The Nanny Plan Read online

  She almost said it out loud but managed not to.

  His eyebrows lifted and he opened his mouth and she was suddenly very interested in what he was about to say, but Jane awoke with a start and a cry. Her head lifted up and crashed back into Nate’s shoulder. “Ow,” he said. “You’ve got a hard head, Janie girl.”

  “Here.” Trish strode into the room and lifted Jane out of his arms. “I told you that you wouldn’t drop her.”

  “I bow to your superior knowledge,” he said working his head from side to side.

  She caught a whiff of stale milk. Old stale milk. Nate Longmire was on the verge of curdling before her very eyes. “I don’t want to tell you what to do...”

  He looked up at her, a curious grin on his face. “Don’t let that stop you. What?”

  “You might consider a shower.”

  An adorable blush turned his cheeks pink, then red. “That bad?”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Go. I’ve got Jane.”

  He got to his feet and leaned in. For a blistering second, she thought he was going to kiss her. He was going to kiss her and she was going to let him and that was the stupidest thing she’d ever thought because she did not let people kiss her. She just didn’t.

  He pressed his lips to the top of Jane’s head, nestled against Trish’s shoulder. Then he straightened up. “Thank you.”

  This was the closest she’d been to him. Close enough to feel the warmth of his body radiating in the space between them. Close enough to see the deep golden flecks in his brown eyes, no longer hidden behind the hipster glasses. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

  “You’re here. Right now, that’s everything.”

  Even though Jane was waking up and starting to fuss at still being swaddled in the blanket, Trish couldn’t pull away from the way his eyes held hers.

  “You don’t have to buy me a phone.” It came out as a whisper.

  The very corner of his mouth curved up and he suddenly looked very much like a man who would seduce his temporary nanny just because he could. “And yet, I’m going to, anyway.”

  Trish swallowed down the tingling sensation in the back of her throat. This was Nate after a nap? What would he be like after a solid night’s sleep?

  And how the hell was she going to resist him?

  The baby saved her. Jane made an awful noise and Nate reeled back in horror. “Um...yeah. I’ll just go shower now.” He stepped around her and all but ran toward the door.

  “Coward,” she called out after him. “You’re going to have to learn sometime!”

  “Can’t talk, in the shower!” he called back. It sounded like he was laughing.

  Trish sighed. “Come on, sweetie,” she said to the baby. “It’s you and me for the month.”

  She needed this baby—needed the constant reminder of why she didn’t sleep with anyone and especially not with the man who was paying her a salary. She was not going to get caught up in Nate Longmire being an atypical billionaire who looked at her like she was the answer to his prayers, even if she was—in a strictly nanny-based sort of way, of course.

  Thank God for dirty diapers.

  Four

  Nate stood under the waterfall showerhead with his forehead slowly banging against the tiled wall.

  When had an easy plan, such as to not sleep with a nanny, suddenly become something that seemed so insurmountably difficult? He didn’t seduce people. And when people tried to seduce him—like that woman at the last talk he’d given, the one where he’d met Trish—he managed to sidestep around it.

  What was it about Trish Hunter that had him struggling to keep his control in his own home?

  It’s not like he was a prude. Okay, he sort of was, but it wasn’t because he didn’t like sex. He did. A lot. But sex was...it was opening yourself up to another person. And that he didn’t like. Not anymore.

  He didn’t pick up women and he didn’t get picked up. It was a holdover from a long, painful adolescence, where he’d learned to take care of himself because he sure as hell wasn’t going to get much help from anyone else. And yes, it was the fallout from Diana. He wasn’t going to put himself in that kind of position again if he could help it. Better to stick it out alone than open himself to that kind of inside attack again.

  He turned the cold knob up another three notches.

  It didn’t help.

  He wasn’t innocent. College had been good for him on a couple of different levels. He’d started this company. Started dating. He’d gone to MIT, where no one knew about Brad Longmire or his football championships. Nate had no longer been Brad’s little brother. He’d been Nate.

