Nanny For Hire
Layla Valentine
Holly Rayner
Contents
Nanny For Hire
1. Jayne
2. Jayne
3. Benjamin
4. Jayne
5. Jayne
6. Benjamin
7. Jayne
8. Benjamin
9. Jayne
10. Jayne
11. Benjamin
12. Jayne
13. Benjamin
14. Benjamin
15. Jayne
16. Jayne
17. Benjamin
18. Jayne
19. Jayne
20. Jayne
21. Benjamin
22. Jayne
23. Jayne
24. Benjamin
25. Jayne
Epilogue
Layla Valentine & Holly Rayner
Second Chance Twins
Introduction
1. Shelley
2. Shelley
3. Miles
4. Shelley
5. Shelley
6. Shelley
7. Shelley
8. Shelley
9. Miles
More Series by Holly Rayner
Nanny For Hire
Copyright 2018 by Layla Valentine and Holly Rayner
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Jayne
“Here’s to freedom!” Amy sings out. The champagne cork pops, thick foam spilling over the bottle’s lip.
I snatch a dish towel from the kitchen counter and press it to the bottle. “Don’t let it spill.”
Amy ignores the dish towel and quickly takes a long drink straight from the bottle. “Problem solved.”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “You’re not going to feel that later at all.”
“Relax!” She grins, handing me the bottle. “We don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow.”
I raise my brows at that, but accept the champagne.
“Oh. That’s right.” She runs her fingers through her short brown hair. “The interview. Are you nervous?”
My exhale is shaky. “No.”
“You are such a bad liar.”
“I know.” I grimace. “But I still can’t believe they even agreed to interview me. This agency is the best in San Bravado. Just take a look at all their reviews online. And, my God, the prices they charge.” I roll my eyes.
“That just means they pay well. Hopefully.”
Amy opens the fridge and pulls out the sheet cake she picked up on her way home. She gently eases the dessert onto the counter and looks around with a frown.
“Where did I put that, um, what’s-it-called thing?”
“Knife?”
“The special one. For cakes and pies.”
“Dish drainer,” I point.
“Ah.” She pulls it from the drainer and pops the plastic top off the cake. “I should have gotten candles.”
“It’s not my birthday,” I laugh, leaning against the counter and watching her slice the cake.
“No, but it’s the start of a new beginning. You’re twenty-six, okay? You’ve spent your entire adult life thus far in the military.”
“I know.” I gnaw on my bottom lip, wondering for only the millionth time if I’m doing the right thing by coming home.
“So, what were you saying about this babysitting place?”
“Nannying agency.”
“Is there a difference?”
“To some people there is.”
Amy attempts to put a slice of cake on a plate, but it flips over and lands icing side down on the counter. “Shit. This is why we need a dog. So it can eat all the dropped food.”
“I don’t think cake is good for dogs.”
“And it’s good for us?”
“True. I want a corner slice. That one.” I nod at the piece of cake with a blue swirly flower on it. Go big or go home, right?
Amy hands the cake slice over, and I pull two forks from the silverware drawer.
“What I was saying,” I continue, “Is that this is the nicest, most exclusive nanny agency in the area. I didn’t even expect to get an interview. I haven’t babysat since high school.”
“The rest of your resume must have impressed them.” Amy takes a slow bite of cake, taking her time licking all the icing from the fork. “Ex-military isn’t exactly chopped liver.”
I try not to laugh at the term that I would expect to hear from my grandma’s mouth before I heard it from a twenty-eight-year old’s. “Okay, so I can perform CPR.”
“And put anyone who pushes your kid down the slide into a sleeper hold.”
“Ha, got that right.” I grin, taking a sip of champagne. It’s been a while since I’ve had booze, and it makes my head spin slightly.
“You don’t have to work, you know. Come to school with me.” Amy’s eyes light up. “Maybe it’s not too late for you to start next semester. We could take all the same classes.”
She’s kidding…though it is a cute idea.
“I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t want to study business.”
I shrug and stare at the dark window. Amy’s one-bedroom apartment looks out at the back of another building. There’s no elevator, and it constantly smells like oil from the Chinese restaurant next door. It also costs an arm and a leg in rent.
So, all in all, it’s a deal for San Bravado.
My parents offered to have me move back in with them when I left the service a month ago, but I declined. I could also get my own place, I suppose. One on the peripheral of the city, where I can afford to live alone and still eat.
But I don’t want to do that, either. Leaving the army feels like starting all over again. I may be a few years from thirty in body, but at heart, I’m a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old. I want to share a cramped space with my best friend, eat takeout straight from the boxes, sleep in, work a part-time job while I figure out what I want to do next. For me, right now, that’s my idea of heaven.
