Page 2 of Nanny for My Billionaire

His eyes rove over me briefly. “Sometimes.”

I snort softly and join the circle. There are about twelve women all sitting cross-legged. Sara sits the bottle on the floor at the center and gives it a hefty spin. The others are watching the bottle, but my eyes creep up to his instead. He’s not watching the bottle either. I feel a little heat snake down my spine at the intense look in his eyes.

“Missy? Earth to Melissa?” Sara is saying, and I glance down to see that the bottle is pointing right at me. “Now I know you’re just going to talk. There’s no way Little Miss Awkward is going to do anything else.”

I feel my face go red at the words, but she’s right. I’m terrible when it comes to one-on-one interactions, and panic is already seeping into my system.

Adam grabs one of the unopened champagne bottles and a couple of flutes, all of which he somehow holds in one hand, probably due to his skills as a master chef or something. He steps over to hold out his other hand to me. When I take it, he helps me to my feet, and we head for the stairs. The whole walk there feels almost like a dream…but at least it doesn’t feel like a nightmare.

Adam sets the two flutes on the bedside table and plonks down on the bed as he pops the cork, then casts me a wry grin. “Can you believe this? It’s so weird. Last time I saw you, you were just some snot-nosed, whiny little kid, but now I’m supposed to be flirting with you? Well, my dear, I have to say it’s not a chore. You’ve become a beautiful woman.”

He fills a flute and hands it to me as I ponder this. Does he mean it, or is he just practicing flirting like his sister wanted him to? I opt for the latter.

“Come on, dude, you don’t have to flatter me,” I cajole him. “I know you’re probably wishing the bottle landed somewhere else.”

I sip my champagne, and he chuckles. “No, I really mean it. But why would a young thing like you ever want to take up with a guy like me?”

I snort derisively. “Are you kidding? Adam, you’re really selling yourself short here. Except that I’ll be going back to New York next week, so the timing is completely off, you know?”

“I know what we can do,” he says, sipping at his drink too. “Let’s run away to my father’s cabin for the weekend and try it on for size. See if we would click if we ever really decided to date each other.”

I laugh at him. “What are you, crazy? I’m going to be gone for three whole years. Where’s the point in starting things that won’t go anywhere?”

He smiles and brushes his knuckles over my cheek. “You don’t know that. Just say yes, Miss. At best, there could be fireworks, and if not, then it’d just be a little bit of harmless experimentation. I mean unless you’d rather just do a bit of that right here.”

My face goes red. “This is how you talk to a girl? No wonder you’re not dating anyone.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, backing off. “Is that a no?”

Softly, I answer, “It’s not. I’ll go, Adam. I want to. Maybe we should keep the whole thing under wraps, though. I think if they knew about it, both our sisters would have a cow.”

He grins and shrugs. “Yeah, you’re probably right about that. So, now that we’ve settled that, what else do we want to talk about?”

Chapter one

Adam

Ifthere’sonethingI can say about life—especially my own life—there’s always going to be times when it throws you a curve ball. For me it was just one more slap in the face from a woman I once fell madly in love with, but thankfully I managed to come to my senses. Gena was a real piece of work, casting me off just one year after the birth of our twin sons, and hardly ever letting me see them once I’d moved back to Concord.

All because she wanted to pursue her acting career and I was supposedly holding her back. More like the ring on her finger was making it more difficult to sleep her way to the top. If I could have brought my two boys home with me when I left her, I would have done it, but back then I was more worried about simply getting myself back to Concord—to my roots, where I’d be able to grow again.

Even though a youthful stint working with a college roommate had nicely padded my bank account, and I’d used those funds to purchase tons of real estate that had brought my net worth into the billions, that whole pile of money I mostly never talked about, and I certainly didn’t behave like a guy with a lot of wealth. Instead, I kept right on cooking, since it is my one true love.

I never did tell Gena about my fortune. I’m trying to be a five-star chef. I also don’t want to wonder if my next love is for me or my money. Besides, if someone wants to know about me, I’m sure they could google it.

My dad owns a five-star restaurant midway between Concord and Boston, and it’s a real tourist magnet. During certain times of the year the place might be booked solid with up to a thousand diners in one night. He’s been grooming me to take ownership, but the truth is I’m no damned businessman. Besides being good at coming up with ideas for gaming, I’m a chef, and one of the best.

Trying to do any accounting myself isn’t something I care for, and that’s why I’m mostly just a silent partner in TrekGames, the video game company my friend Elliot and I own together. He’s been taking care of all the business issues, and leaving me to cook to my heart’s content.

Trying to keep up with all the administrative work for Rudolpho’s has been a complete nightmare. My heart is just not in it.

That’s not the worst of it, though. The real trouble began just three months ago. Gena apparently took up with some Italian producer who wants to whisk her off to Milan to start filming, and he’s promised to make her a star. The only trouble? Two five-year-old boys who would only get in the way if she took them to Italy.

The day she stopped by to drop the kids off, she told me I could keep them forever as far as she was concerned, and my sons were standing right there. They heard every single word. When she and her boy toy stepped out of my house, my boys were in tears, and she never spared even one backward glance.

The last thing I wanted to do was unload the pair of whimpering children on my mom, but as sous-chef for the night, there was no way I could possibly call in. I had to make sure the kitchen of about forty employees was a well-orchestrated symphony, and not a chaotic mess. Rudolpho’s reputation was on the line, and as the heir apparent, I couldn’t possibly let my father down.

I gave my mom a call and she agreed to help. My father agreed to stop in for only the first couple of hours of the shift before he returned to help her, since most of his work was these days was just making sure things ran smoothly. But that was only the beginning. From there, things got even worse.

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