  And what was more, he wasn’t the biggest geek on campus, not at MIT. He’d blended. For the first time in his life, he’d belonged. He’d filled out, started growing facial hair and gotten lucky a few times. He’d met Diana...

  No. He wasn’t going to think about that mess. All the paperwork was signed, sealed and approved by the judge. He didn’t care if she was trying to get ahold of him again. He was done with her.

  But Trish...

  His hand closed around his dick as Trish’s face appeared behind his closed eyes, smiling down at him from where she’d stood in the doorway. She’d looked like an angel as he’d blinked the nap out of his eyes. He’d swear there was a glow around her. And then? She’d tried to give the money back. She could ask him for a million dollars and he’d happily sign the check tomorrow, as long as she stayed and kept Jane happy and healthy.

  She hadn’t. She’d tried to give some back.

  As he stroked himself, he thought of the way she’d been looking at him when he woke up—one arm leaned against the doorjamb, her Wonder Woman–clad breasts no longer hidden behind a respectable jacket. She’d looked soft and happy and glad to see him.

  He. Would. Not. Sleep with. Her. He’d given his word.

  Not for the month, anyway. After that...

  After that, he’d ask her out. Ask her to stay—not for the baby, but for him. They’d talk and he’d kiss her and then he’d lead her up to his room and they’d fall into bed together, hands everywhere. Lips everywhere. He wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her.

  She’d be on top of him, stripping that superhero shirt off, her thighs gripping him as he thrust up—

  Groaning, he reached a shuddering conclusion. Hell. It was going to be a long month.

  He let the water run on cold for a few more minutes until he was sure he had the situation under control. He’d been in control for years now. He could handle a beautiful young woman living under his roof, no problem.

  He was drying off when he heard something—a high, trilling sound that seemed different from all the screaming that Jane had been doing in the past week but was just as loud.

  Oh, no. The baby—he shouldn’t have taken a shower, not while she was awake. What had he been thinking? Nate wrapped the towel around his waist and shot out of his bathroom, running across the hall toward the sound.

  He slipped around the corner to find Trish sitting on the floor with Jane—bouncing the baby on her knee?

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  “What?” Trish looked up and her eyes went wide. “Oh! Um...”

  Jane made that noise again and a sick dread filled him. He’d told his mom he couldn’t do this. But what choice did he have, really? “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s fine,” Trish said in a reassuring voice. “We’re playing. That’s a happy noise.” Her gaze cut to his chest—then to the towel—and then back up.

  “It...is?” He was wearing a towel. And nothing else. He grabbed at it so fast that he almost knocked it loose and suddenly he was very aware that flashing his new nanny probably invalidated any promise, written or spoken, not to have sex with her.

  H
e did the only thing he could do—he stepped to the side, so that his body was on the other side of the doorway.

  “It is,” Trish replied. “She’s had a good nap and a clean diaper and I bet this is the best she’s felt in a little while. Isn’t it, sweetie?” she said to the baby. Then she leaned forward and blew a raspberry on Jane’s tummy.

  The baby squealed in delight and Trish laughed. It was a warm, confident noise.

  Then she looked up at him, her full lips still curved up with happiness. “We’re fine, if you want to—you know—put on clothes.”

  “Right, right.” Feeling like a first-class idiot, he ran back to his room and threw on some shorts. What the hell was wrong with him? Seriously. That had bordered on totally disastrous—much worse than knocking a coffee into her lap. He absolutely could not afford to do anything to drive her away.

  He dug out some clean clothes. In any other situation, he might have called Stanley for advice on what to wear—but what the hell. She’d already seen him at his worst.

  Oh, Lord—what had he done? He should have held out. He should have hired a grandmother who was as wide as a bus and had whiskers or something. Not a beautiful young woman who was going to drive him mad with lust. Who was going to challenge him.

