by Jamie Knight
Stuck Together
A Billionaire Single Dad and Virgin Nanny Enemies to Lovers Quarantine Romance
Love Under Lockdown Book 4
Copyright © 2020 Jamie Knight Romance.
Jamie Knight –
Your Dirty Little Secret Romance Author
All rights reserved.
Love Under Lockdown series:
1): Under Lock & Key
2): Under Lockdown
3): Under Strict Orders
4): Stuck Together
Click here to see the entire series!
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Dean
Chapter Two
Becky
Chapter Three
Dean
Chapter Four
Becky
Chapter Five
Dean
Chapter Six
Becky
Chapter Seven
Dean
Chapter Eight
Becky
Chapter Nine
Dean
Chapter Ten
Becky
Chapter Eleven
Becky
Chapter Twelve
Dean
Chapter Thirteen
Becky
Chapter Fourteen
Dean
Chapter Fifteen
Dean
Chapter Sixteen
Becky
Chapter Seventeen
Dean
Chapter Eighteen
Becky
Chapter Nineteen
Dean
Epilogue
Dean
Sneak Peek of Under Lock & Key
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Chapter One
Dean
From the moment the plane’s tires touched down on the tarmac, I was seized by an impending sense of dread. I was back home in New York City and not for any reason I wanted to be.
Plus, there was the crisis that the world was in, and New York was the epicenter of the virus. If it wasn’t for my money, there was no way I could set foot on American soil. Only by sneaking in on my own jet did I avoid the long lines and the likely-hood of quarantine. I couldn’t do that, not yet. I had a promise to fulfill first.
There were so many advantages to living in London. The lack of snow for a start. Sure, there was the rain, but a drizzle never kept an affair from starting as far as I was aware. My accent was considered charming rather than a punchline as it was in most parts of my homeland. There was just something about being from Brooklyn that was considered universally hilarious among Americans. Or, 'yanks', as I had come to think of them. Though I did eventually acquire a pretty close approximation of an upper-class British accent.
Britain, or at least the England portion of it, also had five meals a day. The standard three plus two so-called 'tea-times' which were more like light lunches. And no one looked at you sideways for having sausages and bacon at breakfast.
They also had respect for their elders, dagnabbit! I was only thirty-three, yet kids in their late-teens would routinely call me 'sir.' It was both a wonderful tip of the hat and a terrible reminder of one's fragile mortality in the same three-letter word. Not that death was far away from one’s mind during these turbulent times.
Aside from the cultural advantages, another thing that made London so much more tolerable was the nearly endless list of people who did not live there. My asshole brother and my bastard dad, for example. My ruthless social climber of a mother who seemed to equate marrying into old money with joining the aristocracy. All nowhere to be found among the skyscrapers and spires of Olde London Town.
The problem. The unspoken pain. The ghost in the room was my beloved sister, Simone. Not only did she not live in London, or indeed New York. As a result of recent events, she was no longer living on the physical plane at all. I liked to think about it in metaphysical terms. It helped things to hurt less.
In Simone's place was her six-year-old daughter, Jessica, whom I was given legal guardianship. The coin there was two definite sides. On the one side was the fact that my sister trusted me to raise her offspring. No small thing, even to a fuck up like me. On the other hand, I had absolutely no fucking idea how to raise a kid. Let alone a little girl. Simone was always more of a mom to me than our actual mother, so I never really learned the whole nurturing thing.
I could have been in a real predicament, but Simone, who knew me better than anyone else on earth, also arranged for help. The resume that accompanied her last will and testament contained a picture. A gorgeous, twenty-three-year-old nanny named Becky Hump.
As I got in my limo, I smiled. Simone always did have a sense of humor.
A few hours later, I got to meet Miss Hump, when she showed up at the mansion I also, unfortunately, inherited from my sister.
“You must be Dean,” Becky said, darkening the doorway of my new home.
The less said about the built-in innuendo of her surname, the better. “You must be…her,” I said, refraining from saying something incredibly rude.
“Indeed, I am,” the nanny said all but pushing past me.
“Please, come in,” I snapped to the empty space left in her wake.
The woman already acted like this was her home, not mine. I was the master of the house, and she needed to recognize that.
As I turned to give her a piece of my mind, my breath caught. The picture on her resume really did not do her justice. Miss Hump had a full heart-shaped rump, a narrow waist, and long, shiny black hair that fell in cascades over her big tits. Curves like that immediately woke something in me that was long dormant. My skin flamed with desire.
Becky caught me staring and raised one perfect, dark eyebrow.
No words came to my clenched throat.
“Where is the little one?” she asked, turning away.
“Asleep in her room. We had a rather heated disagreement over whether she should take a bath. I was firmly on the pro side while she was more in favor of running around the apartment, yelling ‘no!’ Tuckered the little tyke right out.”
“Sounds like quite the ordeal.”
I shrugged. “At my age, cardio is good.”
