An Unexpected Father

by Marie Ferrarella

  Harper looked at him, genuinely concerned and sympathetic.

  “I did not have a day anything like that,” she told him. “Actually, the boys and I had a great deal of fun today. I admit that they do require a lot of energy to keep up with,” she qualified. “But they did listen to me, which I consider an extremely important part of the whole.”

  Brady couldn’t help thinking of all the other nannies who had come, and then gone, through his doors. The ones who threw their hands up just before they walked out and the ones who had rather sharp, painful things to say about the twins’ attitude before they, too, left.

  For the umpteenth time, Brady thought of how very lucky he was to have stumbled across this saint of a woman.

  Which brought him back to the question he had had for her this morning. What had made her leave her last place of employment without having another place waiting as backup?

  But just as he was about to ask, Harper placed a large, steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup on the table before him.

  The aroma was exceedingly tempting.

  So much so that it succeeded in enticing him and suddenly, Brady realized that he was incredibly hungry and could most definitely eat.

  But before he did, he raised a quizzical eyebrow in Harper’s direction.

  Harper put her own interpretation to the expression on his face. He wanted to know why she was serving him this rather than a sandwich or a piece of chicken.

  “I figured that you might welcome some comfort food at this point,” she explained. “The most comforting thing I could think of was chicken soup.”

  Brady laughed softly as he picked up his spoon. “So now you’re a mind reader.”

  “It comes with the territory. It’s a basic requirement when you’re a nanny.” She said that with such a straight face, for a moment he thought Harper was serious.

  Brady waited for the first spoonful to wind its way through his body. She was right. It was comforting. “Well, in my book, you’re an angel.”

  She shook her head. “Uh-uh.”

  She was rejecting something he clearly meant as a compliment. Curious, he asked, “Why not?”

  “The wings would make it really hard to get through doorways,” she explained. “It would also make it hard to chase after mischievous little boys.”

  “I am way too tired to argue,” Brady told her. Although not too tired, he thought, to respond to the smile that curved her lips.

  “Good,” she declared.

  Yes, it was, Brady thought. But the assessment really had nothing to do with her being an angel.

  Chapter Eleven

  There was no doubt about it. Brady found himself torn when it came to Harper.

  Part of him was utterly thrilled that he had, through no real efforts of his own, found her and hired her to be the twins’ nanny. The woman was clearly perfect for the job.

  But at the same time, there was a part of him that regretted hiring her because being her employer tied his hands. He couldn’t make any sort of a romantic move on her because that would ruin everything. Not to mention that it would put both of them in an awkward position.

  But despite that, something told him that Harper Radcliffe could very possibly be “the one.” The one who could, quite simply, complete him.

  They hadn’t even kissed and yet he felt that there were some definite vibes there. Vibes that told him, given half a chance, he and Harper could have something very special.

  Get a grip, man, Brady ordered himself, his mind straying from his work. Look at what you have and not what you “might” have.

  As the boys’ nanny, Harper brought him incredible peace of mind and as far as Brady was concerned, peace of mind was worth more than gold.

  He needed to keep his thoughts from drifting and daydreaming. Right now he had a real problem to deal with. One that, as the days went by and he got more and more of a handle on his job at the hotel, grew more serious in nature. His family had told him that two months ago, there had been an incident at the hotel—a serious one.

  According to what Callum had said, the balcony had seemed to suddenly give way. The whole thing could have turned out to be a lot worse than it was, but bad enough that there had been even one person on that balcony when it had given out. He supposed they’d gotten lucky, considering that the so-called accident had occurred during a Fortune family gathering. Grace Williams, the first hospitality trainee to be hired at the hotel, was the person who was injured. She had hurt her ankle and was on the mend, thankfully. She was now working as the hotel’s manager and was also engaged to Brady’s cousin Wiley.

  Still, any way Brady looked at it, it was an injury that should not have happened. Closer inspection of the balcony had uncovered that the incident might not have been an accident. It seemed possible that the balcony beams had been tampered with.

  If that was true, it would mean someone was attempting to sabotage what Callum and his brothers were trying to build.

  So far, Callum told Brady when he first filled him in about the incident, the police hadn’t been able to find proof one way or another. But Kane had reviewed the damage—and his inspection certificates received prior to the accident—and he was almost positive that the break had been caused deliberately. Which meant that until that culprit was found and brought to justice, the general feeling among the Fortunes was that they had to keep an eye out around the hotel.

  Brady kept it low-key and never spoke about it in front of the guests, but he encountered one of the management interns in the back office days later.

  “So how’s the investigation progressing?” he asked Jay Cross point-blank one afternoon when he ran into the trainee. It struck him that Jay had that cowboy look about him, as if he had just come in from riding his favorite horse, instead of conducting business at the hotel.

  The dark-haired man knew immediately what Brady was referring to. “No hard and fast suspects yet,” Jay responded. “At least, no suspicions that panned out yet,” he amended, “but everyone here has been on the lookout for any unusual behavior that might point us toward the right suspect. Or at least in the right direction,” he qualified. “Eventually, though, the perpetrator will make some sort of a misstep that’ll give him or her away. Whoever did this can’t get away with it forever,” Jay maintained with conviction.