  He forced himself to run a few lines of code through his mind as he gathered up his very dirty clothes and dumped them in the hamper. The original code to SnAppShot. He knew it by heart. That code was like a security blanket. Whenever he couldn’t sleep—which was often—he’d mentally scroll through that code.

  Then he got a clean pair of jeans and, after a moment’s consideration, his Superman T-shirt. Superman and Wonder Woman, saving the universe one baby at a time. Stanley wouldn’t approve, but what the hell.

  This time, Nate walked with a purpose back to the nursery. Trish now had the baby on the floor and appeared to be tickling her feet. Whatever she was doing, Jane was kicking and wriggling and making that loud, not-crying noise again.

  This was okay, this noise. If Trish said it was okay, it was okay. Loud and unsettling, but okay.

  She looked up at him from the floor, where she was lying on her side and had her head propped up on one hand. “You look...good. Nice shirt.”

  He felt his cheeks get hot. “Couldn’t have been much worse, I suppose?”

  “It can always be worse,” Trish replied. Her eyes darted back down to his chest. Almost unconsciously, he stood up straighter. It’d been one thing for her to stare while he’d been wet and basically naked. But was she checking him out?

  She dropped her gaze and he swore the color of her cheeks deepened. “So...”

  He leaned forward. “Yes?”

  “Jane’s going to need a few more things,” Trish said in a rush.

  “Like what?”

  Trish stood and lifted Jane onto her hip with that practiced air. “Everything. This room is a disaster, you know. Were you sleeping in the chair?”

  Nate looked over the nursery. The place was still a wreck—and that got his mind firmly back into the here and now and far away from whether or not Trish might have liked what she’d seen a few minutes ago. “Well, yeah. Rosita doesn’t live here. She goes home at six most days and comes in at ten because I sleep late. And I was just afraid...”

  “That you wouldn’t hear her?”

  “Or SIDS or something,” he agreed. “Elena—Jane’s mother—was worried about SIDS, I remember that.” God, it was almost too much to bear. He’d liked Elena. She kept Brad grounded and had told Nate to keep the beard because it made him look a little like Ben Affleck and that couldn’t be a bad thing, Nate had figured.

  But Elena and Brad were gone and Nate was suddenly the guardian of their daughter.

  He leaned against the playpen for support.

  “You okay?” Trish asked.

  “I just...I can’t believe they’re not coming back, you know? To just have them up and disappear out of my life like that?” He snapped his fingers.

  “I know.” Trish stepped into him and put her free hand on his shoulder. The same fingers that just a few hours ago had skimmed over his skin, making sure he could hold his niece, were now a reassuring hold on him. Without thinking about it, he reached up and covered her hand with his.

  “Do you?” He had no business asking—and even less business asking while she was touching him—while he was touching her back. Even if that touch was a reassuring touch, full of comfort and concern and almost no lust at all.

  “I do.” Then, mercifully, she released her hold on him. She switched Jane to her other hip—the one closer to him—and leaned so the little girl’s head was touching him.

  Weirdly, that was what he needed. He didn’t have his brother or sister-in-law anymore, but he had Jane. And it was his duty to take care of this little girl. He wasn’t married and he hadn’t foreseen having children anytime soon, but...she was his flesh and blood.

  He was a father now. He had to stand tall for her. For them both.

  He tilted his head to the side and looked at Trish out of the corner of his eye. She was watching him with concern. Jane made a squealing noise and Nate jumped. “Yeah, that’s why I was sleeping in here,” he said, getting himself back together. “She makes all these weird noises that don’t seem normal...”

  “They are,” Trish said calmly. “How old is she?”

  “Almost six months.”

  Trish stepped back from him and twirled around. Her mouth open wide, Jane let out a squeal of delight. Trish stopped spinning and looked in her mouth. “Hmm. No teeth yet. But if she’s having trouble sleeping, that might be part of it.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Teething. Yet another thing he didn’t have a clue about. “That’s normal, right?”

