Page 26 of The Billionaire's One-Night Stand Nanny
What?My brows furrowed.Where hadthatcome from?
“Two thousand dollars?”
She nodded. “Yes. For being my nanny.”
“That’s a very specific number, Maddie,” I said. Maddie knew that her mom and I were comfortable, but we rarely discussed money–certainly nothow much we paid her nannies. Had Flora said something to her? She didn’t seem the type to gossip about that kind of thing, but…
“Yeah, well,” she shrugged, evidently trying to appear nonchalant, but I could read my daughter better than that. “That’s how much Flora needs.” I raised my eyebrows, giving Maddie A Look. She fidgeted. “I overheard her talking on the phone. She didn’t know I could hear what her sister was saying, but she asked Flora fortwo thousand dollars.” She said the words like she was saying twomillion. “So I just wanted to make sure that we were paying her enough to help her sister. Her half-sister. Serena at school has a half-sister, and shehatesher, and Flora has a half-sister, too, but she wants to help, and I just wanted–”
“Whoa, ladybug, slow down,” I said, holding up my hands as the explanation tumbled out of her. “That’s generous of you to be concerned about Flora and her sister, but that’s private information,” I said. It was a struggle to keep the curiosity from my own voice though. Flora’s sister needed two thousand dollars? AndFlorawas going to loan her the cash?Flora, who had taken a job nannying for her one-night stand because she’d lost her job and needed the money? I reeled in my thoughts. “Don’t worry about Flora,” I said, half to my daughter and half to myself. “And yes,” I said, when Maddie’s expression remained crumpled. “Flora will have her two thousand dollars.”
* * *
After pizza and a movie, Maddie was back to her cheerful–if tired–self. She yawned widely as I tucked her into bed, and didn’t protest–the familiarSerena gets to stay up until eleven!–when I turned off the lights at nine. But as I closed her door with a whispered good night, I wasn’t feeling restful.
Two thousand dollars.
Ten years ago, two thousand dollars meant a night out for me. Bottle service at a club. Dinner and drinks at one of Manhattan’s fine dining hotspots–even then, Barrett had been a gourmet. Now, two thousand dollars was more likely to mean a semester of dance lessons, or a day trip to Connecticut, but it was still nothing to me. But for Flora… Well, I knewexactlyhow much that was for her, because for now, I was the one paying her salary.
I thought of the dark look on her face this morning when I asked how her job search was going. Had that been even before her sister asked her this favor? And of course, Flora wouldn’t have told her sister–half-sister–about losing her job. She hadn’t even told Edie, had sworn me to secrecy from James. No, Flora wanted to do it all by herself.Forherself.
She was determined, Flora. Determined, and resolute, and cheerful, and kind, and funny, and pretty…
Fuck. No,notpretty.
Well,yes, pretty–gorgeous, actually–but that was beside the point.
The point was, I decided, cracking open a bottle of beer and taking it to my study, that there was no way in hell Flora would accept two thousand dollars from me. She was a smart woman; I suspected she already knew I was overpaying her. A surcharge for the awkwardness of the situation, I thought in my generous moments, and in my less generous moments, a penalty I paid to punish myself for wanting her so badly. No, that was as much as I could push her to accept.
But…
I sat in the leather swivel chair behind my desk, pulling my laptop toward me and flipping it open. The screen lit to show a spreadsheet full of numbers. My safe zone. I minimized it and pulled up my web browser, typing in, with sure fingers, the name of Maddie’s elementary school.
I scrolled down to the bottom.Leadership team.I clicked on the link, then copied it and dropped it in an email to Charlie.
Any friends of yours?I typed, and hit send.
I was a parent at the school, which meant that I mostly tried to stay out of their way and let them do their job. I could send an email straight to the principal, but what did I know about teaching?
Charlie, on the other hand…
I closed my laptop and took a deep swallow of my beer.
Charlie was an entrepreneur, a graduate of the thirty-under-thirty lists of tech wunderkinds. But more importantly, Charlie had connections. His company–he–funded the largest tech literacy program in the city. If the email came from Charlie–I recommend Flora Connelly, I personally vouch that she’d be a great addition to your staff…
There wouldn’t be a fifth grade teaching job in any of the five boroughs that was beyond her reach.
It was the least I could do, I thought, for the woman who would do anything for my daughter.
And who I desperately, desperately, wanted to have as my own.
CHAPTER16
Flora
“Don’t forgetto backstitch when we get to the end of the seam,” I murmured, just loud enough for Maddie to hear over the whirr of her sewing machine.
She stopped abruptly, pushing her swivel chair back from the small desk in her room where we had set up for our sewing lessons.
