Emma smoothed her sundress as she stepped into the sprawling mansion, the rush of air conditioning prickling her skin after the sticky summer heat outside.

At twenty-four, she’d landed the nanny position for Harlan Reed—wealthy tech CEO, single father to five-year-old Lily—because it paid obscenely well and worked around her part-time college schedule. That was what she told herself, anyway.

Six months in, she knew the truth. It was Harlan himself who kept her coming back.

Tall and broad-shouldered, with sharp gray eyes that seemed to see straight through her, he commanded his empire with the same unyielding control he brought to everything. She caught herself watching him during drop-offs...