by Wood, Lauren
“Get to the point, Klaus.” I was, quickly, becoming exaggerated. “Why are you here?”
He stared at me, for a moment, and I could see the debate playing in his eyes. He was contemplating whether or not he should say the thoughts running through his mind. If it were up to me then he wouldn’t. One of the things that I hated the most was when people pried into my life, whether they were family or not.
“Your new nanny,” he finally answered me. “What was her name?”
I frowned. “Why is that any of your business?”
“I ran into her this morning,” he told me simply. I sighed. He knew how much I despised him going into my house. Unlike me, Klaus was the farthest thing from clean. He messed up things strictly because he said there were people who could clean up for him. “And before you start getting all sulky, I had to pick up my laptop, the one I told you I was coming by for?” He raised an eyebrow at me.
I remembered him saying something about that. The date must have slipped my mind… that, or he never mentioned one. Still, I would have preferred if he would have given me a heads-up rather than just stopping by. I hadn’t even had time to prepare Quinn. Who knew what he’d said to her or the kinds of things that she’d thought about him?
“Okay.” I wanted the conversation to end, but it wasn’t going to be that easy with Klaus.
“Her name?” He repeated.
“Quinn.”
“Hmm,” he hummed. “Stunning name for a beautiful girl.”
It was a thought that had slipped my mind when I’d first seen Quinn. I wasn’t the kind of man to fall for a woman based on her looks, and I wasn’t in the market for love. But there was no denying the natural beauty that she possessed. My thoughts went back to when she’d come in for the interview.
She was short, small enough to fit in the crook of my arms, I was sure. Her hair, blonde, but nothing like Klaus’. Natural and light, wavy. Quinn’s eyes were big and green, daring me to just stare into them for eternity. Her lashes were long and curly, and her lips were plump and pink. She was skinny, yet fit. Gorgeous wasn’t strong enough to describe her.
But nothing was ever going to happen between the two of us for more reasons than I could list.
“What about Quinn?” I asked him, my fingers beginning to work quickly on my keyboard. I was caught up on my work, just as I normally was. Being behind and late wasn’t my way. Once I finished the report, I looked over the schedule that Jenny had made for me for tomorrow.
“I know you’re huge on the whole ‘no dating the help’ thing, but…”
“No,” I cut him off. “I know where this is going, and you already know what my answer is.”
“I know what your usual rule is, brother,” he stated, exasperatedly. “But you and I both know she’s different, ripe for the picking.”
“Not for your picking.”
“Then whose?” Klaus asked. “Yours?”
“Neither of ours,” I snapped, my eyes running over the time. It was a quarter until five, just fifteen minutes until I was free to go home and see my daughter, the gem of my life. I was well aware of the fact that I didn’t have to stay on schedule, being the boss and all. But I liked to hold myself to the same standards that I held my employees to. I was the farthest thing from being a hypocrite.
“Just hear me out,” Klaus raised his hands in a surrendering gesture. “One date. If she doesn’t like it then I’ll respect your wishes and leave her alone. But if she does, then I get to take her home with me for a night that I’m sure she won’t forget.” He was smirking at me, and the expression on his face pissed me off.
“And why are you so confident that she’d even agree to a date with you?”
Klaus scoffed. “Have you seen me?”
“My answer is no.” I sent him a pointed look. “Nothing you say is going to change what I’m telling you. Ms. Sharpe is my nanny, and her job is to look after Paige. She’s not going to be distracted because she’s running around with you. That’s not what I’m paying for. I won’t entertain this conversation with you again, Klaus. Are we clear?”
“But I…”
“I said, ‘are we clear?’”
Klaus sagged against the chair, feigning disappointment. I was pushing back my own thoughts on the situation. I wasn’t the type of man to be intimate with a woman that I worked with, but Paige was making me question myself and my resolve. I wanted her more than I was willing to admit, but that didn’t mean I was going to do anything about my wants. Just like I did usually, I pushed them down in an attempt to ignore them.
But I was a selfish man. Because I couldn’t have her, I wasn’t going to allow anyone else to have her, least of all my brother. There was nothing holding him back, except for me. And I would always be an obstacle in whatever relationship Klaus tried to forge between the two of them.
The thought was clear in my mind even if I wanted to ignore it and force it down. Quinn was mine. I wasn’t going to let my brother have her or any other man, on that note. The thought of her even speaking to another man was enough to make my blood boil in a way that I didn’t want to think too much about.
2
Quinn
“The time is just flying by,” Morgan commented, a huge grin on her face. She threw her dark, shoulder-length hair over her shoulder. She was staring at me, and I could feel the happiness emanating from all of my coworkers. “I remember when you walked in here, all bright-eyed and chummy, so excited to finally become a veterinarian and achieve your dreams.” Morgan’s voice was teasing, and I couldn’t help but to laugh.
“Don’t talk about it as if it was that long ago,” I rolled my eyes. “It was just last year.”
Morgan snorted. “It feels like it’s been longer.”
She was the best friend that I’d made in my time interning at the veterinary facility. But Morgan was a different breed. In a way, she was selfish and did what was in her best interest, but somehow that didn’t make her a bad friend. She cared about me, I knew that. And even if she could be a bit off the rails sometimes, that didn’t mean that I would trade her for anything in the world.