  Trish grinned at him, then unexpectedly spun again, making Jane giggle. Yes—definitely a giggle. “Right. We’ve got to get this room whipped into shape.”

  “One moment.” He pulled out his phone and video-messaged Stanley.

  Stanley’s face appeared. “What? It’s after seven.”

  “And hello to you, too. I need you to go shopping. Start a list,” Nate said. “Company phone for Ms. Trish Hunter.”

  Off to his side, Trish sighed heavily, but she didn’t protest.

  “And?” Stanley said.

  Nate looked at Trish. “And?”

  “A crib, changing table, dresser drawers, a rocker-glider chair, stroller, car seat, high chair, size two diapers, more formula.”

  “Did you get all that?” Nate asked.

  “Is that the girl? She came here first. I had to send her your way,” Stanley said in that absent-minded way of his that meant he was taking notes.

  “Yes,” Nate said. “She took the position. Also, I need you to do the due diligence on One Child, One...” he could not remember the last part of her charity’s name. It just wasn’t there.

  “World. One Child, One World,” Trish helpfully supplied. Her eyes had gotten big and round again.

  “One Child, One World,” Nate told Stanley. “I’m going to be making a donation for two hundred fifty thousand dollars. Also, please put Ms. Hunter on the payroll.”

  “Salary?” Stanley said.

  “Twenty thousand for one month.”

  There was a moment’s pause in which Stanley’s eyebrows jumped up. “Can I have a raise?”

  This time, Nate did snort. For as much as he paid Stanley, the man was constantly haranguing him for more. “No.”

  “She must be highly qualified,” he said in that distracted way again. “Good body, too.”

  Nate cringed. “She’s also listening.”

  After a frozen pause—his eyes wide in horror—Stanley cleared his throat. When he spoke again, he did so in his most professional voice. “When do you need this by?”

  Nate loo
ked at Trish and was surprised to see that she was trying not to laugh. “As soon as possible,” she managed to get out.

  “Right. Got it.” Stanley ended the call.

  Nate stood there, staring down at his screen. He really didn’t know what to do next. Trish did have a good body. And an excellent sense of humor about it, too.

  “Well. That wasn’t awkward at all.”

  He grinned. “The least awkward conversation ever, possibly.”

  They stood there. There was tension in the room, but it wasn’t the kind that normally had him tripping over his words or his feet. He was comfortable with her. And, despite all the not-awkwardness, she seemed pretty okay with him. Enough to send him to the shower because he reeked.

  “Señor Nate?” Rosita called up from downstairs. “Dinner is on the table. Do you need me for anything else? It is after seven o’clock...”

  Nate glanced at Trish, who shook her head. The past few nights, when Rosita had fled from the house at exactly six—leaving Nate all alone with Jane—he’d been filled with a sense of dread that was far heavier than anything else he’d ever had to overcome.

  But not tonight. A sense of calm brushed away the nagging conviction that he couldn’t do this. And that calm was named Trish.

  “I think we’re going to make it,” he called back. “See you on Monday?”

  “Yes,” Rosita called back, sounding relieved.

  The sound of the front door shutting echoed through the house. “She’s a very good cook,” he felt like he had to explain, “but she doesn’t really like kids.”

  “So she said. And Stanley?”

  “Don’t feel too sorry for him. He gets fifty bucks an hour.” Her face paled a bit—no doubt, she was thinking about the twelve fifty an hour she’d earned as of this morning. “I know he’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s the height of discretion. They both are.”

  “You value your privacy.”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Which was a true enough statement, but he knew that wasn’t what she was asking.

  She’d as much as admitted that she’d dug into his history. But he didn’t want to go down that path right now. Just because she was someone he’d like to get to know better and who was technically living under his roof at this very moment didn’t mean he had to just open up and share his deepest secrets with her.