.”

I see her words for what they are. She’s trying to make the room lighter somehow, trying to keep Ella from taking note of how the air in the room has shifted with the one word. But it’s had the opposite effect on me. Maybe they shouldn’t, but the words strike a weird chord in my chest, a melancholy one.

The low note reverberates, a growing whisper of panic rising into a shout in my mind as Gavin brushes Ella’s hair away from her face in the most tender of moves.

I don’t have what I need to take care of this child. I don’t have what Gavin needs in a partner. Not that it sounds like he wants one. But if he did, I’m ill-equipped, unprepared, and unqualified for the role of mother figure, and therefore for relationship material. Way too young for all this. It’s way too early in my career to give it up.

Fear tightens its grip around my chest and I’m stiff with it, afraid that if I move, I’ll break into a million tiny pieces.

Conversation continues to flow around me like water, and I realize that Thayden has packed up his briefcase, hugged Norah, and taken a plastic container with what looks to be homemade cookies.

“Great to see you again, Zoey,” he says, and I swear, it’s like he’s the only one in the room who still sees me because everyone is so focused on Gavin and Ella.

“Gavin, I’ll be in touch soon. Thank you, as always, for your hospitality, Norah.”

As Thayden makes his way out the back door, I see my chance for escape.

Calm down, Zoey. Just chill. This is stupid. Childish.

But I can’t convince myself. I can’t quell the panic. I remember my own mother at eight, brushing my hair at night, singing me to sleep, helping me with homework. In my memory, she is beautiful and otherworldly, so much older than I am now. Wise, with crinkles around her eyes when she smiles, and a few gray hairs starting at her temples.

I leave the room, and thankfully, no one notices. Sprinting upstairs, I shove things in my bag, glancing out the window to watch where Thayden is going, toward one of the back fields, where there must be a landing strip. He pauses to talk to Gavin’s father, giving me the time I need to finish up.

As quietly as I can in the creaking old house, I speed down the stairs, out the front door where no one sees, and sprint to catch up with Thayden.

When I call out his name, he turns, shocked. A laugh bubbles out of him. “Zoey? What are you—”

“I need to hitch a ride back to Austin. And I need help with the contract I made to be Ella’s nanny. I can’t finish the weekend. I’ll give the money back. I just … need to go.”

For a moment, I think he’s going to protest. Or perhaps pull out that dimple and try to charm me into staying. But he must recognize the desperation and determination in my eyes, because a moment later, he nods.

“If that’s what you want.”

It’s not what I want. But it’s what I need. What Gavin needs, what Ella needs. Maybe it’s just the fear talking, and I suspect it is, but right now, I can only see one way out, and it’s this. Cutting my losses before I can lose any more of myself.

“Take me home.”