“School is cool, man,” Amy says around a bite of cake. I’d almost forgotten we were talking about college.
“So is taking care of kids.” Leaving my champagne on the counter, I take my cake to the table and plop down in a chair. One of the benefits of not working is having lots of extra time to spend at the gym. Those treadmills at the twenty-four-hour place down the street have seen a lot of love from me this month.
“I know what you want to do.” Amy smiles knowingly. “You want to be a stay-at-home mom.”
“Kinda hard to do that when I don’t have any kids of my own. Plus, you’re the wife in this relationship, aren’t you?”
She snaps her fingers. “Hello, welcome to this century, Jayne. Husbands can stay home and raise the kids too.”
“I know that,” I start, but then realize we’re arguing about an imaginary circumstance and shut my mouth.
“This is what you need.” Amy sets her cake down and scurries from the kitchen. Twenty seconds later and she’s back, laptop in hand. She takes a seat across from me, grinning wickedly.
“No,” I immediatel
y say.
I’ve known Amy for six years and two months now, and I can read the girl like a book. She makes it pretty easy, on account of never hiding her emotions well. But aside from that, I swear there’s also some kind of intuitive, psychic link between us. She doesn’t even need to open her mouth for me to know what’s going on in that head of hers.
“Don’t you dare sign me up for online dating.”
Amy’s shoulders slump. “You don’t know that I was going to do that.”
“Yeah? What were you going to do?”
“Um…show you some cool…porn?”
“Cool porn. Huh. Right.”
“Jayne,” she groans. “You just said that all you want to do is be with kids. How about we get you a husband as a nice precursor to that?”
I can only shake my head. “Where in those things that I said did you hear ‘I want a husband’?”
“Good friends read between the lines.”
“Too much. They read between the lines too much.”
Amy slowly opens her computer, eyeing me as she does so, waiting for me to tell her to close it. “Let’s just make you a profile so we can look at guys.”
“We can use yours to do that,” I counter.
She scrunches up her face. “I’m taking a break. I was spending too much time on the sites.”
“Really?” I dryly ask. “You don’t say?”
“Ha, ha,” she just as dryly responds. “Have all the laughs you need.” She types away quickly, the screen’s glow illuminating her excited eyes. “We’ll just have one look, okay? That won’t be so bad.”
“Is there a support group for people who are addicted to dating sites? I’ll drive you to meetings if you need it. I’m here for you, no matter what.”
The crazy lady in front of me doesn’t seem to hear my words. Amy’s eyes rake across the computer screen, and she hunches forward, trying to get closer to whatever she’s looking at.
“What about this guy?”
She turns the laptop around, showing me a picture of a smiling guy with dimples. His jaw is chiseled, his teeth white. Blond hair sticks up in that carefully styled way. There’s nothing wrong with him; he’s just not for me, and I know it.
“I want to focus on myself first,” I quietly say.
Amy gets the seriousness in my tone and puts the computer down. “Okay. Say no more.”
My eyes drift down to my cake, and I cut another piece off with the side of my fork but don’t eat it. Suddenly, my appetite is nowhere to be found.
“Oh, hey,” Amy says. “Those nice comforters we looked at the other day are on sale. They’re, like, twenty percent off. Maybe I’ll get one. Or two. You can use one. The one on the pull-out isn’t really big enough.”
“That sounds nice,” I murmur, not thinking about comforters or the pull-out couch that’s my current home. Instead, my thoughts are drifting to men—precisely the place I insisted they’re not at.
Truth be told? I would like a husband, a family. Abso-freaking-lutely. But I’m not going to hold my breath and wait for all of that to come to me. And it’s not like that’s all I want.
I need meaning in my life. Purpose. To feel like I’m doing some good for others. That’s something I have to find before I move on to whatever the next step in life will be.
I’m hoping that a job as a nanny will provide that. Just to wake up every morning and feel confident in what I’m doing. That’s all I’m asking for.
“But a little action wouldn’t hurt,” I sigh, thinking out loud before it’s too late to stop myself.
“Hah!” Amy points an accusing finger at me. “I knew it!”
“Damn,” I mutter.
“You can’t lie, and you have a really bad habit of talking out loud. Thank God you were never taken hostage.”
Chapter 2
Jayne
Pulling my car into Prestige Nanny’s lot, I kill the engine and take a long breath in.
Okay. You can do this, Hayfield. You got it.
Six years in the military, three tours of duty, extensive experience in combat, but an interview at a nanny agency is making my knees shake—and I’m still sitting down.
Flipping the visor, I check my face in the mirror. I went with minimal makeup: just a hint of blush and eyeliner, plus mascara. For my lips, tinted lip balm. Hopefully, the look says, “Hey, I’m super fresh-faced! Hire me!”
At least, in my head that’s what the makeup equates to.