“Oh, come on. You couldn't be more than 30,” she said, putting down her large bag, granting me a generous view of her beautiful ass. She was wearing yoga pants. Of course, she was. The see-through ones and without underwear as far as I could tell.
“Mama?”
We both looked to see Jessica coming down the long hallway from her room, still rubbing her eyes. I went into a different state of consciousness, a standing meditation to keep from feeling the emotions that were threatening to be felt.
The six-year-old looked so much like her mother. She had the same red hair, the same dimples in her plush cheeks, and the way she walked was spot on, the same as Simone, slightly pigeon-toed. Jessica’s presence made my chest ache. A feeling I did not want to feel.
“No, sorry, sweetie. But I am here to take care of you.” Becky bent down some so she could look right into the little one’s face.
“Okay,” Jessica said, still blinking.
I could empathize. It was a hell of a thing to be told right after waking up.
****
Two weeks passed, and things in the world got worse. The news was using the word pandemic. People were scared, and everyone was waiting for the governor to lock us down.
Inside the mansion, the tension was high as well. I could give Miss Hump this much, she was a perfect nanny. As a housemate, she could be a real pain in the ass. Not only because it was my house, and my tiny, human blood- relation in question, yet, Becky
came in like a class four hurricane in combat boots—which I had to admit looked pretty sexy combined with her yoga pants and tight sweaters.
I did my best and could be sure that if I was wrong, I would be corrected faster than a trainee at a nuclear power plant. The nanny actually swatted my hand away from a jar of peanut butter, insisting that Jessica was allergic. I wanted to swat her right back, preferably on the rump region but knew it would be inappropriate. Simone always told me that two wrongs didn't make a right.
I did make it a point to re-read the letter that Simone had left to help me along in case of her death. She really did plan ahead. It turned out that Becky had been right, and Jessica was allergic to peanut butter. Not deathly allergic, as Becky had implied, but she would have gotten a terrible tummy ache.
Still, I couldn't have Becky contradicting me in front of Jessica. I was supposed to be the authority figure and what was she to make of it if Becky kept contradicting me. I had to get rid of Becky.
I remembered that my own buddy Joe, one of the few people in the tri-state area I could stand at that point. The feeling being very much mutual, he had given me a card for a charity agency he, Joe, had set up to help childcare workers during the impending shutdown in the wake of the pandemic and asked if I wanted to be a donor. I had fibbed slightly, implying that I would be interested, but I was only interested if he would be able to help get rid of Becky.
Ducking out as Becky was putting a characteristically fussy Jessica to bed, I got out the card and dialed.
“Joe Sumner,” he said, still in business mode.
“Joe, it's Dean.”
“Oh, hey, Dean. Did you consider my pitch?”
“I did indeed and think it is a wonderful thing you are doing. Listen, you wouldn't happen to know any childcare workers or nannies, perhaps, who are looking for work?”
“No, sorry. Everyone I work with is either employed by first responders and/or already self-quarantining. That's why they need the money. You could really be a big help, you know. I know folks of your class don't traditionally work but—”
I knew where he was going and ended the call before he got there. I was getting enough guilt trips from Becky. I didn't need them from Joe, too. Though I was pretty sure I could strike another ally off the list of the very few I had in New York.
That could only be expected when one flees the country under a cloud. That was years ago, of course, but my past kept threatening to sneak up on me here. It wasn't even that bad. Not quite the words they used, but that was how it sounded in my head.
I turned on the TV, hoping to distract myself from my terrible luck, wondering which of the old gods I had so gravely offended. Probably Odin, the capricious prick. Instead, I got a news report, announcing that the entire city was on quarantine. In 24 hours, six o'clock the next night, no one was allowed to leave their homes until further notice.
Chapter Two
Becky
I had made up my mind. I had been single-handedly looking after Jessica for every waking hour for nearly two full weeks. Dean seemed barely aware of her existence. He didn't even know that she was allergic to peanut butter! I would be damned if I was going to become a live-in nanny doing all the work while he sat in his home office doing lord knew what.
I had a sneaking suspicion he might have been jerking off. Why else would he keep the door locked? Though I did occasionally hear guitar riffs when I would go up there to ask for help with something—usually directions through this labyrinthine of a building.
Plucking up my courage, I marched up the three flights of stairs and stopped short in front of the office door. A quite elaborate Heavy Metal riff came to its end. It sounded like Drangonforce. I didn't know he liked Dragonforce. Dean had struck me as a classical and opera sort of guy. Though that could have been my own assumption based on his house and his clothes and such. Maybe he was the black sheep of his blue blood family. Every family had its skeletons. It sure would explain a lot if Dean was among that inglorious number.
Shaking my head, I lifted my fist and gave a quick, hard knock on the ivory white, gold-trimmed door. I tried not to gag thinking about the cost of each door and how many there were in the house.
