Page 15 of Bully Wolf's Nanny
The outer corner of his lip twitched slightly, before he jerked his chin towards the corridor. “Come on, we’re going into town.”
“What for?” Daisy asked, wincing slightly at the suspicion in her voice. She was his employee now. It wasn’t her place to question what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go. She just needed to obey him.
Nicolas, to his credit, didn’t seem fazed by her slightly snappy tone. “I told you at the agency. I’ll buy you anything you need. That includes decent clothes and possessions. Besides, you can decorate your rooms however you like. And for that you’ll need supplies.”
Daisy was torn between meekly nodding and a sudden urge to defend herself about her scant items. But even she could acknowledge the holes in the worn fabric of the shirt she gripped, the fraying hems.
“I thought you meant like…food, and a uniform and—and toothpaste. That sort of thing.” He rolled his eyes, and a blush rose high in her cheeks. “I just mean I don’t want you spending any money on me that you don’t need to!”
“Daisy, please let’s not do the whole martyr thing. You and I both know I’m more than capable of putting you up in Buckingham Palace without it making so much as a dent in my checking account. When I said I’d pay for anything you needed, I meant anything and everything needed for you to be comfortable and happy.”
“I know,” she argued, hurrying to finish putting things away in the drawers, “but I really don’t need all that much to be comfortable and happy.”
“Just some toothpaste?”
She blushed harder. “That’s not…I didn’t…”
He held his hands up. “Okay, how about this? I’ll open an account in your name, and put enough money in there for you to buy as much or as little as you would like. That way, you don’t have to go through the apparent pain of having to talk to me every time you visit the dentist.”
Sensing that this wasn’t an argument she would win, she instead nodded. “Okay. Fine.”
“We’re still going into town, though,” he said breezily as he left the large bedroom, “be ready in five minutes.”
As soon as he was out of sight, Daisy collapsed down onto the bed, unable to hide her naked awe at the massive room. And this one wasn’t even hers. It was Thea’s, who was busy leaning over the balcony gasping in wonder at the expanse of woodland beyond.
Daisy’s bedroom was another thing entirely. For starters, she could fit her entire old apartment into it easily, and that wasn’t including the luxurious ensuite bathroom with a marble bathtub, walk-in shower, and luxuriously fluffy towels and robes hanging from gilded hooks. The bed was enormous, the sheetssoft pink and cloudlike, the polished wooden floor scattered with various rugs and sheepskins to keep her feet warm.
But by far her favorite feature was the enormous marble fireplace opposite, sitting beneath a wall-mounted television and surrounded by inbuilt bookshelves. She could already picture herself in the cold Maine winter huddling close to it reading to her daughter, both of them wrapped tightly in a blanket and sipping hot cocoa.
For her part, Thea had already announced that she wanted to paint her bedroom walls green to match the forest, and needed six or seven more pillows on her bed so that she could easily make pillow forts.
“Mommy, where’s Gracie?” Thea asked as she traipsed back into the room. “Is she going to come into town with us?”
“I imagine so,” said Daisy as she briskly stood and resumed stuffing clothes into the dresser, “but she’s having a nap at the moment.”
Thea considered this before nodding seriously, “I’ll just have to play with her later.”
“I suppose you will,” Daisy said, chuckling at her daughter.
Thea wandered over, peering into the drawers, her mouth forming a small frown when she realized that the drawers only held her items and not some new fantastical wonder. ‘Mommy, how long are we going to stay here?’
Daisy paused, chewing her lip. She’d done her best to explain the situation to her daughter who had, for the most part, taken it in her stride. It was her greatest fear that her daughter would be unhappy, and she would trade any amount of money in the world to ensure that wasn’t the case.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “maybe a long time. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Thea said, half-distracted again. “When will we see Aunty Amelia again?”
“She said she’d visit next weekend,” said Daisy, “she had to go back to work today. But didn’t you enjoy your car trip with her?”
Thea nodded and launched into some story about the gas station they’d stopped off at, and Daisy laughed along with her as she wrestled Thea into slightly warmer clothes.
“Come on you, it’s time to go meet Nicolas downstairs.”
Thea nodded again, her little face screwing up in concentration as they walked down the stairs, no doubt determined to impress the imposing male waiting for them. Daisy couldn’t help but smile. She knew she was probably biased, but she believed that Thea was the most impressive little girl in the whole world. Anyone would be silly not to think so.
Nicolas stood by the door, his clothes understated yet unmistakable in their quality, and he had a bag slung over his shoulder and Gracie strapped into a pushchair.
“There you are,” he said. “Ready to go?”