I take some time to smooth down the red fly-away hairs that have come loose from my ponytail and to straighten my blazer. Going with Amy’s suggestion, I paired the blazer and button-up top with a pair of dark, skinny jeans and low heels. Casual meets put-together. That’s what my roommate called it, at least.
Snapping the visor closed, I gaze at the tall building in front of me. It houses multiple businesses, and the spot I’m headed for is on the fourth floor.
“Here goes nothing,” I mutter.
Grabbing my purse, I exit into the sunny day. Technically, it’s late fall, but apparently Mother Nature didn’t get the memo, because the morning couldn’t be more perfect. Hopefully, that’s a good sign.
Whether it is or not, I’ll take it.
“I’m here for a nine o’clock interview,” I tell the girl at the front desk. “Jayne Hayfield.”
“Let me check you in.”
She clicks away on her computer, and I take a moment to look around. A front desk with smooth, lacquered wood. Leather waiting chairs. Multiple vases full of orchids. Magazines that are actually from this month.
“Have a seat and someone will come get you soon.” The receptionist smiles at me. She looks like a model, with high cheekbones and red lips that shine like a candy apple.
“Thanks.” Settling into the chair closest to the windows, I pull out my phone. There’s a text from Amy.
Good luck!!!
The message is followed by about ten emojis, some applicable to the text, and some not. I smile at the alien one and shoot a text back.
Waiting now. Noticed they can afford magazine subscriptions here. That’s how you know a place is high class.
For sure, she writes back. See if they have tampons in the bathroom. Nice places put them out for free. Snatch a few if it goes badly—or even if it goes well.
Her request makes me laugh out loud, and I have to press my palm to my mouth.
I’m still giggling when a frosted door next to the receptionist’s desk opens. “Miss Hayfield?”
I bolt to standing, my laughter dead in a millisecond. “Yes? That’s me.”
The man with slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair and a burgundy suit smiles. “Right this way, please.”
Heart pounding, I follow him down a hallway, past several offices with keyboards clicking and employees speaking softly into phones. For a nanny agency, it seems a lot of people work here. But, then again, what do I really know about the matter?
The man brings me to what looks like a boardroom. There’s an entire wall made out of windows, with a long table in front of them. Bottles of water sit in front of three of the chairs. One for me, the man, and the third person—an austere blond woman who stands to shake my hand as I walk in.
“Miss Hayfield,” the man says. “This is Nicole Mason, our president and founder.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I tell her, afraid she’ll notice the sweat on my palm.
“And I’m Ed Garcia.” He takes a seat, casually crossing one leg over the other. “Please, have a seat.”
I do so, though my limbs and back are rigid. The other two people regard me in a cool, collected way. They’re the perfect picture of careless elegance. I swallow hard. Did I under-dress?
Mason somehow manages to look intimidating in her black dress and pearl necklace. Her eyes sweep over me, studying, collecting information. Nausea spins in my stomach. I resist the urge to look around for a trash can, just in case the worst happens.
That’s not gonna happen, I tell myself. Smile.
Breathe. Say something.
I smile widely, though it probably looks fake. “It’s so wonderful to be here. I’ve heard a lot about your agency.”
At least that part’s true. My parents’ neighbors across the street have been using Prestige Nanny for years, and they gushed about it at Mom’s dinner party two weeks ago.
“We’re glad to have you here,” Mason says, resting her clasped hands on the table. Her face is tight and emotionless. Either she’s bored, or she’s had a lot of work done. Hard to tell in San Bravado, I’ve found.
“As I’m sure you know,” she continues, “Prestige is the leading nanny agency in the area. We consistently rank at five stars. Many of our clients are high-profile celebrities and politicians, a great many of whom wish to remain anonymous. If you are hired, you’ll be signing a non-disclosure contract.”
I nod. She’s already continuing.
“At Prestige, we expect the best from our nannies. That means always showing up on time and always looking your best.” She hesitates, the quiet making me flinch.
Oh, no. I did wear the wrong outfit.
Her eyes sweep up and down my torso. “What you have on now is perfect.”
I exhale in relief. I owe Amy a drink for her style sense.
“To summarize,” Mason says, “You won’t find a better job in childcare than you will here. We are a great company to work for long-term. Short-term is all right as well, as long as you are clear and honest with us about your plans for the future.”
“I understand,” I say, just because I feel her speech needs some kind of comment.
Garcia reaches for the folder I didn’t notice before and takes a look inside. “So, you’re a San Bravado native.”
“That’s correct.” I nod.
“Ex-military.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looks at me over the folder. “And your experience in nannying…” He trails off, waiting for me to finish.
My gut twists. I detailed all of my experience on my application. Maybe he just wants to check my story.
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