As I sat in my home office, catching up on some final last-minute work, I heard Dara’s bare feet coming down the hallway. There was a difference in sound between her and my daughter—the speed being the main one. Since the hallway was long, that gave me several seconds to prepare for her presence.

I needed each one.

And I needed to try to ing breathe.

That girl had power over me, and she didn’t even realize it.

As she came closer, nearing the doorway, I shifted my gaze away from my computer screen, anticipating that face I couldn’t get enough of.

Waiting.

She paused the second she stilled, smiling. “Do you need anything? Or can I help with anything?”

Goddamn it.

Several weeks into her employment, and she looked more beautiful every day.

She’d braided her hair, the long tail falling across her left shoulder, which was bare due to the angle of her shirt. She wore almost no makeup, aside from glossy lips that were making my hard and darkened eyelashes that were long and blinking as she stared at me.

From her looks alone, there would be another cold shower in my very near future. Since the start of Dara’s employment, my had seen much more of my palm than usual.

I pulled my hands off the keyboard, my palms falling onto a pile of folders of the accounts I would be visiting during this weeklong trip.

The one I was leaving for tomorrow morning.

A trip I was almost grateful to be going on because it would give me a break from being around her. Not that I wanted the distance, but resisting Dara Park was becoming a job of its own.

“Thank you for offering,” I said. “That’s sweet of you.”

“But …” She laughed.

“I think I have everything mostly wrapped up for the night.” I placed the folders I’d been resting on inside my briefcase and closed the top.

“Good. Now, you can relax.” As she adjusted her position, leaning her back against the frame, she crossed her arms at her stomach, showing the narrowness of her waist. “And don’t worry; she’s dead asleep. I just checked on her.”

I’d taken a brief break to tuck in my little girl and kiss her good night. That had given Dara the heavy lifting of giving her a bath and braiding her hair and reading her a story, so I could finish up my work and be able to get to bed at a decent hour.

“What time is it?” I checked the clock on my computer. “It’s ten already. .”

Two hours had passed since I’d kissed my daughter’s cheek.

I hadn’t realized I’d been in here that long.

“I know, and I’m beat.” She tucked some loose strands behind her ear. “Just an FYI, once Eve went to bed, I unpacked my things into your guest room upstairs. And when you get back, I’ll just bring them to the apartment over the garage, assuming you want me to move in.”

Where she would be staying every night.

A ten-second walk from my bedroom.

.

“Yes … I do,” I told her.

My brain couldn’t stop creating a fantasy where I captured her from the doorway, carried her to my desk, and spread her across it.

Burying my face between her legs.

Why the hell is this becoming such a tease? Why is it becoming harder to control my thoughts?

Why am I not stronger than this?

Why can’t I accept the fact that Dara is Everly’s nanny and she won’t ever be anything more?

“Perfect,” she said. Her cheeks changed to a deep red. “That’ll make things much easier when I can just walk across the garage to go to bed.”

I laughed.

I couldn’t even hold it in.

Because nothing about her moving onto my property would make things easier on my .

In fact, if I were smart, I would end her employment.

I would have my assistant start looking for a new nanny, so I wouldn’t feel so guilty about the things I wanted to do to this one.

But Everly was in love with Dara.

Things were going so well with her.

I couldn’t that up, and I certainly couldn’t find someone who would be as good with my daughter as her.

Dara is irreplaceable.

That was what I kept repeating in my head as I stared at her.

“I have to tell you something …” She bent her knee, placing her bare foot on the molding. “It actually happened a little while ago. Part of me sort of forgot about it, and part of me didn’t want to mention it to you. But it feels only right to say something.”

I leaned back in my chair, folding my arms, trying to prepare myself for whatever she was about to say. “All right.”

“Everly never talks about her mom. I don’t bring up the topic. I don’t know anything about her. But she did on this rare occasion, and I think it’s important that you know.”

I exhaled as the heaviness moved into my chest. “What did she say?”

“She said that they have the same freckles, inferring that it was something you told her, not something she observed herself.”

“They do … and you’re right.”

She shifted again, tightening her grip around her stomach, her breathing speeding up. “She also told me that her mom wasn’t ready to be a mommy.”

My head dropped, my hands going into my hair, rubbing the sides of my skull. “It’s a hard topic to discuss with a four-year-old.” When I glanced up at her, her eyes were full of emotion. “I don’t like to talk about Rebecca.”

“Jiyong, you don’t have to.”

But I did because Dara was responsible for my daughter. Therefore, she had to know at least a little of the circumstances that had surrounded that night.

“Rebecca and I had a one-night stand. We never bothered exchanging numbers; we made no attempt to go out again. Forty weeks later, when Everly was three days old, Taeyon showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night. She told me she was going to abort her and couldn’t follow through. She was then going to put her up for adoption and didn’t do that either.” I took a breath, the pain in my chest so present. “She handed the baby to me and told me she wanted nothing to do with our child, and that was the last time she ever saw her daughter in person.”

“Oh my God.” Her hand was flat on her heart, her voice not any louder than a whisper. “I don’t … know what to say.”

I was silent for a few seconds. “Everly doesn’t know. One day, she will, but not until I’m positive it won’t destroy her.”

She took a moment to respond, finally saying in a shaky voice, “She’ll think it’s her fault. That she had done something to cause her mother to abandon her.”

As she announced my fear, it was as though she’d turned the knife that was already stabbed in my chest.

“And it’s far from her fault,” I confessed. “But it’ll take time and probably some therapy for Everly to understand that.”

Hell, it had been four years, and I still couldn’t understand it.

I cross