Five Men and a Nanny: A Reverse Harem Romance Page 3

  Dahlia shakes her head and looks down into her son’s eyes as she tugs her top to the side and modestly prepares to nurse him. I get the feeling I’m about to be offered the job of nanny for Knox. That sounds awesome. I stand up straight, automatically putting my hands in the pockets of my waitress uniform, which I suddenly realize I still have on. I probably look a little silly.

  “Would you really consider that?” Dahlia asks, squinting.

  “Nanny? Well, sure! I mean, what could be better than that?”

  A video montage flickers through my imagination. I could just tag along on all their global adventures, keeping little Knox safe as Dahlia and August thwart international bad guys. Maybe I could thwart a bad guy every once in a while too. You never know. That could happen.

  “Yes, this seems to be a good fit. All you have to do is pass the interviews, Bunny. And if you don’t mind taking a little bit of advice from me, you probably want to really get your… game face on. If you know what I mean.”

  I pause, staring at him in confusion. “Interviews? Like… this doesn’t count? Right now?”

  “No, in Chicago,” August continues cryptically.

  I try to smile, but the gesture seems rigid and forced. “Do you send all of your nanny applicants to Chicago?” I ask in a strained voice.

  They glance at each other again.

  “The nanny position isn’t for us, Bunny,” Dahlia smirks. Knox nurses noisily so I try to just maintain eye contact with her.

  “What do you mean? It’s not? What are we talking about here?”

  August rocks back on his heels, crossing his arms over his wide, muscular chest in that patronizing way that he has. I can’t believe I used to think this guy was sexy. If I wanted a lecture from my dad, I would just go home.

  “Some associates of mine. They had a nanny in place and she is… now indisposed. You’ll have to interview with all of them. Pass the interviews and the job is yours. Seems pretty clear-cut.”

  “All of whom?” I ask, wondering if maybe I got myself in over my head. At first this all seemed like a real stroke of luck; now it seems like something else. A bunch of warning bells go off my head, danger, danger.

  “The Worth brothers. They manage quite a fortune, most of it in hotels. Have you heard of them?”

  I shake my head. The name might ring a bell… I think I’ve seen it on ads while I’m waiting for my YouTube videos to load or something. I think it’s a big, name brand. It never even occurred to me that Worth was a family name. I just thought it was a way of making the hotels sound deluxe.

  “Well,” August continues, “there’s one heir, and she needs a nanny right away. You’ll be walking in with our recommendation, which should carry a lot of weight. But the rest is up to you. Can you handle it? Can you be ready to fly out tomorrow?”

  “Tell me about the game face, August. What does that mean?”

  August squints, and I can tell he is measuring his words carefully.

  “The Worths are billionaires for generations. They’re not like other people, and they’re very proud of that. You’re going to have to do whatever it takes, Bunny. They’re not looking for your run-of-the-mill nanny. They’re going to want the very best.”

  “So why aren’t they going through an agency?” Dahlia counters, looking up at him. “Wouldn’t an agency pre-screen the women for all the criteria?”

  “That is exactly what an agency would do,” he replies. “But they called us.”

  “Okay, they want the best weirdo they can find, so you naturally thought of me,” I say in a rush, suddenly eager to leave. “Got it. I’ll do you proud, boss.”

  “You know what, you don’t have to do this,” Dahlia says, shaking her head tightly. “Don’t feel obligated, Bunny. You could say no.”

  For some reason, I want to say something sarcastic right back to her. She’s got that sweet little baby between us, and I don’t want to get any sarcasm on him, so I bite my tongue.

  I don’t know why her lack of confidence in me irritates me so damn much right now, but it really does. Dahlia used to be on my side, even when nobody else was. Now that she’s got a baby of her own, she’s not on my side anymore. I don’t know whose side she’s on.

  “Just have the ticket paid for, okay? And not coach. First class, all right?”

  August bends over and places a kiss on top of Dahlia’s head, even as she’s trying to tell me something in Morse code with her eyes.

  “See?” he says gently. “It’s all going to be fine.”

