“I don’t need the fucking nanny, Heidi.”

“You want the summer? You’re taking the nanny.”

Elijah Vance raked a hand back through his hair and met his ex-wife’s obstinate blue eyes in her bathroom mirror as she applied a coat of shimmering red lipstick. He couldn’t help but think she was deliberately calling attention to that particular feature at this particular moment, but she had to know her beauty had ceased being a weapon she could use against him long ago. Anyway, he was too pissed off. She was getting ready to go out with her movie-star boyfriend right now, but this time Eli hadn’t let her walk away from the conversation he’d tried to instigate a dozen times already.

“The boys aren’t any trouble,” he said. “I don’t even see why you need the nanny. It’s just something else you can spend my money on.”

Heidi let her hand fall away from its task in exasperation. It wasn’t the best tactic to take, maybe, but any mention of his money always got her attention. “Excuse me?”

“The only time I’ll be away from them is the hour and a half I’ll be onstage. That’s it. They’ll be right there watching, and the rest of the time, I’ll be hanging out with them. That’s the whole point of this. The nanny—” He broke off. Hell, what was her name? He could never remember. She was always in the background, quiet and sometimes bespectacled, walking the requisite ten steps behind so the paps wouldn’t catch her in a shot and imply to the rest of the world that Heidi Vance couldn’t handle her own two children. “Whatever her name is. She won’t be needed. She’ll be useless.”

Heidi turned from the mirror to look at him directly, sneering. “Iris is her name, and she’ll be far from useless, considering all the time you’ll spend fucking groupies.”

Eli clamped his jaw tight. He supposed after all these years Heidi still knew how to get his attention, too. “I won’t be fucking groupies,” he grumbled.

“Aw. They’ll be so disappointed to hear it.”

“They’ll have to be.”

Aesthetic Ruin’s tours weren’t about the stereotypical rock lifestyle any longer. Because Eli—and hopefully the rest of the guys in the band—was more concerned with living than partying. After fifteen years they’d probably all done enough damage to their bodies, and as far as groupies . . . there was only so much pussy one could look at before one began to feel that one had seen them all.

Though he supposed the older, jaded rock star was as stereotypical as the hard partying one. Jaded. Jaded. Sounds better than “washed up.” Although he didn’t put himself into that category yet, and neither did his hardcore fans, there were plenty of assholes on the Internet who did. But they didn’t know shit.

Now, it was all about the music for him. The rush he didn’t get any other way. The crowds. It was the only drug he would allow himself. He had Seger and Dylan looking up to him now, and they were eleven and nine, respectively. That magical stage of life where a kid missed absolutely nothing. He’d let them down enough in years past; he didn’t plan on doing it again. Ever.

“Look, Iris is great and I trust her,” Heidi said, her tone reaching a more reasonable pitch. “I won’t worry so much about the boys being on tour without me if you take her with you. You know how things can happen in the blink of an eye.”

“And supernanny Iris never blinks, I take it.” All he needed was his ex-wife’s flunky on his ass all the time.

“No. She doesn’t.”

Great.

Eli sighed. There probably wasn’t any way he was getting out of this. Heidi was giving up her own kid time to let him take the boys on tour, though he doubted that was any great sacrifice on her part. The least he could do was indulge her on this one thing, right?

But he was so sick and fucking tired of letting her win.

“And it’ll be easier on you,” she went on. “Iris knows their schedules, knows their needs, keeps up with all of Dylan’s allergies. Hang out with them all you want and let her handle the hard stuff. What’s wrong with that?”

“Maybe I want to handle the hard stuff.” Unlike you, he added silently.

As if he’d said it out loud, she laughed bitingly. “Trust me, you don’t. They can be a handful.”

“Of course they can. They’re kids.” He’d always been able to grapple with the various crises better than Heidi. She was prone to meltdowns at the least disruption to her perfect life. Dylan’s allergies were a case in point. From his first anaphylactic reaction, she’d despaired over the extra work of making sure he didn’t eat what he shouldn’t, mainly tree nuts and shellfish. The one and only time he’d been stung by a bee, he puffed up like the Michelin man, so they made the list too. A dog or cat in the vicinity would have him itchy and wheezing for hours, so pets were out. “I know everything Dylan needs as well as you do.”

