Fearless In Love (The Maverick Billionaires, Book 3) (3 page)

Her favorite would be licking Rocky Road ice cream off
him
. A wave of heat rolled through her, and her legs moved restlessly as she tried not to breathe heavily.

“As long as it’s not SpaghettiOs or chicken nuggets, I’m good.” She said it with a laugh, but all joking aside, those had been her diet staples as a kid.

“There’s not a single SpaghettiO or chicken nugget in the house.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”

Once they’d hung up, she relived the conversation like the silly teenager she’d never been, weaving it into a crazy, sweet fantasy. Come Sunday, she’d be nothing but professional.

But tonight, she would let herself dream…

Seated beside Ari at the dinner table on Sunday evening, Matt realized just how exquisite torture could get.

“This is definitely not SpaghettiOs,” she said with a laugh as she sliced into the moist salmon filet.

“What’s spaghetto?” Noah asked.

Matt dragged himself back onto the same spatial plane as his son, feeling yet another kick of guilt at his overtly sensual thoughts. The three of them were seated in the dinner nook, an annex off the kitchen with a swing door between. The formal dining room could seat thirty-six, but he used it only for holidays and business parties.

Ari was the first nanny who’d wanted to join them for dinner. The others preferred the hour off from their duties.

“SpaghettiOs are little round
O
s of pasta and sauce in a can,” she explained.

“Can I have some spaghettos?” Noah’s speech was exceptional for his age, with no childish lisp even on difficult letters, but he couldn’t seem to wrap his tongue around the word.

Matt sure didn’t plan on eating canned spaghetti. He’d left that kind of food behind when he’d gotten the hell out of the rough part of Chicago. Ari had left it behind too. But SpaghettiOs and chicken nuggets said a lot about where she’d grown up. The same kind of place he had. He could only hope it was nowhere near as bad.

“Well,” Ari said, scooping up more broccoli, salmon, and rice pilaf. “Spaghetti is a lot better with homemade sauce that has good things in it like bell peppers, mushrooms, and onions.”

Noah screwed up his face. “Onions are yucky.”

Ari dropped her jaw, and her pretty hazel eyes went wide. Matt was as caught by the slashes of topaz in the depths of her irises as he was by her scent, something light and floral.

She shook her head in amazement. “Onions make everything taste better. And garlic.”

“Ewww.” Noah wrinkled his nose with disgust.

“Don’t you like pizza?”

He nodded. “Cookie makes pizza the best.”

“Our cook,” Matt explained. “She’s Russian with a pretty complicated-sounding last name. So she asked us to call her Cookie.”

Giving Matt a little smile of thanks for the explanation, Ari turned back to Noah. “I bet Cookie puts onions and garlic in her pizza sauce.”

“Really?” Noah raised his eyebrow in a gesture that should have been too old for a five-year-old boy to pull off. But he was rather advanced, if Matt said so himself.

“Yep. Now you better finish your yummy salmon. Because it’s
so
good.” She forked another bite, savoring it with a purr. “Eat up.”

While Matt could barely keep his libido under control from just sitting at the same table with her, Noah did as he was told, making yum-yum sounds the way she had.

When Ari laughed, delight sparkling in her eyes, Matt knew he’d been an idiot to think he had things under control. It didn’t matter that she was sweet and innocent and ten years younger than he. His thoughts weren’t brotherly, fatherly, or even boss-y. Everything she said captivated him and mesmerized him, as easily as she charmed Noah.

Desperate to get his mind off her charms, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a new smartphone, setting it by her plate. “I’d like you to use this.” When she didn’t immediately reach for it, he added, “You said you can’t get texts on your phone, but if I’m in a meeting where I can text but not talk, I need to be able to get hold of you when, where, and however I can.”

She finally picked it up. “I must be the last person in Silicon Valley who doesn’t know how to use one of these.”

“I’ll show you,” Noah offered.

She grinned at him. “Thank you.”

“You can switch your number over and transfer your contacts,” Matt added. “Of course, you’re free to use it for personal calls as well.”

“Thank you,” she said again. Then she waggled the phone at Noah. “We can use this on our adventures to look up the names of birds and check out maps. Cool, huh?” Noah nodded enthusiastically.