  Dahlia takes a deep breath and then sighs, smiling and giving up at the same time.

  “It will be fine, I’m sure,” she finally agrees, and I sort of want to kick her in the shins.

  “I think it’ll be terrific!” I chirp enthusiastically. “Any friends of yours are friends of mine. Networking and schmoozing are my life! Thanks for the intro, guys. Just text me the deets!”

  I turn on my heel, struggling not to wince as these boots dig against my flesh.

  Stubbornly, I stalk back out the building, refusing to acknowledge that I do not have a ride, that my feet are killing me, and that I really don’t know what I’ve gotten into.

  I really don’t know what I’m getting myself into at all.

  Chapter 4

  Trey

  I really cannot stand flying commercial airlines. The entire reason we have four private jets is so that I never have to fly commercial. I never have to wait in line with noisy, smelly Midwesterners. I never have to eat substandard food.

  I never have to do anything I don’t want to do. What is the point of being rich if you’re stuck doing this bullshit?

  But somehow, here I am. My brother decided to leave DC a day early and took the jet with him without bothering to send it back. This morning, a courier arrived at my penthouse door with an envelope and a boarding pass inside. The scribbled note read, “Have a great flight, bro!”

  I am going to kick Brock’s ass when I see him.

  I don’t even speak to Jasper, the driver, as we head for the airport. I’m irritated beyond what I should be. I should at least show a little appreciation for Brock’s gamesmanship. It’s pretty good prank, I have to admit. But it’s a prank that involves me going through TSA security in a public fucking airport.

  Like, they’re going to ask me to take off my goddamn shoes. My goddamn, handmade, Italian leather shoes are supposed to go in a scruffy plastic bin where two hundred thousand pairs of other, lesser shoes have also been.

  What the ever-loving fuck.

  But, it’ll give me time to plot my revenge. I’ve got a lot of options. He could wake up with paparazzi hanging upside down outside his window to get shots of him sleeping naked across triplet prostitutes. That could be fun.

  Of course, I would have to arrange for the prostitutes also, and I’m not sure I have a connection for that anymore after the last time. Royce explicitly outlawed unapproved female companionship, and he didn’t think it was funny when I procured a few conference ladies from Taiwan to “entertain” Brock until he was horny and mostly unconscious. He made it clear I was not to defy his rules again.

  Without chicks, my options are limited but not impossible. I could sneak some shellfish into his dinner. Most of what he eats are those girly chopped salads anyway. He probably wouldn’t even notice until it was too late. But I guess there’s always a chance he’d actually go into anaphylactic shock and die, which makes the joke slightly less funny.

  Cutting brake lines, adulterating his gas tank, flattening the tire of his racecar… Jeez. I am going to have to come up with something slightly less murderous. Maybe I should think about it another time so I can aim for funny instead of likely to get me locked up in prison for the rest of my life.

  I’m assuming juries would find me less than likable if I bumped off my twin brother as revenge for taking our private jet back to Chicago without leaving me another one. People can be so petty.

  He didn’t even spring for expedited boarding or anythi
ng. Brock is a fucking jerk. Even though we look the same, we sound the same, and people constantly get us mixed up for one another, he’s definitely more evil than me. Definitely. I don’t care what anybody says.

  For instance, he is constantly copying my facial hair. If I get a haircut, he gets a haircut. If I get three-day stubble, he has three days’ stubble. He must have surveillance in every bathroom in our hotels. The penthouses, at least. Because somehow he always, always knows what I’m doing with the hair above my neck. And he thinks it’s hilarious to always have the same thing going.

  See? Absolutely diabolical.

  I practice some deep-breathing exercises that a certain actress/guru taught me, in order to relax. In for a count of three, hold it, out for a count of three. I mean, she taught them to me as a way to get me to double my load when I come. To my surprise, it kind of works.

  It also is supposed to line up my theta waves or some bullshit like that. How they manage to get into my ball sack is a whole other mystery. But for right now, it’s helping me get through the security line, winding through the cattle chute like an ordinary citizen.