“Eli, just do this. What am I supposed to do with the girl for two months while the kids are away?”

“Give her the time off. I’m sure she would appreciate it. What the fuck am I supposed to do with her for two months?”

“I want her wherever the boys are.” It was Heidi’s and that’s that tone.

“The boys are going to be on the bus with me.”

“Then she’s on the bus with you.”

“Like hell she will be.”

“Goddamn it, E. The kids are her job. Let her go along and I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Do you really think she’ll thank you for forcing her into tour life when she’s used to all this?” He swept his arm to encompass Heidi’s lavish home. His former home.

She ignored the comment, going back to painting her face. “She tutors Seger.”

“It’s summer.”

“And he struggles all year. An hour a day isn’t going to cut into your precious time too much.”

All right, he could give her that one. “And Seger goes for that?”

“Newsflash: those boys love her. She has a way with them. You’ll see.”

Her voice held that self-assured triumph that always rankled him. How was he supposed to get quality time in with the boys when he had a fucking nanny tagging along?

By leaving her ass on the bus or in her hotel room, he decided, stalking across his former bedroom, leaving Heidi to get ready in his former bathroom . . . probably to roll with her boyfriend across Elijah’s former bed. The thought made bile rise in his throat.

But he wouldn’t give two fucks what she did as long as the—as long as Iris stayed out of their way. And as long as he could be assured she wasn’t running to her employer to blab about everything she saw on the road. Not that he intended to raise hell (too much), but the thought crawled under his skin and itched. He didn’t need Heidi’s eyes following him everywhere he went, her ears listening to everything he said.

Fuck. That.

He snatched the bedroom door open. Iris, limbs flailing, tumbled forward and damn near knocked him to the floor. By reflex, his arms went around her to keep her from taking him down with her. Wide blue eyes blinked up at him.

Even the one second he held her was long enough to catalog a myriad of sensation: the softness of a breast, the silken brush of her hair, the strength of her hands as she pushed and struggled against him as if he were burning her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled once he’d leveled her up to her own two feet again, fixing the glasses that had been knocked askew. “I was just . . .” Eavesdropping, he thought. It had already begun. “I was coming to see if you needed anything else, Heidi,” she called toward the bathroom.

“No, that’ll be all today, Iris. Elijah has stopped by to take the boys for the night. Thank you.”

“At least she thinks I’m capable for a single night,” he muttered. Heidi had missed Iris’s grand entrance. He was sure if he pointed it out, she would roll her eyes and tell him he was being ridiculous. But the woman’s weight had been solid against the door. He’d felt it.

Iris didn’t comment on what he’d said, and Eli assessed her through narrowed eyes. Her face, small and heart-shaped, was a blank slate, and her lustrous black hair caught the soft overhead light in a perfect halo. She was a little thing, the tiny body he’d felt flush against him completely hidden underneath a loose pink T-shirt and jeans.

She caught his assessment and quickly looked away, blushing before his very eyes as she adjusted her glasses again, looking more librarian than nanny. A damn pretty librarian. He was surprised Heidi tolerated it.

“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, then!” Iris called cheerily, then beat a hasty retreat out into the hallway. Eli gave her a few seconds’ head start and followed, just in time to see her round the corner ahead and fly down the stairs at warp speed. As she reached the ground floor, she called, “Bye, boys!” to Seger and Dylan in the living room. He heard his sons chorus their goodbyes back at her amid exclamations about the video game they were playing.

“Wait,” Eli said.

Iris froze, her hand on the front door handleset, and slowly turned to look up at him as he descended the curving stairs at his own lazy pace. “Yes?”

Once at the bottom, Eli cast a glance into the living room, at his sons with their dark heads together in front of the TV. He gestured for Iris to follow him into the study off the foyer. Leading the way, he opened the door for her and shut it behind them after she entered timidly. A whiff of scent followed her, something sweet and floral. He tried not to breathe it in as she turned to face him, blue eyes wary behind her glasses, but it teased at his senses nonetheless.

And that pissed him off.