I was sure I had left my socialist tendencies behind me back in college. Though there was nothing like actually living with the bourgeoisie to bring up the pro-union firebrand, my mother had raised me to be—not exactly being a shrinking violet herself. She did what she wanted when she wanted, part of how I came into being, and taught me to hold the same value on personal freedom. As well as the courage to stand up when I saw something that I thought was wrong.
“Yeah?”
I went into the office without any further conversation, marching up to Dean’s desk and crossing my arms. My conviction resolute.
“You have to take care of your niece. I miss my mom want to go and stay with her during the lockdown,” I said, as sternly as I could muster.
He blinked at me. “But you have to take care of Jessica. What will happen to Jessica if you are gone?” Dean asked, making a pathetic attempt to tug at my heartstrings.
“I'm sure you'll muddle through. She's toilet trained and doesn't even throw her spoon at lunch anymore. I think that was mostly a game anyway. She'll go right to sleep if you read her a story first.”
“I'll pay you double,” Dean said, not letting it go.
“No. That's not good enough. You are her legal guardian and the only family she has left in the city right now. You need to be with her. She-she's having a tough time.”
“Triple,” Dean said, as though he hadn't heard a word that had just come out of my mouth.
How could he be so cold?
“No. I can't. I love Jessica and have liked helping, but that's what I was for. Help. I can't raise her myself. I'm not her mother. I'm not even blood!”
“Quadruple.”
I looked at him closely. Dean’s expression was blank. I could have sworn his deep brown eyes were glassy. It was almost as if he was meditating with his eyes open. Something I was pretty sure was impossible. He wasn't listening. At least not to all of it.
“No. You aren't getting it. It isn't about the money. It is what is best for Jessica. That little girl is hurt and confused, she needs her family. It won't do her any good to have me be the only one she sees regularly.”
He didn't move. His eyes still stark. Like he was trying to turn off his feelings. The ones he was feeling hurting too much.
“You want more?” he asked, using his Master of the Universe voice I was sure greatly impressed his underlings at work.
“Yes, in a way. I will stay with you, during the lockdown, on one condition.”
“Name it,” he said distantly.
“You spend one afternoon per week with Jessica. The whole afternoon. From one to five. No excuses. No exceptions.”
I actually saw Dean flinch. I didn't understand it, but the idea of being alone with his niece seemed to be causing her uncle physical pain. I had just started for the door to leave, probably for good when Dean sprang to life, like waking from a dream.
“Wait!”
I stopped and turned back. Ready to listen but also prepared to walk out at a moment's notice if he said anything I didn't like.
“I'll do it.”
“You will?” I asked, surprised he had caved so easily.
“Yes. Four hours. Every Saturday. Alone with Jessica. You wouldn't be able to go home, of course, but we'll go to a different wing of the house, so you don't have to be involved at all.”
“Good,” I said, trying my best not to gloat, despite my glorious victory, “I'll go start lunch.”
“No peanut butter sandwiches,” Dean said.
“You're learning,” I said, with a good-natured wink.
I let out a long breath of relief as I closed the door. The opening riff to “Blackest Magick In Practice” starting up on the other side of the door. I wondered if it was meant as a shot at me but decided to ignore it if it was. I had alre
ady gotten what I wanted. Dean was going to start spending a significant amount of time with Jessica. I was sure being trapped in a mansion with his niece would bring them closer together.
I was going to be stuck with them, too, of course. The lockdown was total, and the cops were going to be patrolling for civilians after it started. Even in an area as nice as Dean lived in. But I would try and make the best of it. It would be worth it if it helped Jessica. I was really beginning to love the kid.
Chapter Three
Dean
It hadn't been my idea.
I was in my office working like I always did, despite what many assumed about the upper-classes, when I got a call notification. Still in business mode, I answered it. Knowing it was rude to leave a call unanswered. I saw the caller ID, after accepting the call, and immediately regretted it.
“Hello, dear!”
“Hello, mother,” I said, bereft of enthusiasm.
I tried to look on the bright side like Simone had taught me to do. At least it wasn't my brother. Or my dad. A shiver ran up my spine, and I was momentarily somewhere else.
“Are you okay, dear?” mother asked.
“I'm fine,” I said, with all the believability of a soap opera star.
“And how is my little granddaughter?”
“Alive. No thanks to you.”
“Now, that's not fair. You know very well that we can't have her here. The strata council doesn't allow children. Otherwise would love to have her here.”
“You could move out to the Hamptons. There is that big house out there.”
“You mean live there year-round?” she asked, as though I had asked her to jam a live black widow up her nose. The idea of spending more than three months at any of their four properties was border-line scandalous to my parents.
“Don't you have a nanny?” Mom asked.
“Unfortunately,” I said.
“Oh?”
“I mean, she's okay. She's good with Jess. She is just so bossy. Tells me what to do and corrects me in front of Jess. I'm supposed to be the authority figure, right? I'm the one with the legal guardianship. How is Jess going to respect me with Becky constantly undermining me?”