Page 58 of The Billionaire & the Nanny: Part 4

Or, he could genuinely mean all the work I did for Liam and want me to be taken care of for a few months. In which case, while I appreciate the gesture, I don’t need it. I don’t need Kase’s money, and I sure as shit don’t need his charity. Like I told him, I had a job lined up before working for him, and now I’m back on track. The sooner I can wipe him from my memory, the better.

I’m about to tear up the check when my mother calls. “Hi, honey. How was your first day?”

“Fine, I guess.”

“Did you hear the news?”

“No, what news?” When my mother talks about news, she thinks everyone should know what she read about. Even feel-good stories about little kids giving up their allowance money to buy kids with cancer gifts constitutes news in her eyes.

“A woman, a caretaker, a home nurse I think, received a billionaire’s inheritance. Can you believe it? Google it, Alana.”

I roll my eyes. Of course, a story about a servicewoman being gifted a bunch of money from her zillionaire employer would make my mom’s radar. “Okay, I’ll Google it. What else?”

“What else?” She scoffs. “That’s pretty big. It’s the same as winning the PowerBall. She received his entire estate or something to that effect. Could you imagine the Hollands leaving us their entire property and money while we worked for them? Why doesn’t stuff like that ever happen to us? Right, George?”

In the background, I hear my father grumphing. I know how he feels. I wish my mother would change the subject too.

“That’s great, Mom. I prefer to earn it the old-fashioned way,” I say.

“Prostitution?” My mother snorts.

“What? Mom. I mean working for it.”

“Honey, ‘the old-fashioned way’ refers to prostitution. I sure hope you haven’t taken any money for sex.”

My father grumphs again and tells my mom to knock it off.

“Are you kidding me? I’m talking about working my ass off. I may not seem it right now, but you’re talking to a future banking executive right here.”

“Oh, honey, I know. I’m just kidding.”

She may be kidding, and maybe this is a sore spot, but sometimes I wonder what Kase and I were all about. Did I think there was more between us, but clearly, he only wanted extra services? The after-hours, nighttime kind? If that’s the case, then prostitution wouldn’t be too far a description from the truth.

Everything becomes clearer after a while. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

Great, I couldn’t possibly feel any worse right now.

After the enlightening phone call from my mom, I Google it, because…why not. Because the story is fresh, there are many articles from one hour old to one day old. I click on the most reputable source of them all and open the article. That’s when I see her—the black nurse who came to Kase’s house that day wheeling the old man, Kase’s father-in-law, Bert Roper. But he was so rude when he talked about the dynamics between employers and their hired help.

The article goes on to mention that the old billionaire was also part of a highly-publicized custody battle between Kase Hardwin and Raymond Silas, and there’s a link to their story awarding Silas with custody. The courts didn’t care that Kase had texts and emails proving Raymond to be a deadbeat dad for the first half a year of Liam’s life. In the end, because he came back and the paternity tests all came back as positive, they awarded him custody anyway.

A photo of Kase leaving the courthouse makes me stop everything and sigh.

Even if I never speak to him again, I will always feel sorry for him for losing Liam. I saw it with my own eyes—he loved that boy. He loved him like he was his own son, and that’s harder to do than being a biological dad and you have no choice. Adoptive parents, like stepparents, too, they have a choice. And they choose love.

Why, then, couldn’t he choose love for me?

Taking Kase’s check, I do a mobile deposit, but instead of putting it into my own checking, I put it in my parents’ linked with mine. Maybe they’ll never win the PowerBall, and maybe the Hollands would never give them their inheritance, but their daughter might earn a bonus for working hard, and I might be able to give back to them. Because at least I have my parents.

It’s the least I can do for everything they’ve ever given me.

Picking up the phone, my finger hovers above Kase’s name. I want to thank him for the bonus, but the real reason I want to call him—I miss him. I’m looking for any excuse to talk to him, but I can’t do it. He’s not the man of my dreams. I could’ve sworn he was. The sooner I forget him, the happier I’ll be.

Putting the phone back down, I let out a long sigh, enter the kitchen, and pull out leftover takeout instead.

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