The Ultimate Billionaire Romance Bundle

I am doing everything I can to avoid the single dad who lives next door.

Technically, it’s not next door. It’s the house across the narrow gravel path, behind the curtain of hydrangeas I keep pretending not to see.

Same porch swing swaying in the breeze. Same kitchen light glowing all night. Same pull I should ignore, the dangerous kind that feels like gravity when you’re already falling.

I stack my last two clean mugs in the cupboard of the guest house. My landlord’s message glares at me from the counter—final notice—like a dare I know I’ll lose.

Two hundred dollars left. A half-packed box shoved under the table. I was leaving tomorrow. That was the plan. Run. Start over again, the same tired cycle.

Then—three hard knocks.

Not polite. Not patient. Urgent.

My heart lurches.

I open the door.

And there he is.

Nathan fills the frame—bare feet on the stone, T-shirt inside out, hair tousled like he hasn’t slept in days. His daughter lies limp in his arms, head lolling, lips swollen, furious pink hives racing across the soft curve of her neck.

“Please.” His voice is shredded, low, raw. A single word that cuts straight through me. “She’s allergic. It’s getting worse. I didn’t know where else to go.”

Everything inside me clicks into one clean line.

“Inside,” I command, already moving. “Couch. Lay her head to the side. Good. Emma, sweetheart—”

Her breath rasps. That sound. That terrible scrape of panic against a closing throat. Her skin burns under my palm, tiny ribs straining, failing. The world narrows to a drawer, a blue cap, an orange tip.

The EpiPen cracks in my hand. “Hold her steady.”

His hands tremble. Mine don’t. Not now. Not when it matters.

“Big pinch,” I whisper, to her, to myself, to every child I’ve ever refused to lose. The EpiPen clicks, biting through her pajama pants into muscle. One, two, three. Out. Massage.

I’m counting beats, watching her chest, oxygen mask hissing soft against her face. The whole room shrinks to the fragile space between her breaths.

“Nathan,” I say, clipped, sharp. “Call 911. Pediatric anaphylaxis. Post-EpiPen. Stable for transport.”

He moves fast, voice breaking for his daughter, steel for the stranger on the line.

“It was a cookie,” he mutters to me, fist twisted in his shirt. “One stupid cookie. I couldn’t find the kit. New nanny—she moved it—”

“It’s okay.” My voice is steady though nothing about this is okay. “We’ve got her.”

A beat. Another. Then, like a locked door yielding, her chest loosens. Air slides in. A squeal becomes a wheeze. The wheeze softens. Color blooms back into her cheeks. Her lashes flutter.

“Daddy?” she croaks, small and broken.

His voice breaks on the answer. “I’ve got you.” He gathers her like he could shield her with the breadth of his body alone, burying his face in her hair. He’s shaking. I pretend not to notice.

Sirens. Blue and red flashing through the window. Medics at the door. I rattle off doses, timings, vitals, my voice brisk though my heart pounds.

Emma clings to him, eyes still on me. “It stopped hurting,” she whispers.

“It stopped,” I tell her gently, forcing the lump from my throat. “You were so brave.”

They take her, but never from his arms. The ambulance doors close. Silence drops heavy, broken only by the rustle of the hydrangeas outside, nodding like witnesses.

I clean up because it’s easier than shaking. Caps, wrappers, plastic. A graveyard on the counter. Hot water scalds my hands until the sting pulls me back into myself.

“Rachel.”

His voice stops me cold.

He’s in the doorway, barefoot on stone, shirt still inside out, eyes dark and wild. He looks like the storm that just passed—raw, wrecked, impossibly alive.

“Don’t,” I murmur, because if he thanks me, I’ll shatter. “This is why I’m here.”

He nods once. Then he steps forward, pulls something from his back pocket. An envelope—thick, cream, heavy. He places it on the table. Doesn’t push. Doesn’t plead.

“You saved my daughter’s life,” he says, voice calm now, deep, lethal.

“Now let me save yours.”