Page 18 of The Nanny and the Nerd
“We…I…muscly…Pacman…yes.” Penelope shook her head as if she needed to clear the cobwebs from her brain. “Yes, we’ve met,” she replied, regaining her ability to articulate a cohesive thought. Her eyes welled with mortification as her gaze bounced first to him, then to Jerome, before resting on the damn alien—as if the make-believe space-killer could get her out of this predicament.
“This is great! Ms. Malone spoke highly of you, Penny,” Jerome said warmly, then turned to him. “I’ve collected your things.” He gave him his satchel containing his laptop. “And we don’t want to forget about this,” he finished, dipping behind the empty receptionist station and retrieving a bag. He handed it to a positively befuddled-looking Penelope.
She stared at it as if Jerome had given her a hand grenade. She peered over the lip of the bag. “What is all this?”
“A phone, a tablet, a laptop, and a smartwatch. The tech items you’ll need to work as a nanny for Mr. Gale,” Jerome supplied, counting off the bag’s contents on his fingers.
“Wow,” Penny answered, employing the least enthusiasticwowever uttered. You’d think someone with a cell phone from 1995 would show a touch more gratitude.
“And you better go. I just got off the phone with Phoebe’s teacher. It’s a good thing you’re here, Penny. This sounds like a meeting you should also attend,” Jerome added.
“Me?” the woman stammered.
His assistant patted her shoulder. “Yes, of course, since you’ll be caring for Phoebe along with Rowen.”
Holy sensory overload!
This woman would be living in his house, sleeping one door down and showering in…
He was so screwed!
Penelope glanced at the bag and then at the door as he went into internal freak-out mode.
Was she about to quit before she’d even started? Was she currently contemplating how quickly she could ditch the bag of tech and clickity-clack it out of here in those boots?
He willed himself to slow down. It had been ages since he’d let someone get to him.
And he could not lose control.
He’d carefully crafted a life that cut his actual human encounters to a minimum. But now, he had to deal with nannies and teachers and life outside of his comfort zone.
And speaking of teachers, what could Phoebe have done…this time?
Whitmore Country Day Elementary School was one of the best private schools in Denver. He couldn’t have his niece getting kicked out. They wouldn’t do that, would they? She was six!
Jerome glanced at his phone. “You should get going. It was nice meeting you, Penny! I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other,” he added before heading up the stairs.
Rowen closed his eyes and pictured the tasks before him.
Number one: Get Phoebe squared away with school, then address the nanny situation.
Number two: Untangle the AI-77 catastrophe. His mind systematically turned over the possible coding errors and how they could tweak the narrative. “Jerome!” he called.
“Yes, boss?”
“Tell everyone I’ll be online in a few hours. Let them know that I’ll need them to bust their asses and get AI-77 running in the beta version. I can troubleshoot from there. I don’t care if we have to work all night.”
“Got it,” the assistant answered, sprinting the rest of the way up.
Rowen opened the door, and the spring breeze gusted into the vestibule. “Let’s go. The sooner we leave, the sooner I can get back to work.”
Penelope charged past him, then spun on her heel and scowled as the sunlight caught her hair in a blond halo. But her expression was anything but angelic.
Five
Rowen
He braced himself.This wasn’t going to be pretty.