“Only for you, because you never actually show up for work,” Pierre pointed out. I laughed, as Morgan sent him a pointed look, narrowing her eyes at him. Pierre and Morgan had a very teasing relationship. I was sure that both of them liked one another but were too immature to admit it, as if they were back in elementary school.
And Pierre was a fairly good-looking guy. He was Italian and bore the dark hair, deep brown eyes, and the scruff. His skin was tan, and he wasn’t the tallest guy, although he still stood over Morgan, who was less than five feet tall.
But in my opinion, Pierre had nothing on Ezra.
I tried to clear my mind of thoughts of my boss. I was fully aware that nothing was going to happen between the two of us. And I didn’t need such distractions anyway, but that didn’t mean that a girl couldn’t think, and dream, about alternate realities in which our relationship was a possibility.
“That’s not true, I show up,” Morgan argued before shrugging her shoulders. “Sometimes.”
I grabbed my bag and slung it around my shoulders. “I don’t think ‘sometimes’ is enough.”
“Oh shut up,” she snapped. “Now, let’s talk about this party.”
“I’ve got to get going,” I reminded them. “This isn’t exactly my only job.”
“Right, right,” Morgan said. “You get to see Mr. Steamy.”
“Don’t call him that.” I pointed a finger at her.
She put her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay.” She nodded. “I’ll text you the details.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I waved at both of them, wondering what was going to happen once I left the room. There was so much sexual tension between the two of them. It was like watching a soap opera that I was eager to see the end of. There was no bigger advocate for their relationship than me, even if they were constantly playing a tug of war with their relationship.
I fished my car keys out of my pocket and unlocked the door. I had half an hour before I was supposed to be at Ezra’s house to take care of Paige. I had yet to be late, and I was insistent on keeping it that way. After all, I highly doubted Ezra was the type of man to approve of such tardiness.
When my phone started ringing, I took it out of my pocket. I wrapped my seatbelt around my body, as I answered, not even bothering to look at the name before I did so. I was sure that it was Ezra, calling to ask me where I was and my estimated time of arrival. He, likely, had somewhere that he needed to be. As always.
“Hello,” I said into the phone. I’d already started the car and gotten it on the road. Ezra’s house was only a fifteen-minute drive from the vet clinic. Unfortunately, I remembered that I wasn’t going to the house. I had to pick up Paige from daycare first.
I’d nearly forgotten, and it was a good thing I hadn’t.
“Quinn.” The soft sound of my mother’s voice filled my ears.
“Mama?” She sounded terrible, and my eyebrows furrowed. She’d had an ongoing battle with her health, but my mother was nothing if not a fighter. Even when the doctors weren’t so sure, I knew that she would get better. She had to. And maybe it was just wishful thinking, but I wasn’t prepared to lose my mother.
“Baby.” I could hear the sweetness in her voice. “My bills are piling up. My health…” she coughed. “Is getting worse. Baby, there’s not much that I can do. I don’t have the money…” She let out another cough, much deeper and rougher than the first one. “I’m running out of options.” She sounded like she was dying, and my heart broke to hear it.
“I can help you, mama,” I told her easily, as my grip tightened on the steering wheel. “I can support you, I have the money now, you know that.”
“It’s not just the money, baby.” Another cough. “I can’t… I can’t keep living like this. I need, we need, to consider a home, baby.”
Her words invited thoughts that I didn’t want to entertain. I didn’t want to think that my mother could be getting old, that her health was deteriorating, and I may not have as much time as I wanted. I swallowed and shook my head, willing the tears not to fall from my eyes. As much as I wanted to deny the fact, I knew that she was dying.
My mother was dying.
“We will, mama,” I told her. “We’ll look into homes and make sure that you’re taken care of.”
“I’m tired. We’ll talk later. Goodbye baby.”
“Bye, mama.”
Even though I tried so hard not to show how I felt, the tears streamed down my cheeks. It was any child’s worst nightmare to think that their parents weren’t invincible, that they would die.
I’d already lost so much of my family, and it wasn’t fair that I was being forced to lose more, to lose the one member of my family that I still had left. I was far from okay.
By the time that I’d gotten to the elementary school for Paige, I’d managed to stop crying, and the tears had completely dried up. The kids were out of school, but hadn’t been so for long. I got into the line, looking through all of the students until I found Paige’s familiar, grinning face. She was the happiest person I’d ever met.
When she saw my car, Paige was quick to run towards it. Before I started working with Ezra, I used to drive a cute, small Chevrolet Malibu. It was a shade of off-white, and it had almost two hundred thousand miles on it. But it was mine. I’d worked hard for it, and I was proud of it.
But Ezra had taken one look at it, called it a ‘hunk of junk’ and stated that it wasn’t safe. So, for my first day of being a nanny, he’d given me the gift of a brand-new Lexus he deemed safe enough to travel with his daughter inside. And it wasn’t as if I could complain or deny his request. He was my employer, after all.
