Page 13 of The Billionaire's One-Night Stand Nanny
I looked around the room again at the magazine pictures, the mannequin, even the scrap of fabric I’d assumed was a scarf, draped determinedly across the mannequin’s shoulders. “You want to be a designer?” I asked, and she nodded.
“I’ve been working on my sketching,” she said seriously, holding up her notebook. “Want to see?”
I recognized the expression on her face from those of my students: a fierce determination, hopeful and fragile.
“Only if you want to share them,” I said, keeping my expression serious.
She nodded and I crossed the room, looking up at Ryan before I sat down on Maddie’s bed beside her.
“I’m still practicing,” she said, flipping through the sketchbook before settling on a page. She tipped it toward me to reveal an intricate sketch of a ball gown fit for one of the fairies in the books that filled the bookshelf downstairs. I smiled. “Do you like it?” Maddie asked earnestly.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. It was. “Like a flower made into a dress. An iris, maybe,” I added, looking at the layers of carefully drawn ruffles along the skirt. The whole thing was colored in shades of purple. I glanced up from the dress to the designer to find a big grin on her face.
“That’s exactly what I wanted it to look like,” she said. “We have that kind of flower in my yard.”
“I think you have a real talent for sketching,” I said. “Do you know how to sew?”
She lifted her chin. “I’m better at sketching.” She twisted a pom pom of her purple bedspread one way, then the other.Ah. She didn’t know how, but didn’t want to admit to it. A stubborn streak then, and with an imagination, and drive. I could see how she’d scared off other nannies.
“But you have a sewing machine?” I asked. She seemed like the kind of kid who had pretty much everything she could want. I looked over at Ryan to see him watching us, lips slightly parted. He snapped his mouth shut and nodded.
“Do you know how?” Maddie asked. “Oh, would you–” She, too, looked up at Ryan. “Daddy, can Miss Flora teach me?”
He nodded once, slowly, his mouth set in a thoughtful line. “Well,” he said. “I guess if–” he hesitated, “Miss Florawill be staying, then… yes. Sewing lessons would be fine.”
I smiled gratefully at Ryan, then turned my gaze to his daughter, who was looking at me with excitement in warm brown eyes so like her father’s. The wariness of our initial meeting was gone.
“When can we start?” the girl asked. “Now?”
Adétente, I thought, and smiled. I did knowsomeFrench, after all.
CHAPTER9
Ryan
We spent the day together:me, Maddie… and Flora.
I’d planned on camping out with my daughter in the kitchen today, or maybe on the patio, her reading or sketching, me trawling the nanny sites for potential matches, the two of us just… being together. Now that Flora was here, though, and it appeared I wouldn’t be shopping for a nanny all day after all, I decamped us all to Central Park. The miniscule patio we had at our home was nothing compared to the park in late spring. It was a short walk down 79th Street to the park, and as we crossed 5th Avenue, I leaned closer to Flora, knowing that Maddie wouldn’t hear us over the traffic noise.
“You’re sure you’re okay with this?” I asked her. She looked up at me, a half-smile on her pink lips.
“I need a job. I’m not really in a position to turn one down when it falls into my lap like this,” she said, then hesitated. “That is, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.” I did–I really did–but not for the reason she was probably thinking, that I didn’t want the kind of woman who goes home with strange men for one-night stands to be my daughter’s nanny, or whatever. No, what Maddie’s nannies did in their free time was their own business, as long as it wasn’t drugs, or… orcrimes, or something.
And that was exactly the problem.
Because I could already tell that what I wanted Flora to be doing in her spare time?
It wasme.
“Idon’tmind,” I said again, more for my own benefit. “But if you’d rather not, I can…” I gritted my teeth, forcing the words out. “I can help you, you know. You shouldn’t feel obligated to take this job just because you need to– to pay your rent tomorrow. Whatever it is, I can help–”
“I don’t need yourhelp,” she hissed. We’d crossed into the park, so her voice was quiet, but I could still hear the snap in it. “Not like that. Just…” She lifted her chin in a way that reminded me uncomfortably of Maddie. “Just let me do this job. I promise, I’ll be amazing.”
Without looking at me, she walked quickly ahead to catch up with Maddie. She still wore last night’s shoes–some sort of wedge sandal thing my daughter would know the name for, but I only knew looked uncomfortable–and I had to tear my eyes away from her bare legs, the curve of her ass in her now slightly rumpled sundress.
Yeah. Amazing.
