Page 9 of The Nanny Next Door

My breath let itself out in a long sigh of relief. “Small world,” I murmured through my stunned smile. Was it normal to feel starstruck by a man’s laugh like this? I’d have to ask Gina and Christine when I got home.

“So, gentlemen, am I right to think we’ve got a match made in nannying heaven here?” Felipe asked his colleagues, smiling at me from the side of his beautiful lips and making me want to lean across the table and kiss him at the same time. That feeling only doubled when, noticing the hesitation from the other two men, Felipe added, “Need I remind you that she’s available to start immediately?”

That sealed it, then. Miles and Mr. Pierce spoke simultaneously, rushing to snatch me up before the other could, and I was shaken up by the fervor of their unison. “You’re hired.”

“On a trial basis,” Mr. Pierce made sure to add. “I can’t afford to be too choosy, what with the urgency of my nephew’s situation. But know this, Ms. Dawson—I may not know much about childcare, but I do know how to manage my employees. I’ll be keeping a keen eye on you throughout this trial.”

I could deal with that. For the amount of money these two were promising me, I could deal with almost anything. But shock still reverberated through my whole body, pulsing along with the rhythm of the words, You’re hired.

Double hired, even, by a pair of men who made me feel a little wobbly just by existing, and their charmingly charismatic friend. Things really seemed to be looking up—the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the result of a gully washer of a storm. I just hoped the thunder wouldn’t come roaring back anytime soon.

6

AARON

It was rare for me to feel uncertain about anything, but I was not sure what to make of Lila Dawson, and that fact was bothering me to no end as I watched her leave the café, her wide hips swinging to and fro.

On the one hand, the young woman had handled my questions with surprising grace for someone who seemed so young, so innocently naive. Even under her veneer of professionality, I could easily sense the squishy underbelly of her fear. It was the primal kind of anxiety based on survival, the kind that I’d grown up experiencing, so part of me felt a squeeze of concern in my heart on her behalf, a hope that she’d find her way in this world, pull herself back up on her feet by her proverbial bootstraps the way I did, regardless of whether she stayed on as the nanny to my nephew or not.

If I were honest with myself, though, it wasn’t just a kindred vulnerability that made me want to protect her. It was something more based in my masculinity, too—rooted in the softness of her plump, curvy body and the pretty face that made her hard not to like straight away. I knew the feeling was attraction, even as I bade goodbye to Felipe and Miles and headed out to the New York City streets and wanted nothing more than to deny it. Something about Lila’s sweetness, unblemished by the cruelty of the world, made me long to corrupt her in some way, teach her the ways of the flesh I had a feeling she’d never experienced before. It had been too long since I’d buried myself in a woman’s warm heat, and I’d never been with someone quite so… untouched. Someone I’d delight in deflowering for hours until she screamed my name. It may make me a monster, but I knew the sin would be worth it.

Christ, I had to get my brain back in the lane where it belonged. Business was always a safer place to dwell than matters of the heart—or the body.

“Felipe, you’re a meddling bastard, but I appreciate you,” I said to the shorter man to my right, breaking the short silence between us the second Lila left, taking all of the lightness with her. The green-eyed man looked at me with a satisfied smirk. Miles piped up from Felipe’s other side to agree with me.

“That sums up Felipe in a nutshell. You’ll see once you’ve worked with him as long as I have.”

“I’ll take this as a compliment, my dreary amigos.” Felipe kept grinning. “And a thanks, at that.”

“Thank you,” Miles said then, and I echoed the sentiment.

“Ah, it’s nothing. It’s my life’s work to help those in need, and I saw the need you both shared, so I had to fix it. Besides, we’re going to be in business together soon, and I take care of my own.”

I could see again how it would be nice to have someone like Felipe in my corner—someone like Miles, too, whose more subdued personality meshed more with my own. Felipe had certainly taken care of me by bringing Lila into my life when I needed her. In more way than one, the lustful creature at the back of my mind wanted to say. It seemed a voracious predator, licking its chops in anticipation of succulent new prey.