“Quinn!” Paige exclaimed, as she settled into the car and beamed at me. She had a sucker in her mouth and she was chewing on it excitedly. She wrapped her seat belt around her small body, and once she was buckled in, her full attention was on me. “We had a party today.”
“Did you?” I asked her, a smile coming to my own face as I started the directions to the house.
“Yep, it’s the end of the year party. And we had cookies and chips and cake. Don’t forget the candy. It was so much fun!”
“That sounds like so much fun.” Just as my school year was coming to an end, so was Paige’s. I thought it was funny that both of us were having our own little parties, although obviously hers was a little bit more kid-friendly.
“It was!” She told me. “And I got a boyfriend.”
My eyes widened. Paige was only six years old, and she was having better success with relationships than I was, which wasn’t that surprising. I hadn’t been with anyone since my freshman year of high school. To say that I was rusty was the understatement of the year.
Still, what was her father going to say when he found out? Ezra was quite the protective father, and if he knew about his daughter being in a relationship, he would completely flip his shit. “And how did that happen?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, seemingly confused about the entire thing herself. “He brought me a dandelion and said, ‘will you be my girlfriend’ so I said yes.”
I nodded. “Is he cute?”
“Adorable!” She was bobbing her head up and down. “I think I love him.”
I smiled. Kid love was so cute. “That’s good.”
“Don’t tell daddy, okay?”
“My lips are sealed.”
This last month, I’d been a nanny for Ezra and his daughter. The job wasn’t difficult, and it was actually something that I enjoyed. Paige happened to be one of the most delightful children that I’d ever met. Usually kids her age were brats, and with a father like hers, they were probably used to getting every single thing that they’d ever wanted. But nothing about her was bratty. She was a sweet girl who went out of her way to make everyone else’s day. There wasn’t a person who could meet her and not like her.
In the beginning, I’d been so intimidated by this little girl and this job. The pay rate was so high that it made me think there was a reason why. A bad one. But I should have known better. Kayley had given me a full rundown of what being their nanny would be like, yet I hadn’t taken her for her word. That was my problem. Everything was exactly as she had told me it would be. Ezra was cold and unreachable, and his daughter was warm and full of joy.
But I’d grown comfortable with both her and her father. I didn’t spend very much time with Ezra, but that was a given. After all, I wasn’t his babysitter. In fact, most times, I had a feeling that he purposely made sure that our paths didn’t cross. Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks on me, but I wasn’t sure.
What reason would he have to avoid me? If he didn’t like me, or I’d done something to upset him, I was sure that he would’ve fired me. Yet, here I was, still working with him and his daughter. Obviously, he’d liked how I’d done, thus far.
“Do you have any homework, kiddo?” I asked Paige, pulling into their driveway. Just as I’d expected, Ezra wasn’t here. It was likely that he was still at work, which wasn’t a surprise. He was hardly ever here by the time that I got Paige home.
I saw Paige pouting in the rearview mirror. “A little bit,” she admitted, with a sigh.
“Then, how about we get you started,” I suggested, turning off the ignition and pulling the key out. “Lasagna for dinner?”
Her eyes lit up. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I like your lasagna.”
“Then let’s go.”
I grabbed Paige’s backpack for her and followed her into the house. She was skipping, and I knew that the second the sugar was out of her system, she was going to be fully asleep. I needed to have her get her homework done before then and some food in her stomach. After that, I’d be the one to tuck her into bed and wish her a good night.
She settled at the kitchen table, and I took out her folders and put them in front of her. She took her pencil and got to work while I to
ok out the ingredients that were needed for lasagna.
One thing that I hadn’t known before I’d taken the job was the fact that I was to be a ‘live in’ nanny. In the large house that Ezra and his daughter occupied, I had my own little wing with my own bedroom and bathroom.
It was a bit overwhelming, at the beginning, considering that it wasn’t what I’d expected. Kayley had failed to mention that little detail, but I should have known. She hadn’t moved in with me until she’d quit her job as a nanny.
But now, it was just routine. It was what I was used to.
Ezra was a man who thrived on eating healthy. He condemned most fattening snacks because he was someone who worked out extensively. And when he wasn’t working out, he was working. That was basically all that his life revolved around. Those two activities and then his daughter.
Cooking had been intimidating, but now I managed, excelled even, if I allowed myself to gloat. The lasagna smelled absolutely delightful as I put it together and then thrust it into the oven. My stomach growled, and I frowned, trying to remember the last time that I’d eaten. I definitely hadn’t eaten lunch, but I did eat breakfast. Still, I was starving.
“Is the food almost ready?” Paige asked me, as she looked up from her homework. I barely realized that we’d been in the kitchen for over an hour now. Poor thing was probably starving, considering that she hadn’t gotten her after-lunch snack like she usually did.
“Almost, sweet girl,” I told her. “Do you want a snack?”
“Yes, please,” she nodded her head.
“No snacks before dinner.”
My lips separated as I turned around. Ezra was standing in the kitchen, loosening his tie.
Nothing about him should have been this attractive. Even when he was doing the simplest tasks, everything about him screamed ‘hot’ and ‘sexy.’ It was impossible for him to complete a task without his body completely oozing out how much sex appeal he had, which was more than should have been legal.
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