Matt liked that she didn’t take anything for granted. He’d known plenty of people who took without even a thank-you, but she was unique in so many ways. God help him, he wanted to explore her uniqueness in every way he could…

Daniel was going to
kill
him for his thoughts. And Matt’s foster mother, Susan, would be appalled.

“So, Noah,” she said, “I’ve been planning all the fun things we can do together. Have you ever seen a dinosaur?”

“In a movie. It was real scary.” Noah’s eyes were wide and round.

“Movie dinosaurs can be scary because they roar.” She roared and Noah laughed.

Matt’s heart squeezed. Watching his son laugh always made him catch his breath with wonder. He loved the kid so damn much.

“There’s a dinosaur skeleton at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park that is so awesome, you’re going to fall in love with dinosaurs.” She looked at Matt. “It’s kind of expensive, but the membership is tax deductible.”

He couldn’t believe she was actually considering his expenses. Didn’t she know just how much money he had? It wasn’t like when he was a kid and he went to the museum only on the rare days when they opened it up to the public for free. But he realized that she’d probably used the free days too. “A membership is great. But you don’t have to worry about ticket prices. I have enough money for whatever activities you think Noah would like.”

“That doesn’t mean I should waste it when it makes more sense to get a family membership we can use for a year.”

Family.
Matt knew how lucky he was to have Noah and the Mavericks as his family. Will, Sebastian, Evan, and Daniel were his blood brothers not by birth but by adversity. Bob and Susan, Daniel’s parents, had taken them all in as teenagers when they needed it most, providing the love and nurturing none of them had found at home. There was Lyssa too—something told Matt that she and Ari would become fast friends. Will had fallen in love with Harper and her brother, Jeremy, and Sebastian was head over heels for Charlie and her mother. Only Evan’s wife, Whitney, had never felt like family. Nor had any of Matt’s nannies. But he could see Noah falling under Ari’s spell.

Matt couldn’t allow himself to do so as well.

Pushing his plate away, he propped his elbows on the table, fingers laced. “What else do you have planned?” None of the previous nannies had suggested outings.

Ari mimicked him, pushing away a plate so clean that not even the parsley garnish on the salmon was left. “Do you like the zoo, Noah?”

He bobbed his head, trailing his child-size fork through the remains of his salmon and broccoli. “Gorillas are my favorite.”

“Me too.” She grinned. “How about mummies?”

“Aren’t they scary?”

“No, at least not the ones at the mummy museum. And later in the year we can visit the elephant seals at Año Nuevo.”

“Is it safe for kids?” Matt had heard the giant bulls could move amazingly fast.

“The docents keep you out of the way of the fighting males.” She patted his hand to put him at ease, and though the touch was light and easy, heat spread like wildfire through him. She didn’t seem to notice his reaction as she asked Noah, “Have you ever walked across the Golden Gate Bridge? We could even ride bikes.”

“Noah’s still got his training wheels,” Matt cautioned as Cookie barreled through the swing doors to remove their empty plates.

“That was delicious, Cookie. Thank you.”

The matronly woman’s lined face creased in an answering smile. She’d been with them since Noah was born. “You are welcome, miss. We have ice cream for dessert.”

“Yes!” Noah enthused in his little-boy voice.

Ari laughed and Matt joined her, her humor infectious. She was like a fever heating up beneath his skin.

“I will be right back.” Cookie marched out in her soft-soled shoes. Noah jumped up with his usual enthusiasm and, almost on Cookie’s heels, ran into the kitchen to help.

“Does she live in too?”

“She’s got a huge family, and her husband wouldn’t hear of it.” He didn’t have a maid staff either, just a cleaning company that came in once a week. Which meant it would be just the three of them. All alone. With only Noah’s bedroom between his and Ari’s.

Every cell inside Matt burned hotter.

“It might be fun if Noah met my friend’s little boy sometime. They could play together. Is that okay with you?”

He glanced at the swing door, the sound of Noah’s laughter seeping through the crack. “I should explain a bit about Noah. He’s shy around new kids. He’s a cerebral boy, likes books and building Legos.”

“I loved books when I was a kid. I still do. That’s a good thing.”

“I loved them too.” Books had saved him in a lot of ways. But his bookwormish ways had also left him prey to other kids, and to his father. As a kid, Matt had been belittled for his brainiac ways. It was one of his worst fears that the same thing would happen to his son. “Not all kids understand that.”