  But Brady didn’t feel as confident as Jay did. “You really believe that?”

  “Absolutely,” Jay replied without any hesitation. “Everyone makes mistakes and that’s what eventually gives them away. If he or she is sloppy, it’ll be soon. If they turn out not to be sloppy, it’ll probably take longer to find them. But it will happen,” Jay said with certainty. “It’s just a matter of time. Until then, take heart in the fact that we’ll all be on the lookout.”

  Brady merely nodded and wound up paying lip service to what had been meant as words of comfort.

  Well, Brady thought as he drove home that evening, the job was definitely not without its challenges. And heaven knew it certainly wasn’t dull. But he was not about to complain. He got to work with a lot of different people and focus on keeping the hotel running smoothly. Plus, of course there was that mystery to solve.

  Brady was well aware of how the public’s mind worked. If the Hotel Fortune suddenly attained the reputation that it wasn’t safe, no one would want to stay or dine there, and business would go from a growing enterprise to a nonexistent one.

  They needed to catch whoever had done this.

  And soon.

  A thought suddenly hit Brady. Maybe it was someone with a vendetta against the Fortune family in general, or perhaps just one Fortune family member in particular.

  What they needed, he thought, was to take a closer look at just who might profit if the hotel was suddenly failing.

  He had a great deal to occupy his mind, Brady thought as he pulled up to his house.


  Including Harper.

  Her world revolved around Toby and Tyler now. But that definitely didn’t mean that her work was any less challenging than his. It was just on an entirely different level.

  And, Brady thought, Harper didn’t even have any adults to talk to during the day in order to help maintain her sanity. That had to be more than a little challenging for her.

  The least he could do, he decided, was to attempt to bolster her.

  Standing on his doorstep, Brady pulled back his shoulders and pasted a smile on his lips before opening the door and walking in.

  The first thing that registered was the toys scattered everywhere. Toys he had initially bought for the twins in an effort to keep them occupied. That never succeeded for more than a few minutes. Maybe a couple of hours, tops. But in the end, the toys just contributed to the overall feeling of chaos.

  Right now it felt as if he had just walked in on the aftermath of a war.

  “Who won?” he heard himself asking Harper, who was on the floor, tossing toys into a huge box meant to house them and keep them from being underfoot.

  Surprised, she looked up at Brady. Doing her best to tidy up, or at least gather up as many toys as she could, Harper had managed to lose track of time. She hadn’t thought that Brady would be home yet.

  Obviously she had miscalculated.

  “That hasn’t been determined yet,” Harper admitted. “But I was ultimately hoping it would turn out to be a draw.”

  “You’re too modest. My money’s on you,” Brady told her, picking up a toy truck that had managed to lose one of its rear wheels. He tossed the truck into the large collection box.

  “Optimist,” she said with a laugh. Harper nodded at the remaining toys—they still comprised a large heap. “Why don’t you just leave all that?” she suggested. “You’ve put in a long day. You shouldn’t have to come home and spend more time cleaning up after the twins.”

  She was referring to his work at the hotel, Brady thought, trying to remember if he had shared anything with her or if that was just her natural ability to intuit things.

  “The way I see it, Harper,” he told her, continuing to gather the toys off the floor, “you put in a long day, too.”

  Rather than grumbling, the way some of the other nannies before her had done in situations far less trying, Brady watched as a smile blossomed over Harper’s appealing face.

  “Yes, but my day consisted of playing games and teaching Toby and Tyler how to be patient while the other twin had his turn at one of those games. By the way, Tyler has a real aptitude at board games while Toby has excellent hand-eye coordination when it comes to video games,” she told him.

  Brady remembered the last time he had played a video game with them. He had wound up breaking the twins apart when the game went up to a higher level.

  Laughing, he shook his head. “No doubt about it. I don’t care what you say—you’re clearly a saint.”

  He was embarrassing her. “You’re exaggerating way too much.”

  But he had another perspective. “If anything, I’m understating things,” Brady told her.

  She made her way over on her knees to another pile of toys. “You know, you don’t have to flatter me. I’ve already told you that I’m staying.”

  Brady grinned as he followed her, picking up toys along with her. “Call it insurance. And I really did mean what I said. No flattery intended,” he told her. “Until you came along, I saw grown women break down in tears or go running out the door, threatening me with bills from their psychiatrists as they ran.”

  Harper shook her head. “If a woman is that fragile, she has no business trying to help raise overactive children.”

  Trying his best to be fair, Brady emphasized the full picture. “Hey, there’s two of them to do the damage. Sometimes the nanny felt outnumbered.” He found himself moving closer toward Harper as the pile of toys grew smaller and more manageable. “So, what wonderful things did they do today? Or am I safer not knowing?” he asked.