  When I finally get up to the TSA checkpoint, I hand the agent my ticket and smile. She is short and squat, obviously worn down from a lifetime of watching her American brothers and sisters file through the line in front of her. I can only imagine her overwhelming sense of weariness and disgust. So I smile at her, hoping to brighten her day and get through this line a little faster.

  “Something funny, sir?” she asks me menacingly.

  I am totally confused. “Funny? No, not at all. I can barely find anything funny about this at all, um, Shawna. What a lovely name.”

  Her upper lip curls like she’s snarling. Jesus. What the hell happened to this woman?

  “You realize I’m authorized to detain you for any reason, sir? You realize that making threats to a federal agent is a crime?”

  I hold my hands up to show that I am innocent.

  “Shawna, my deepest apologies. Sincerely. I’m sorry.”

  She stares at my boarding ticket like she’s looking for any possible errors she might use to kick me right out of the airport. At this point, I’ve given up hope of flirting my way out of this line. I’ll be happy to just not be arrested.

  Oh, this is the most obnoxious practical joke ever. Brock is going to rue this day.

  Honestly, just how allergic is he to shellfish? I mean, he probably wouldn’t die, right? It could be comedy gold.

  Finally she picks up a stamp and jams it against the ink pad, then smacks the front of the boarding pass and hands it back to me without another word. She cranes her head to the side and holds up a hand with scarlet, spiky fingernails, gesturing to the person behind me.

  “Next!”

  “Yeah, hi, I don’t know if I have everything I need?” comes a throaty voice from a little pipsqueak of a woman. She pushes up next to me, dragging her heavy, workmanlike boots against my fine Italian loafers.

  “Watch the shoes, please,” I mutter mostly to myself.

  She looks up at me, startled. She’s got big brown eyes and a glossy bob that sweeps the top of her forehead. She looks like a little porcelain doll, with a distinctly sassy attitude.

  “Excuse me? Aren’t you done?” she challenges me, one sable eyebrow arching imperiously.

  “Sir? Do I need to call an officer to escort you?” Shawna begins to yell. She’s winding up like an air raid siren, giving me the distinct impression that this is my warning shot.

  “Yes I’m done… but you need to show her your boarding pass,” I say as I back away, holding my hands up higher.

  She takes a deep breath and pouts, shuffling papers in her hand. Finally she holds them all out to Shawna and shrugs helplessly at her. Shawna picks them from her hands with her long claws, jiggling one from the bunch and holding it up like it is some kind of biohazard.

  “This is what you need. Boarding pass. Haven’t you ever been on an airplane before?”

  “Well, no, actually,” the little brunette admits.

  Shawna takes a stamp and bangs on the front of the paper immediately, shoving the entire sheaf back at her.

  “Wait, is that it?” I object. “You just go ahead and stamp her pass right away? Just like that? You were not that nice to me.”

  Shawna picks the radio up from her shoulder holster and holds it next to her chin menacingly. “Sir? Do we have a problem here? I am not going to ask you again.”

  “Jeez, fine, no problem,” I say as I back away, heading to the next section of the line. Two more eight-foot-tall security guards give me a look like they want to piledrive me in the middle of the body scanner, just for fun. I’m not ready to die today, so I tell myself to shut up and do this.

  Despite all the friends I don’t seem to be making, I do manage to make it through security. The gate is not too far away, and the flight leaves in thirty-five minutes. I suppose if Brock wanted me to also miss the flight, he’s going to be a little disappointed.

  Carefully I make my way as quickly as possible down the wide hallway, careful to avoid the golf carts full of senior citizens as well as the sprawling crowds of families with small children. They tend to spread out at inconvenient times and do things like vomit or yell or erupt slushies unexpectedly. All I want at this point is to get to the gate and get in my seat. That’s it.

  And here she is, coming up right behind me. The little brunette. She’s scowling, constantly glancing down at her boarding pass as she rolls her luggage behind her. I hear those heavy boots clomping on the terrazzo floor.

