Page 19 of The Billionaire and the Nanny

She shrugged and grinned at me. I smiled back because her grin was infectious, although the child was clearly a handful. I wondered why she hadn’t woken her father up. It wasn’t safe for such a small child to be wandering around the house all alone.

“Where’s your nanny, Madeline?” I asked.

“Daddy threw her out, and my name is Maddie. Only Aunt Fee calls me Madeline, and that too, only when she’s upset.”

“Nice to meet you, Maddie. My name is Tia,” I replied, valiantly ignoring the first part of her sentence. It had nothing to do with me. Leo could hire and fire nannies at will.

“She snuck into Daddy’s room, and he got mad about that because Daddy’s room is off-limits for everyone but me,” confided Maddie, still talking about her last nanny. “Why did she do that?”

I could hazard a guess as to why the nanny snuck into Leo’s room, but I wasn’t going to share my suspicions with a child.

“Maybe she wanted to borrow something,” I replied vaguely.

“I didn’t like her anyway. I’m glad she’s gone. I don’t like any of my nannies,” exclaimed Maddie, sitting down on the rug and opening up a big box full of Legos.

“Why not?” I asked, making myself comfortable next to her.

“I don’t need a nanny. I need a Mommy,” she replied, as she pored over a little booklet. “Because nannies are stoopid. All they want me to do is wear pretty dresses and play with dolls.”

“And what do you like to do?” I asked, with a quick glance at her clothes. This was clearly a girl who despised pretty dresses and would happily live in shorts and a tee. I sympathized with her because I was the same.

“I like building stuff with Lego,” she declared. “Look what I built yesterday.”

She held up a small helicopter. It was detailed and intricate, and I couldn’t believe a five-year-old had built it. Maddie had some serious mechanical talent, I thought with awe.

“That’s lovely!”

“I know. I can build a car, too. It’s not difficult. You just have to follow the instructions in the book. And this is a bunny rabbit. Look, you can move the paws up and down.”

She made it seem like child’s play, but it wasn’t as easy as she made it out to be.

“What are you building now?”

“It’s going to be a fighter plane. Do you want to help me?”

“Sure. But aren’t you late for breakfast?”

Maddie sighed and forced a wheel in place angrily.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“I have a ballet class after breakfast, and I hate ballet,” she wailed.

“Then why do you go?”

“Because that’s what all the girls in my school do. All the girls are doing ballet, swimming, and piano. But I don’t like doing any of that.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you shouldn’t have to do something just because everyone else is doing it. What would you rather do?”

“I’d rather attend Lego club. And chess club,” she said dreamily. “I play chess with my Daddy, and I’m going to beat him soon.”

Leo had a little genius on his hands. I wondered if he knew that. Maddie wasn’t a girly girl. She was a geeky tomboy, and if he wasn’t careful, his fancy nannies were going to stifle her creativity and passion under a grueling routine of ballet and piano lessons.

There was a faint sound behind us, and we both turned around in surprise.

Leo and Fee stood in the doorway, and they both stared at me in shock.

“Daddy,” yelled Maddie, as she jumped into her father’s arms and smothered him with kisses.

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