  Harper got a kick out of the way Brady had worded his question—and the way out he had given her. Her grin widened. “Let’s just say that what you don’t know won’t hurt you.”

  There seemed something almost ominous about the way she put that, Brady thought. She had piqued his curiosity.

  “Does that ever end well?” he wanted to know, rolling her words over in his mind.

  “It’s just better if we leave it at that. Trust me,” she added as she bent down to pick up yet another toy that had seen better days.

  “Guess I’ll just have to,” Brady agreed as he bent down to pick up the same toy.

  They managed to bump foreheads and as they raised their heads up at the same time, they wound up having their faces almost perfectly aligned.

  Which also meant that their lips were inches apart.

  All the pep talks he had given himself, all the reasons he had laid out as to why he couldn’t allow his feelings to get the better of him, all that went up in smoke.

  Before he knew it, he let his instincts take over and the next moment, Brady found himself kissing her.

  The fallen toy was completely forgotten as it toppled back down to the floor. Instead of a broken truck, Brady was holding on to Harper’s shoulders. Rising to his feet, his lips on hers, he brought her up with him.

  The kiss continued and as it did, it generated a lot of warm, vibrant feelings that went coursing through Harper, taking her very breath away.

  More than anything, she was tempted to go with it, to follow this feeling wherever it might take her.

  But she knew she couldn’t.

  The twins were what was important here, not her feelings or her very strong attraction to Brady. She had already been forewarned that this road would lead to nowhere.

  Reluctantly she drew her head back just an inch. “Um, I’ve got dinner on the stove warming for you,” she said.

  That wasn’t the only thing she had warming, Brady couldn’t help thinking, more than a little tempted to steal just another second longer with this incredibly arousing woman.

  “Does Unca Brady have a boo-boo?”

  They all but jumped apart at the sound of the small voice asking the question. Brady and Harper turned toward the voice, almost in unison, to see Tyler standing in the living room doorway. He appeared to be rubbing sleep from his eye.

  Harper, Brady noted, turned out to be extremely quick on her feet. Recovering her composure, she asked the little boy, “What makes you ask that, Tyler?”

  “’Cause when I fell and hurt my knee, you kissed my boo-boo to make it all better,” Tyler reminded Harper. “Did you fall on your face, Unca Brady?” the little boy wanted to know. His voice echoed with sympathy.

  Relieved to have an answer for him, Brady went with the excuse the little boy had all but handed him on a silver platter. “Yes, that’s it, Tyler. I tripped and fell on my face.”

  Tyler looked Brady over very carefully. Brady waited for the twin to point out that there were no marks anywhere on his face. Instead, the boy merely nodded.

  “Harper made it all better, didn’t she?” he asked his guardian. “Just like my mama used to,” the little boy added wistfully.

  Brady’s heart filled up, and he found himself at a loss for words. Instead, he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze.

  Tyler’s words definitely tugged on Harper’s heart as well. Whatever might have happened between her and Brady was pushed into the background, officially bringing that part of the evening to a close as far as she was concerned.

  “Tyler, would you like to help me get your uncle Brady’s dinner for him?” she asked the boy.

  Tyler surprised both of them by asking, “Will that help his boo-boo go away?”

  “Oh definitely,” Harper assured the boy, glancing in Brady’s direction for backup.


  “Nothing would make me feel better faster than getting something to eat,” Brady said, playing along with the game.

  The boy’s small head bobbed up and down, the question of helping out obviously settled.

  “Sure I’ll help,” he told Harper, then added solemnly, “I want him to feel better. I don’t want anything to happen to Unca Brady.” He turned around to look at Brady, his small face extremely serious. “Be careful, Unca Brady. Don’t hurt your face,” the little boy warned him.

  “I’ll be careful,” Brady assured the twin.

  But Tyler still looked very skeptical. “Do you promise?” he asked his guardian.

  Surprised that Tyler cared that much, Brady told him, “I promise.”

  But Tyler still wouldn’t let him off the hook. “Cross your heart?”

  Harper could see that Brady was struggling not to laugh. Mentally, she kept her fingers crossed.

  “My heart, my eyes, and anything else you want crossed,” Brady told the boy.

  Getting the answer he wanted, Tyler burst into giggles, his solemn expression a thing of the past. “Okay!”

  “Well, if the negotiations are over,” Harper told the twin, “then I’m still going to need your help in the kitchen, Tyler.”

  Determined to please, Tyler’s small brow furrowed up. “What’s nego-nego—that word?” he wanted to know.

  Tyler definitely was a sponge when it came to soaking up knowledge, Harper thought. “Negotiations,” she repeated. “Why don’t I explain it while you help me?” She took his hand and led him into the kitchen, patiently answering his questions on the way.

  As he went to help his nanny warm up dinner, Tyler looked as if he could levitate right where he walked.

  Looking at Harper, Brady knew the feeling.

  Chapter Twelve

  The more he saw her in action, the more Brady found himself to be totally in awe of Harper. She was nothing short of phenomenal when it came to handling the twins.