Page 2 of The Billionaire and the Nanny

“No, I don’t want you, specifically. I’ll contact the agency and have them send someone else. Thank you for your time.” Again, he begins closing the door, and again, I stop it, this time with my foot. Shit. Why am I taking this so personally?

“I’m sorry…” I force a smile and air back into my lungs. “But you don’t know the first thing about me. You haven’t even spoken to me, asked me any interview questions…nothing. I’m pretty sure you can’t fire me based on looks alone, Mr. Townsend.”

“Actually, I can, and I will,” he says, blocking my view from the inside foyer. “I’m rich, and money is the only thing that matters in this town. I’m sure when I voice my displeasure to your agency, they’ll send someone more to my style. Thank you and goodbye.”

“More to your style? Like the other handful of nannies you’ve already fired?” I shoot back, immediately regretting my hasty words.

Shit, he’s already got me rattled.

Ethan Townsend’s eyes narrow ever so slightly and his jaw muscle twitches. For some reason, I feel a surge of arousal and power, knowing I’ve somehow impacted him with my comment.

His lip curls into something resembling a sneer. “If I run through two dozen nannies in the next two hours, the agency will supply more. Until I find someone who suits this position to my liking.”

Is it simply a question of looks?

I’m not a Victoria Secret model or anything, but I would say I’m pretty with a pleasant, desirable body…but hold on a second…what does that have to do with being a nanny anyway? This is sexism to the nth degree. Unless he has other physical requirements. Does he need someone taller, stronger? Is Lilly Belle Townsend a hundred-pound baby who needs an Olympic wrestler to wrangle her? I don’t get it. What could he possibly see in a few seconds of glancing me over that would make him turn medown?

“Mister Townsend, I don’t think the nannies are the issue here,” I tell him boldly. And I meanit.

For a long moment, the man just stares at me, and I could swear that he’s about to grab me by the waist and kiss me with those full lips of his. And I can feel exactly how my body would react if he did it, how my nipples would stiffen and my tongue would instantly meet his, letting him open my mouth and force his way roughlyin.

I feel a sudden moist flush between my legs and realize that I’m completely out of my depthhere.

As if he knows exactly the kind of effect he has on me—or perhaps, women more generally--Ethan snorts, checks his watch. “I don’t have time for this. I have togo.”

I’m dumbfounded. Perhaps he was hoping for an older, more maternal-looking grandmother type and instead got a young woman who might look inexperienced to him, a man who knows nothing of childcare and thinks in stereotypes.

But he’s only twenty-eight. He has no right to judge my maturity.

“Wait…” Holding onto the door, I strain myears.

Behind him somewhere, I hear it—a baby crying. A soft, desperate, punctuated wail echoes from a monitor, the cry of a child who’s been trying to get someone’s attention unsuccessfully for some timenow.

I understand, baby. I totally understand.

It dawns on me that this poor little girl, a creature of no more than seven months, has to live with this unforgiving, harsh man for the rest of her life. I imagine how lonely she’ll be in this mighty mansion, how desperate for attention and starved for love she’ll grow up to be later on. After getting a crap deal in life by losing her beloved parents, now she has to deal with a man whose entire life is made of steel—including his heart.

“Are you going to get her?” I ask. I crane my neck to hear better, but he strains to push me out. “You don’t seem concerned that your baby is crying,” I say, glancing past his shoulder, wishing I could plow past him straight to the source of thewail.

“I will attend to her right after you leave, Miss—“

“Wallach,” Isigh.

Somehow I doubt that he’s going to attend to anything once I’m gone. The baby’s obviously been crying for some time. Her voice is hoarse.

The crying grows stronger, more frantic.

Any worried mom or dad would show signs of unsettled nerves right now. It’s how humans have survived for as long as we have—that need to stop the crying, to appease, to shush and calm baby back to perfect contentment, creating a bond between caregiver and child. But Ethan Townsend doesn’t give a rat’sass.

Whereas I came here with one job and only job only in mind—to care for a child—and I remember that he’s not the child’s parent, so he may not even care. Unable to take the crying anymore, I push my way past him and head for the stairs. “Excuse me, please. I’m going to do myjob.”

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