took a croissant. “I don’t like them.”
“So, you’re going to have a dress code?”
“No. A uniform would be a dress code. I don’t want Amelia to feel like she’s in an institution.”
“A uniform is only a dress code if it’s not optional. By banning uniforms you are, in fact, instituting a dress code.”
“You’re being deliberately obtuse. The nanny can wear anything she wants.”
“Unless it’s a uniform.”
Devin tore into her croissant. “Nobody wants to wear a uniform.”
Lucas selected a grape. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“I liked the one with the braid,” said Devin. She took a sip of the hot coffee. “I think her name was Beverly.”
Lucas’s phone rang. He checked the number and then pushed a button, turning his attention back to Devin. “She seemed disorganized to me.”
“How so?”
“First off, she was late. And then that big, ugly orange purse with—”
“You’re giving demerits for style?” “You did.”
Static crackled on the baby monitor. A man’s muffled voice came over the speaker. The words were indistinct, but Devin felt her entire body go cold. The man spoke again. Steve.
She swore out loud, jumped up and shoved her chair out of the way. It clattered to the floor of the deck.
She took off running through the great room, down the hall to the foyer and the main staircase, while Lucas called out her name, rushing behind her.
She pounded up the stairs and sprinted down the hall. Then she rounded the corner to find two male staff members chatting outside Amelia’s nursery. The doors to both rooms were closed, and the men looked up in surprise at Devin’s entrance.
She quickly brushed passed them and cracked open the nursery door.
Amelia was sound asleep and completely alone.
“Is everything all right, ma’am?” one of the men asked.
“Devin?” Lucas’s voice came from the end of the hall.
Devin’s heart was pounding and her lungs drew in deep breaths. She gathered her wits. “Everything’s fine.”
Lucas marched forward.
“Can you please excuse us?” he asked the two men. They quickly withdrew.
“What the hell?” Lucas demanded, voice low. “You’re white as a ghost.”
“It’s okay,” Devin gasped. The men’s voices outside the nursery had obviously been picked up by the monitor. “What happened?”
“I thought—” she began, wondering how much to tell him. She realized she was going to sound like a hysterical idiot. But she couldn’t come up with anything to replace the truth.
“You thought what?”
“Steve was here,” she admitted.
Lucas’s brows knit together in obvious confusion. “You thought Steve was here?”
“No,” Devin corrected. “Steve was here. Earlier. I came out of the nursery and found him in my room.”
Lucas’s brows drew together. His eyes went stormy, and his mouth thinned.
“He seemed annoyed that you’d stayed over at my place. He knew you were there all night, and—”
“Hold on a minute,” Lucas interrupted. “Did he tell you that, or did you tell him? “
“He told me.” Devin resented the implication that she’d rushed to Steve with the news. Then again, why should Lucas trust her any more than she trusted him?
She continued, suddenly wanting to get the whole story out. “Then he said he had tried to make this easy for me. I got the impression he wasn’t going to make it easy for me anymore. I didn’t know what he meant. But then I heard a man’s voice.” She paused. “On the baby monitor. And for a minute, I thought.”
“You thought Steve might harm Amelia?”
“I thought he’d come back. Beyond that, I didn’t know what to think.”
Lucas wrapped a large, warm hand over her shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. “Steve is not going to hurt Amelia.”
Devin nodded, but it was only to be agreeable. Her radar was up when it came to Steve. If she had her way, he’d never be near Amelia again.
“I mean, even if he would, which believe me, he wouldn’t. He’s a jerk, but he’d never go that far. We’ll increase security, Devin. We can get Amelia a bodyguard instead of a nanny if it makes you feel better.”
Devin closed her eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath.
“Okay?” he asked.
She gave a jerky nod.
His hand tightened on her shoulder, and the next thing she knew, she was being drawn into his embrace.
“It’s going to be fine,” he promised her in a gruff voice.
His arms felt wonderfully strong as they wrapped around her. His chest felt broad and solid against her cheek. And though she knew depending on Lucas was the most dangerous thing she could do, for just a moment, she let herself sink into his strength.
Lucas couldn’t bring himself to believe that Steve was a real danger to Amelia. But he was beyond furious with him for approaching and intimidating Devin. And he’d done it right here in the mansion. The man’s audacity knew no bounds.
Lucas had immediately contacted Theodore Vick, the Demarcos’ head of security and assigned extra full-time protection to Devin and Amelia. He’d also talked to Byron about Steve pulling his legal support from Devin and what it could mean. Despite his down-home manner, Byron was a shrewd strategist, with an impressive network of contacts and a gift for sleuthing out information. If anyone could ferret out Steve’s new plan, it was Byron.
Now, Byron appeared in the doorway of Lucas’s office on the lower floor of the mansion.
“Anything?” asked Lucas without preamble. He’d spent the morning trying to focus on a problem with new high-tech foreign ownership regulations in Sweden. But he hadn’t had much success forgetting about either Devin or Steve.
Byron shut the door behind him and entered the room. “Did Steve’s mama drop him on his head when he was a baby?” he asked conversationally.
Lucas wasn’t sure how to interpret that question, so he didn’t offer an answer.
“If not, she should have,” said Byron.
