Page 5 of Bad Nanny

Delaney nodded, holding her socked hand to her chest as I led her to the table.

Ava held out my padfolio with notes and the coffee I’d set down, and I reluctantly left my daughter in her care. For now, Delaney seemed convinced enough that I wasn’t leaving.

A few eyes watched me as I walked to the conference room. People were nosy as fuck, and I was regretting having a semi-open floor plan on the executive floor.

“Good morning, sorry I’m late,” I greeted as I entered the conference room, shutting the door behind me. The clock on the wall said I was two minutes early, but since I was the last to arrive, it felt like I was tardy.

My eyes immediately landed on the new face in the group of all-male team executives. The woman from the coffee shop stared back at me, her eyes widening in surprise as she took a sip of her coffee.

Now that I wasn’t so tense with worry over whether I was going to get my daughter to tell me what she wanted to eat, I really took her in. If I had to guess, I’d say she was in her early to mid-twenties and was stunning, with brown hair swept up into a twist and brown eyes.

Focus, Badden. Focus on the meeting.

I sat down at the head of the table and nodded at Noah to start. He would be the one taking the lead on presenting the designs and products with the new team branding.

“Before we start, I want to introduce my daughter, Josie.” Brett Hastings smiled over at Josie, who blushed as all eyes turned to her. “She graduated in May from UConn and is shadowing me today.”

Josie gave a small wave to me and my brothers before averting her eyes to a notebook in front of her.

The other executives didn’t seem to mind her presence at the meeting, which wasn’t surprising. They did things outside the norm, like letting a coach be involved in this process and being the first in the league to have a female on the coaching staff. As it so happened, that woman was Brett Hastings’s other daughter.

Noah cleared his throat and turned on the large screen, which displayed all of the products. “We have some great designs to show you today and are ready to start production as soon as we have the go ahead. We’ll get started with men’s apparel, before moving on to women’s, children’s, and gender neutral.”

I sat back in my chair, proud of how far Noah had come in such a short time. He was more serious and invested in the company, and it showed in his work, although not so much in group texts.

As the meeting progressed, I found it hard to not be the one running the show. Since I’d taken over the company from my father six years ago, I’d lived and breathed Badden Apparel. Taking it from a low seven-figure company to ten figures had run my life.

Until now.

Almost an hour later, we were wrapping up the final details when there was a soft knock on the door. No one opened it, so Lex got up to answer it.

As soon as he squatted, I knew Delaney was on the other side. Before I could get up, she pushed the door open the rest of the way and ran into the conference room, tears streamingdown her face, and a coloring page clutched in the sock puppet’s mouth.

The room fell silent, the weight of my world on display as I stood and scooped her up.

Ava appeared in the doorway, out of breath. “I’m so sorry for the interruption.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I think Noah and Alexander can finish up.” I tried to keep my voice steady as I held my daughter’s trembling body close. “Thank you for your time today.”

I didn’t wait for a response before I walked out of the room, Delaney’s tears already soaking the top of my shirt.

Ava followed closely behind. “She asked to take you the page she colored, and I reminded her you were in a meeting and would be back soon.”

“It’s fine, Ava. Call the nanny agency and tell them the nanny hasn’t shown and that their services will no longer be needed. If I call them, I can’t guarantee I won’t rip them a new one.” I needed to calm down before I spoke to the owner of the company and gave them a piece of my mind. For charging top dollar, they were not top-dollar quality. They were the cause of this clusterfuck this morning.

At this point, I was in no position to be picky. With football, basketball, and hockey seasons starting in the fall, we were already swamped with getting our fall apparel into stores and to teams. My parents were usually an option, but they were on an around-the-world cruise to celebrate forty years of marriage. They’d helped a lot in the beginning before I forced them to leave.

We made it back to my office, and I shut us inside. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I brushed the hairthat had come loose from her ponytail back from her tear-streaked face as I sat down with her in my lap.

She hiccupped and took several deep inhales and let them out slowly, something she’d been working on with her therapist. “You didn’t come back.”

“I never left.” I rubbed her arm reassuringly and took the coloring page from where it was wrinkled in the puppet’s mouth. “Did you make this for me or as a snack for Penelope?”

“For you. A puppet can’t eat, Dad,” she said, exasperated. Behind all the fear and sadness, Delaney had some sass. She’d always been on the shy side, but before her mom left with no notice or a goodbye, she was your average little girl.

“It looks like such a delicious piece of paper, though.” I put it on my desk and smoothed out the wrinkles of the picture of a unicorn prancing across a rainbow. “Thank you, it’s beautiful.”

“Does it make you happy?” She petted my tie with her puppet—although, with the way she was holding it, I guessed the puppet was licking it.

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