Page 14 of The Billionaire's One-Night Stand Nanny
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The worst part was that she wasreally damn good.
“Have you been to the castle, Maddie?” she asked. We’d been wandering through the park for half an hour, not really doing anything, just walking. I was keeping my mouth shut, in part to let Maddie and Flora get acquainted, in part because I didn’t want to get my foot stuck in it as I had earlier. “It’s my favorite spot in the park.”
“Me too!” Maddie squealed, as I knew she would. It was easy to see why a little girl would love Belvedere Castle: a miniature castle, perched atop a rocky outcrop in the middle of a forest in the middle of the city? EvenIcould understand the magic of it, and had spent many hours listening to Maddie make up stories about its former occupants. Someday she’d learn no royalty had ever lived there, but it wouldn’t be me who told her. She’d whispered to me once, very serious, that she herself was going to live there as an adult. “When I was little,” Maddie giggled to Flora as we turned in the castle’s direction, “I thought that it was real. Isn’t that funny?” My chest pinched, and somewhere behind my eyeballs stung, just for a moment. I brought a hand up and ran it through my hair, taking a deep breath. God, she was growing up faster than I knew.
“...but Sadie at school told me it’s not, it’s just a museum or something. I mean, Iknewit was a museum, but I thought itusedto be a real castle, with a princess,” Maddie was saying as I tuned back into their conversation.
“I think they use the building to measure the weather,” Flora said. “Rainfall and wind speed and that kind of thing. But,” she added, pitching her voice low and musical, “even if it isn’t arealcastle, it’s still acastle, and that makes it the best place in the park. I can show you the bench that I like to sit and read on, with a view of it. It would probably be a good spot for sketching, too. Can’t you just imagine someone living in the Belvedere, wearing your iris dress?”
I couldn’t see Maddie’s eyes, but I could tell even from the back of her head that they would be shining: there was a bounce in her step and she had turned toward Flora, walking close to her as if they’d been friends for years, not hours. The sound of her excited descriptions carried over the low hum of traffic and birdsong and tourists’ chatter that made up the soundtrack of the park.
Flora glanced back over her shoulder at me, and she grinned. Her smile was so bright I smiled back reflexively, my heartbeat picking up, and found myself still smiling at her long after she’d turned back to Maddie, picking up whatever conversation the two of them had moved on to. Her hair swished against her cardigan as she walked, her hips swaying side to side under her skirt hypnotically.
I was staring at her ass again.
I dragged my phone from my pocket, pulling up the contract Tally and I had drawn up for our previous nannies, and typedFlora Connellyinto the empty space markedemployee. I stared at it for a moment, my stomach twisting.Employee. I’d wanted to get Flora out of my apartment this morning, to go back to my routine life: me, my daughter, my ex-wife, my work. My friends. I’d wanted that, I reminded myself, because that was what I’dalwayswanted, ever since Tally and I divorced. It was what Ihadto want. I loved Maddie, and what I had with her mom was good.Friendly, as we always had been, even while we were married. We weren’t perfect, our little family, but we made it work, and I couldn’t do anything to upset that, especially not now that Maddie was nearly a teenager…
No, nothing was more important than Maddie, I thought, and that was why I’d hire Flora, who was so obviously a natural at the job. She’d be amazing, like she’d promised, I could already tell.
And that was also why she’d have to be completely off-limits.
I tore my gaze from her slim waist, the one my hands had fit so perfectly on either side of last night. What we’d had was fun, but it had been a one-night stand, that was all, and that was all it ever would be. I was a fool if I thought there was anything more there with Flora when even Tally and I hadn’t lasted past Maddie’s third birthday, and Maddie was my priority now.
Maddiewas the love of my life.
Flora was my daughter’s nanny, and my employee.
But still…
I scrolled down to the line markedwages, staring at the number for a moment.
I’m pretty good at accounting, I’d told Flora at the book launch, and it was true. It was how I’d earned my position as CFO of a major global bank a few years ago at only thirty-three. I glanced back up at Maddie and Flora, deep in conversation. I was still “only”thirty-six, but watching them–my ten-year-old daughter and her brand-new best friend–I felt ancient.
Flora and I had had one night, but I’d known even then that she was too young for me. As soon as she signed the contract I held in my hand, she’d officially be my employee, and untouchable. Flora would have a job, Maddie would have a nanny, and I’d go back to what I was good at: the numbers.
So there was no excuse I could offer, even to myself, when I deleted the number that had been there and typed in a new one, twice as big.
CHAPTER10
Flora
“Okay,now drop the presser foot down, and when you’re ready…”
Maddie’s face was screwed up in concentration as she slowly, slowly pressed down the pedal with one purple-socked foot. The needle plunged through the scrap of cotton we were practicing on, and Maddie yelped and stopped abruptly, pulling her fingers away from the sewing machine.
“Hey, you did it!” I said, smiling between Maddie and the single stitch she’d managed. It would pull straight out of the fabric as soon as we brought it away from the machine, but hey, baby steps–
“Don’tbabyme,” Maddie snapped, her lip curled and eyes narrowed.
I maintained my pleasant smile through sheer force of will. Two years of teaching experience had taught me a lot.
“Sorry. That wasn’t my intention. I’m just excited for you,” I said. “You know there’s a saying,a journey of a million miles starts with a single step. I feel like this is your first step–orstitch, I guess–on that million-mile journey.” She looked up at me. Her face had lost some of its defensiveness, so I continued. “AndI’llbe able to tell people that I was there for it.”
“When I’m a famous designer?” she asked, her smile growing as I nodded.
“Yep. Newspapers will interview me about what you were like as a ki– as a fledgling designer,” I corrected myself. “Now, do you want to try again? Maybe take steps two through, I don’t know, shall we go for five?”
