She took an unsteady breath and eased herself out of arms that were slow to relinquish her. The slight rocking of the boat didn’t help her equilibrium. “What’s really shocking is that I’d like to go downstairs with you,” she admitted because total gut honesty was required right now.
“But after I broke off with Jeremy, I made a promise I wouldn’t let anything get in the way of my goals. A man can make you lose focus. Who knows what could happen to me after a glorious day on the ocean in your arms. I—I know it would be wonderful,” she stammered, “because I’ve just had a taste of you and crave more.”
Nick’s eyes narrowed on her mouth. He might as well have started kissing her again. She had to look away or she’d fling herself back into his arms.
“Your honesty is another quality about you I admire.” Out of the periphery she watched his hard body lounge against the side of the boat. “What happened between you and Jeremy?”
“Probably the kind of thing that went wrong with you and Erica.” She’d reached the tipping point and needed distance from this man who’d caused her world to reel.
Jamie wasn’t fussing yet, but she knew his hunger had been building. She pulled him out of his carryall, then sat down and settled him in her arms to feed him.
“You mean you allowed yourself to drift into your engagement?” he asked in a benign tone.
Her head flew back. “Is that what happened to you?” she asked before she realized how revealing that question must have sounded. All along she’d been thinking Erica had to have been his grand passion because he could have had any woman he wanted.
“Why don’t we concentrate on you and Jeremy first.”
“He’s not in my life anymore.”
“Humor me anyway,” he insisted.
“Well, we met at the bank where my father does business. That was the summer before I started at Wharton. We fell in love and dated until I went away, then we relied on emails and phone calls until we could be together. I went home at every vacation opportunity. He came to see me twice.
“Last fall he asked me to marry him and gave me an engagement ring. He knew I didn’t want to get married before graduation, but when I went home at Christmas, he wanted to be married right away. No more waiting.
“I told him I would, but that we’d have to live apart while I was still away at school. That’s when he gave me an ultimatum. Either I marry him before the end of the month and stay in Lincoln, or we break up.”
The baby had finished his bottle. She pulled a receiving blanket out of the diaper bag and put it over her shoulder to burp him.
“I thought I knew him, but I didn’t. It finally came out that he didn’t want a working wife. He made enough money and wanted me to stay home so we could start a family. I told him I wanted children one day, but my education and work came first.
“I was amazed that my scholarship to Wharton meant nothing to him. He had a finance degree and aspirations to rise to the top, but didn’t take mine seriously. It’s too bad he didn’t realize I meant what I said. It would have saved us both a lot of pain. I gave him back his ring and told him goodbye.”
“Have you seen him since?”
“No.”
“He’s probably still waiting for you to change your mind.”
“Then he’s waiting in vain.”
In the silence that followed, Nick reached for his life vest and put it on. Clearly he considered this conversation over. She’d learn nothing more from him about his marriage because he’d come out here to sail.
After their brief, intimate interlude that could have ended in her making the most disastrous mistake of her life, he was ready to head out to sea, the rapture of the moment forgotten. She had the gut feeling that the invitation to join him below wouldn’t happen again on this trip or any other trips he planned in the future.
If he thought she was still feeling needy after her broken engagement and that’s why she’d been an ardent participant in what they’d just shared, then let him go on thinking it. She didn’t want him knowing her guilty secret.
To have fallen in love with her employer went against all the rules of being a nanny, but that’s what she’d done. She was madly in love with Nick Wainwright. Between him and his son, she would never be the same person again.
No one could tell her Erica Hirst hadn’t been desperately in love with him, too. You couldn’t be in his presence five minutes without wanting any love he was willing to give. If anyone had drifted into a permanent relationship—if that’s what had really happened—it would have been Nick.
Erica must have been shattered when he’d asked her for a divorce. Reese wanted to believe that the knowledge she was pregnant with Nick’s child had brought her some solace in spite of her grief. If Reese had been in her shoes, she knew she would have grieved over losing Nick.
How tragic that she’d died. Tears pricked her eyelids. She loved their beautiful boy with all her heart.
“Reese?” His voice had a deep, grating quality. “Are you all right? I didn’t mean to dredge up your pain.”
Maybe it was better he thought Jeremy was the source of her distress, but nothing could be further from the truth. She shook her head. “You didn’t. I thought you and I were having a simple conversation. Naturally our pasts would come up.” She put the baby back in his carryall. “I think your son is on the verge of falling asleep again. Where shall we put him while we’re out sailing?”
“Keep him right next to you. I’ll do all the work, but put on your life vest first.” He handed it to her.
Back to square one, the place where she’d gotten too physically close to Nick and had given in to her longings. Not this time around!
She slipped it on and fastened the straps.
“Are you ready?”
Reese nodded.
He walked to the rear of the boat and started the motor at a wakeless speed. Slowly they headed toward the water beyond the buoys. Once past them, he cut the motor and raised the white sail. A light breeze filled it and then there was this incredible rush of sensation as the boat lifted and skimmed across the water. She found it wasn’t unlike the feeling of Nick kissing her senseless.
When she was an old woman, all she would have to do was close her eyes and remember the sight of the gorgeous, powerfully built man at the helm with the wind disheveling his black hair. For a little while she would relive being crushed in his arms and invited to visit paradise with him. That kind of joy only came once.
She dreaded for the day to be over, but the time came when Nick had to take them back to the port. Twilight had fallen all around them. After they’d floated alongside the pier and he’d jumped out of the boat to tie the ropes, she rummaged in the big diaper bag for the giftwrapped package.
While he was still down on his haunches, she handed it to him.
“What’s this?”
“It’ll be Father’s Day in a few hours. Before Jamie fell asleep, he asked me to give this to you. He told me to tell you he had the most wonderful day of his life out here with his daddy.”
A stillness surrounded Nick before he undid the paper and discovered the sailboat. In the semidarkness his white smile stood out. He turned it this way and that. “The Flying NJ?”
“Yes. A Nick and Jamie partnership. He thought you might like to put it on your desk at work.”
“Reese…” He stepped back in the boat. With his hand still holding his gift, he cupped her chin with the other,