“Jorge’s a great reader. They’ll have a lot in common.”

“Yes, but—”

She put her hand on his, as easily as she had when she’d reassured him about the elephant seals. It had the same effect, like a charge shooting through him, lighting up his body. But this was about Noah.

“Did something happen that has you worried?”

Matt had always been careful to hold his cards close to his chest when it came to personal information. But maybe telling Ari about the incident would help her appreciate why he was so intent on protecting Noah.

“It was in preschool last year.” He’d just lost another nanny, and he’d picked up Noah that day. “I thought at first he was reading in the classroom with the other kid since they both had their hands on a book.” He’d hung back out of sight, glad that Noah was making friends. Then, in barely a blink of his eyes, it turned ugly. “The kid slapped the book out of Noah’s hands, making fun of the story he was reading.”

He almost shuddered, remembering the kid’s words.
Only sissies read books like that.
And he’d heard his father’s voice.
Only little weenies keep their noses buried in books.

“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry for Noah.” Ari’s hand was still on his, helping to keep him in the present.

“The worst was the kid’s mom. None of them saw that I was there yet, and Noah”—he had to smile at the memory—“told her that her kid was really mean.” Then he imitated Noah’s big-boy voice. “
And that’s not right
.”

“Yay for Noah. But how did the mom react?”

“She had the gall to say that if he hadn’t been reading a book meant for girls, it wouldn’t have happened. That was when I finally stepped into the room and she realized I’d seen and heard it all.” He’d wanted to charge in and shake the woman like she was a rag doll, until all her stuffing fell out. It had taken all his control not to yell at her and her rotten little kid. Not to be like his father. Because he
never
yelled in front of Noah. “I told her I needed a private word with her. And then I made it clear that she’d better never let her kid near mine again. The next day, I found out they’d transferred to another school.”

“You did good, Matt.” When she squeezed his hand lightly and smiled, he was amazed to feel the tension begin to drain out of him at her warm approval. “Although, I must admit I would have liked to see the other kid’s mom trembling in her high heels when you took her down.” She finally removed her hand from his as she asked, “And now you’ve got me really curious—what was Noah reading?”

Trying not to let himself miss her touch, he said, “
Purplicious
.”

“Noah has good taste in books. And I love how he handled himself.”

Matt’s stress instantly flooded back. “I shouldn’t have let it get that far. He should never feel belittled.”

“Of course not. But he was still pretty amazing, standing up to an adult like that.”

Matt had to tip his head to the side to stare at her, like a movie robot who didn’t understand humans. He hadn’t, not even for one minute, thought of it that way before. “You’re right, he did handle himself pretty well.” And Noah hadn’t exhibited lasting effects, thankfully. So maybe, with Ari’s supervision, a day with her friend’s son might actually be good for him. “You said Jorge likes to read?”

“Voraciously.”

“What about playing with Legos?”

“How do you think I became a master?” she replied with a grin.

Noah pushed through the door with a bowl of ice cream. Cookie followed with two more.

“What do you think, buddy?” Matt asked. “Would you like to meet Ari’s little friend Jorge?”

“Yes!”

Ari’s laugh did things to his insides. It wasn’t just her pretty face or her lovely, lithe figure. It was her liveliness with Noah, her freshness, her love of life, her exuberance, her try-anything attitude.

Then again, those were some of the same qualities that had first drawn him to Noah’s mother.

And that had ended in disaster.

Matt and Noah gave Ari a tour after dinner, and the house was even more mind-boggling than it had initially seemed. The upper floor overlooked the front hall with a wide balustrade and was ringed by eight bedrooms, each with its own bathroom and sitting area. Matt said he wanted plenty of space for his family when they visited. Ari’s room included a desk and a computer, though she’d brought her own laptop—and, best of all, a whirlpool tub.

The main floor consisted of the living room she’d interviewed in, complete with a grand piano; a formal dining room; and the kitchen, containing a huge pantry and a walk-in fridge. Matt displayed his favorite art in a special room, and Noah had his own playroom with lidded boxes full of toys, a chalkboard, and erase board. The great room came with all the latest entertainment equipment and a sun porch that opened on to the pool, the hot tub, and Noah’s playground.