  We finally make it to the gate with a few minutes to spare and I let her shoot in front of me. She walks right up to the open door and hands her boarding pass to the attendant, who swipes the barcode and instructs her to go through the door. As she saunters down the ramp, I can’t help but notice that loose swish in her hips as her skirt sways back and forth. She has got that nice flexibility some girls have. There’s a certain snap to her joints that makes me think about pushing her knees back to her shoulders.

  There we go. That’s the sort of thing that will get my mind off Brock.

  The first-class section on this plane only happens to be about half-full, and only comprises six seats in any case. Still, as soon as she checks her ticket and glances up at the number above the row, I know exactly where she’s headed. Right next to me.

  “Here, let me put that in the overhead bin for you,” I say, coming up close behind her. She doesn’t flinch, but instead glances back over her shoulder at me, those big brown eyes innocent and inviting at the same time.

  “That would be nice, thank you,” she murmurs. Her breath is like sweet coffee. Coffee with vanilla perhaps. I bet she tastes like candy.

  She settles into her seat and clasps the belt over her hips obediently.

  Slowly I sidle past her, watching how her eyes track across the front of my trousers. Saucy little minx, isn’t she? Just checking out my cock, just like that? Brave. I like that.

  As the engines rev up, I can feel her glancing at me and past me, looking out the window at the ground crews as they get out of the way. The plane starts to back away from the gate and her fingers immediately grasp the armrests.

  Amused, I watch her out of the corner of my eye. I can hear her breath coming out of her nose in short gusts and notice the white ridges of her knuckles. She’s absolutely new to this, and it’s sort of thrilling. She’s like an untested animal, thrown into a situation where it doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t seem to be totally lost, but neither is she confident. Alert.

  As we taxi down the runway, the jet picks up speed. The engines blare, then roar. The woman begins to make a noise, a low groan that is both urgent and sexy at the same time.

  Finally we hit the right speed and the nose of the plane tips up. Our bodies are crushed against the not-quite-luxurious seats. I sort of wish I were sharing this with her on my jet, which is twice as fast and really luxurious. That would’ve really knocked her socks off.


  She glances out the window, only to see the horizon disappear as the plane takes off. She gasps and reaches out, clutching my hand with her tiny, hot fingers.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she mumbles, clearly terrified.

  “It’s all right,” I chuckle. Her nails are digging against my palm. “Here, just try to relax, okay? Look at me.”

  She nods stiffly, forcing her eyes to meet mine. I find myself smiling, enjoying the thrill of her fear. Not in a crazy way. Not in a serial killer way… it’s just that she seems so real right now, so unguarded and present in a way most people never are.

  I have got to admit, it’s getting me really fucking hard.

  Tears gather on her lower lids, reflecting tiny blue slices of sky. Her lower lip trembles and her nostrils flare with every breath.

  “That’s good, that’s good,” I coach her. “We’re just talking off. Absolutely normal. You’re perfectly safe.”

  She nods, refusing to stop looking into my eyes. It’s so intense to be sharing this with a stranger; I hope it doesn’t end right away. I want to see more of what this is like. Her eyes are deep as wells, dark as coffee. I bet her boyfriend or whatever enjoys gazing into those eyes, falling into them.

  “Just breathe,” I tell her, pleased to see that she does as I say. “That’s good. You want to tell me your name?”

  She shakes her head. She seems a little confused, mute with fear.

  “Well, that’s all right,” I soothe her. “My name is Trey. You don’t have to tell me your name. We’ll only be together for an hour anyway.”

  She nods, and I can hear that her breath is slowly returning to a normal rate. Still, her fingers dig into my hand, and I’m sure she’s going to leave little crescent-shaped welts, if not scabs. That’s the sort of thing that my brothers are going to see right away. Royce is not going to be very happy with me if he thinks I banged some unapproved female in DC.

  “You know what, I’ve got an idea,” I suggest, reaching forward with my free hand to take the plastic wrapped blanket out of the holder. I snap it out, letting it drape over both of us as I gently disengage her claws from the flesh of my hand. I can feel it stinging and I’m certain she’s drawn blood.