Those dark, sensuous thoughts carried me out of the restaurant and down the sidewalk to the sleek black car that was waiting for me. “Penthouse, Raster,” I barked to the driver I’d had for years once I was inside, and after his simple, “Of course, Mr. Pierce,” I settled back into the dark leather seats and tried not to think about how sweet Lila Dawson’s pussy must taste.

Considering her in such a sexual light just felt… wrong. Taboo, even. She was an adult, no matter how young she seemed with those cherubic blonde curls and doll-like eyes. I Knew that from the way she spoke, even before glancing over her emailed resume and seeing that she was at least old enough to have (almost) finished college a couple of years ago. She had to be twenty-two, maybe twenty-three. Someone that young and sexy should be enjoying the pleasures their body could provide. An unbidden image of Lila’s cheeks flushed, her head thrown back as she moaned in ecstasy, had my cock hardening in my pants. Christ, Pierce. Pull yourself together.

I was too close to forty to feel comfortable lusting after someone as young as Lila. Besides that, now she was under my employ, and I’d never, ever cross the line into sexually harassing someone who worked for me. I prided myself on creating a safe work environment for all of my employees, even the ones for whom I didn’t feel a desire to shield them from the world like I did for my nephew’s new nanny. There were too many powerful men in this world who abused that power at the expense of the innocents who helped them succeed. I refused to be one of them.

Long before she’d dropped her kid in my arms like he was a sack of potatoes, I’d even witnessed my sister Whitney suffering at the hands of older, influential men who hoped to tarnish her. No part of me had any desire to be like those scumbags. So, Lila Dawson was officially off limits, and that was the end of the discussion, no matter how badly that sex-crazed part of me wanted to throw caution to the wind. Besides, I got a sense that I wasn’t the only one who was attracted to the girl. Felipe’s eyes were practically hearts when he looked at her, and even the more stoic Miles Kramer had seemed almost awed in her presence. They were both younger than me—maybe one of them would be better for her.

Or maybe she’d just do her fucking job. That would be enough.

Raster pulled the sleek vehicle up in front of my building and let me out at the door. As I rode the elevator up to my penthouse apartment, I answered work emails on my phone, falling back into my regular routine as if today were a normal day.

The second I stepped through the door of my apartment, though, I was reminded that today wasn’t normal in the slightest. In fact, my entire life wasn’t likely to be normal again anytime soon. I had a baby to deal with.

The first clue was that my usually-pristine, neutral-toned home was covered in plastic baby toys, various plastic doodads in bright, primary colors that clashed with the decor I’d paid an interior designer a hefty fee to curate. Second, I could hear a child’s distraught fussing, not quite a scream but still a grating sound that seemed too loud to come from Jamie’s small lungs, from the other room. And my poor assistant was frazzled to the point of coming apart at the seams, standing at the center of my foyer like a woman who’d lost a long, tiresome battle.

She’d been my only option for temporary childcare in the past day before Felipe had found Lila, but I knew she was no more comfortable with babies than I was. Good thing Holly was probably the highest paid personal assistant in the tristate area. Her usually-sleek hair was frizzing as if she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket, her eyes rimmed in darkness that was a mixture of smudged mascara and pure exhaustion. “Mr. Pierce! Thank God you’re back.”

“Thank you for your hard work, Holly,” I told her with genuine gratitude. “How… uh, how is he?” I wasn’t really sure how to ask after an infant. Or if he was even still considered an infant at his age.

“He’s, um, fine? I really don’t know a thing about babies,” she admitted with a wince. “But he ate, and he napped, and he hasn’t screamed quite so loud the past half hour or?—”

As if on cue, a blood-curdling shriek cut through the air. Holly and I both winced as she finished with a halfhearted, “... so.”

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