Page 25 of The Billionaire's One-Night Stand Nanny
CHAPTER15
Ryan
“How is the job search going?”I cringed.
It was Friday. Maddie had run up to her room for a forgotten accessory–tweens–and left Flora and I alone on the front steps of my home. We stood side by side, and the silence as I waited for Daniel, and she for Maddie to return, had been growing more and more heavy until I was forced to break it.
Withsmall talk.
Had we really come to that?
And by the way she flinched, it wasn’t the pleasant type of small talk either.
“Still sending in applications,” she said, and left it at that. She grasped her hands in front of her, picking at one thumb’s cuticle with the thumb of her other hand.
I nodded.Not good, then.
My Town Car pulled up to the curb. “You want a ride anywhere?” I asked. “I have a few minutes until I’m late.” I did. Ever since I almost kissed Flora that night after my work dinner, I’d been coming out here to wait for my chauffeur rather than taking the risk of hanging around for those few minutes in the kitchen. Today, my carefully laid avoidance plan had backfired.
“No, thanks,” she said. “We’re going to stop and get waffles from that fancy waffle place on the way to the park.” She grinned devilishly. I knew just the one she was talking about: the waffles came piled high with fresh whipped cream and sliced fruit–or for the less health-inclined, chocolate chips, frosting, gummy bears… I trusted Flora would steer Maddie away from strawberry frosting and toward the actual fruit.
“That’swhy Maddie didn’t eat her eggs this morning?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“Don’t tell her I told you,” she whispered. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”
Her smile lingered behind my eyelids as I closed my eyes in the back of the Town Car, bringing my travel tumbler up for a sip without looking. She was so good. I wished I could offer her a position as Maddie’s nanny for the fall, for the school year, but I knew I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be full-time, just after school for a few hours a day, and no one could live on that income, even if I doubled the rate I was paying her–again.
And also there was the inconvenient fact that I didn’t know if I could stay away indefinitely.
Just three months, I told myself again and again. It was just three months–then eleven weeks, then ten, nine, eight. As the spring chill faded and the summer heat crept in around the edges, sneaking under the collar of my pale blue dress shirt, that deadline was the only thing keeping me going. Today was Friday: another week down. The weekends brought a confused tangle of emotions: relief that I wouldn’t have to see Flora for two days, frustration that I wouldn’tgetto. I was supposed to be focusing on Maddie, as I’d always done, but it was hard to be fully appreciative of our weekends together when the girl in question was constantly redirecting my thoughts toward her new favorite person: her nanny.
I skipped Bankworth night, still feeling guilty about last time.Sorry, I have Maddie,I sent to the group when Charlie sent me a text full of question marks.
No nanny?he asked.
She was inescapable.
She have a hot date tonight?Barrett added, and my gut clenched. Did she? I had no right to her, but the very idea of her with another man made my stomach twist with jealousy.
You just want her spending money at your restaurants,James said.
I thought of Barrett’s restaurants: he had that brunch spot, but she wouldn’t go there on a date. But Mignon… Barrett’s group had just acquired it, a cozy, intimate French spot, bistro-style. Not too fussy, but still elegant. Two glasses of wine on the white tablecloth, and Flora’s face, cast in flickering candlelight, smiling at a man who wasn’t me. My grip on my phone turned tight.
“Can we get pizza, Dad?”
I tossed my phone aside, looking up at Maddie, who was smiling across the kitchen island at me. No low lighting, no candles, no wine, just me, my daughter, and delivery pizza. Just how it had always been.
“That sounds perfect.” I didn’t feel like cooking. I didn’t feel much like eating, if I was honest, not with my stomach knotted up like it was.
“Thanks. And…” She hesitated, biting her lower lip.
“What is it, ladybug?”
“You promise you won’t be mad?” she asked, and all thoughts of Flora vanished.
“You know you can tell me anything,” I said. Her brown eyes–myeyes looking out of her face–were serious.
“Well…” she said, pressing her lips together. “I wanted to know if you’re paying Flora two thousand dollars.”
