Page 9 of Knotty New Year

But there it was. Right in front of me, a teenaged Nicholas himself stood with his hand in his mother’s, smiling without any hint of the darkness in his eyes I’d seen today. He must have been around seventeen.

“What happened to change you?” I touched his young face lightly, then shuffled toward the kitchen in the Hello Kitty socks I’d found. Time to start earning my money.

My boss was already in the kitchen, blending something up. His back was to the doorway, but from his seat in his bouncing chair, Benjamin saw me enter and held out his hands, making fists and cooing. I crossed the floor, unbuckled and lifted him out, settling him on one hip. When the blender stopped whirring, I asked casually, “Are you making baby food?”

Nicholas whipped around. “What are you doing? Put him down!”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Why? I’m here to be a sitter. I’m not hurting him. And I would imagine an important man like yourself has work to do. Leave me to take care of the baby.”

He scoffed. “You can’t imagine that I would leave him in your—what in the hell are youwearing?”

I tsked, walking around to the fridge. As the manual had indicated, there were bottles of premade formula inside, along with small glass containers of what I could only assume were bespoke baby food mixtures, probably made with heirloom vegetables grown by twelfth-generation organic farmers. I grabbed one that hadJunegold Peacheswritten in perfect calligraphy on a buckwheat paper label, with a small, personalized spoon taped to the top, then closed the fridge with one hip.

When I turned back around, Nicholas was still staring at me, with a look of… revulsion? Yes, that was it. “What. Are. You. Wearing?”

“Your. Sister’s. Clothing,” I replied, trying to dial back the sass, but failing. Benjamin squealed in my ear, and I bustled over to the highchair, grabbing a burp cloth off the back of it and strapping him in. I thanked heaven for the summer I’d spent in high school working at a theme park; I could buckle squirming kids into roller coasters while anxious parents watched without batting an eye.

I ignored the feeling of being watched as I warmed up the peaches to room temperature using the fancy Bon Appétit Baby sous-vide I’d only ever seen in the fancy kitchen stores my mom loved, then dragged a chair over from the small breakfast table on the other side of the vast kitchen. I sat, opened the baby food, and lifted the spoon to Benjamin’s mouth. He shrieked with excitement, managing to immediately spit half of it out. I used the spoon to scrape it back in, before dipping back into the jar for more.

I disregarded the man pacing back and forth on the other side of the kitchen island, more like a lion in a too-small cage than a man. “Is that all she had in her closet?” he growled.

Oh, he wished it was all. I fought back a smile as I shrugged off the bulky letter jacket and draped it over the back of my chair. “The rest didn’t fit. I haven’t worn those sizes since high school.”

“Not that long ago,” he grumbled. His voice sounded odd, like he was holding his nose. From the corner of my eye, I saw he was doing just that. I knew the peaches didn’t stink, and the baby wasn’t dirty.

Yep, he hated my scent. Definitely not my true mate.Whew.

“Finish feeding him that, then bring him into my office.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “You worried I’m going to abduct him? Feed him more peaches than the manual allows?” I tickled Benjamin’s chin with the spoon while he laughed, and said in baby talk, “Curse in front of him like Unky Nik-Nik so he learns new words for Mommy?”

The alpha was silent. I didn’t think he was even breathing.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said suddenly.

“Why?” I asked, as Benjamin fussed for more peaches. “Don’t worry, baby B, I gotchu. Peaches for days in the fridge. We could be snowed in for a month and you won’t starve.”

“Tell me about yourself,” Nicholas repeated. “Somehow, you were hired in one day for a job that normally requires a month of background checks and interviews.”

“Wow, really? Betasitting requires top secret clearance?”

“When your parents are billionaires, yes,” he said curtly. I nodded, allowing it. “You have no experience at all, from what I can tell.”

“How would you know?”

“I did a background check while you showered. I know almost everything there is to know about you. Your unpaid parking ticket near Sycamore University—”

“I was only ten minutes over on the meter!” I interrupted.

“—your unfinished degree at the same university, your complete lack of job experience in any field, and your only relevant experience—beyond a few high-school gigs as a sitter—as a volunteer for theOmega League.” He sneered the last words like it was the name of a titty bar.

“Sounds like you already know about me,” I replied coolly, ignoring the way he’d dismissed years of taking care of children in homes and at summer camps. He obviously didn’t care. “There was no criminal activity, and I never signed anything claiming to have ‘relevant’ work experience. My résumé is truthful, and it’s not my responsibility if your PA didn’t vet me as an appropriate replacement.” Without turning my head to so much as glance at the alpha, I spooned more peaches into Benjamin’s tiny mouth.

“He’s new,” Nicholas said darkly. The wind whistled so hard around the outside of the house, the walls shook slightly. I rolled my eyes at Benjamin, who giggled.

Yeah, kid. Same.

The man growled slightly. Growled? Thenerve.

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