Page 5 of Daring Wicked Love (Wicked Dade #2)

“Frederic.” Orla blinked slowly as if I were a hallucination. “I don’t understand. You’re the one hiring a nanny?”

“Is keen observational skills on your resume?” I clipped. “As well as stating the obvious?”

“That and my dazzling personality.”

I bristled as a smile crept onto her face. “Funny.”

“I’ll add comedy genius to my resume later.”

Patience was something I was severely lacking by this point. After interviewing over twenty people for the position, each one as useless as the next, I had mentally checked out.

It wasn’t that the other applicants didn’t have the experience or the skills; it was more down to a feeling.

Honestly, I didn’t like any of them.

Especially the brunette with the fake tits and abnormally white teeth who was too busy trying to flirt her way into the position, and I wasn’t sure it was the nanny position she was aiming for, that she completely ignored Penelope charging into the room asking for a band-aid.

And I didn’t even want to think about the teenage girl who showed up with her mother.

Now this walking sunshine was taking up my time. It was safe to say any inklings of patience were well and truly dead.

She looked exactly as she did every other day I encountered her.

Five foot nothing, golden locks of hair that reminded me of a fairytale princess, and a smile that made her grey eyes burst into life.

She was always smiling. It unnerved and uncentered me whenever she directed one of them at me.

“Why are you here, Miss Connell?” I twisted the ring on my finger. “Last time I checked, you worked for a cosmetic company, and unless they were selling lipsticks to toddlers, you don’t have the experience to nanny a child.”

Her sculpted brow arched. “How do you know I worked for a cosmetic company?”

“Irrelevant.”

“On the contrary, I think it’s quite relevant.”

Ignoring her, I stood from my chair and closed the distance between us. “If Isaac had shown me your resume, I would have saved you the cab fare.”

“If you haven’t seen my resume, then you don’t have the faintest idea what experience I have.” She smirked, despite the way her slender throat bobbed. “For all you know, I could be overqualified for the position.”

“I don’t care for people who waste my time, Miss Connell.”

Coming within inches of Orla, her perfume invaded my personal space.

Newly sprung daisies and fresh summer rain. Crisp and floral. It was all-consuming yet not necessarily unpleasant.

I looked down at her, eyes drawn to a strange stain on her awful blouse. The outfit was an odd choice, nothing like the colorful and free-spirited style she normally wore. “Are you wasting my time, Miss Connell?”

Where were the obscenely bright dungarees splattered with paint that she wore nearly ninety percent of the time during our elevator rides together?

And why was her hair pulled back from her face so tightly?

“Orla,” she corrected, her eyes following mine to the stain. A blush crept up the length of her throat. “We’ve lived in the same building for three years, why didn’t I know you had a child?”

“Why would I have shared that information with you?” I said bluntly. “It’s called a private life for a reason, Miss Connell. Riding the same metal box from time to time hardly grants you the right to know anything about me.”

Being this close to her, I noticed things about her I never saw before.

Like the small, crescent moon-shaped scar on her chin that I had to close my hands into fists to stop myself from tracing.

There was also a pale pink birthmark directly beneath her left ear running down to her jawline that I bet tasted exactly like fresh rose.

Her lips parted and I couldn’t help but be drawn to them, taking in their shape, the fullness of the bottom one, and the way they’d look so perfect wrapped around my...

I stepped back from her without warning.

It’s just tiredness, that’s all.

“I have some experience,” she said, setting down her ridiculously large plastic folder. “Back in Ireland, I helped look after a little girl. Also, I volunteer with children at the community center close to the apartments.”

“I am aware of your volunteer work, yet again, I fail to see how it makes you fit to care for a child full time.”

Her tongue ran along her bottom lip distractedly. “Should I be concerned or flattered that you know so much about me?”

“Do you have a reference for the child you cared for?”

“I can get you a reference from the community center by the end of the day. Noreen, who organizes the volunteering, can vouch for me. She always says I am the best with all the children. Which, by the way, is saying something because one of the volunteers is a teacher.”

Mon Dieu , she talked a lot.

She was like a toy whose batteries never died.

My tongue clicked the back of my teeth. “That reference, I don’t care about. It’s the other one I want to see.”

“Look, I won’t lie to you. The little girl was my sister, Niamh, but it still doesn’t lessen the fact that she was my responsibility. A responsibility I took seriously.”

“It’s hardly experience.”

“I made sure she was fed, clothed, and had a roof over her head,” Orla blurted. “I spent years making sure she was cared for, no matter the expense.”

This was a pointless exercise.

Orla was as useless, if not more useless, as the rest of them.

At least the other applicants actually had fucking experience, with references to prove it.

Half of the applicants were au pairs for high-class clients throughout Canada and North America, not to mention the one woman who had nearly fifty years of nannying experience.

A far cry from whatever bullshit Orla was trying to sell me.

Plus, the very thought of having her living in my home, having her constant positivity filling up every ounce of my personal space… I’d much rather throw myself headfirst into the depths of hell.

And I still had a couple more years before I met my fiery final destination.

“I said it before, I despise it when people waste my time.” I walked past her and opened the office door. “ Babysitting your sister doesn’t count.”

“Why the hell doesn’t it count?”

“Because I say so. This isn’t a sales or telemarketing job. This is my child we are talking about. Her care and safety is and always will be my only priority, and whatever nanny I hire will need to understand that.”

She nodded quickly. “I understand that, trust me. I’ll do everything in my power to look after her to the best of my ability. You have my word.”

“Your word means nothing to me, Miss Connell.” I motioned for her to leave. “You’re not fit for the job. There’s not a single chance I will compromise when it comes to my daughter.”

For the first time in the three years I knew her, her lips turned downward, and all hints of happiness vanished.

Seeing her constantly smiling threw me off balance.

Seeing her like this was somehow worse.

“Frederic,” she said quietly, “I really need…”

Whatever else she wanted to say, she swallowed, her jaw setting tight, and her shoulders pushing firmly back.

“Thank you for your time,” she said instead, letting her unfinished sentence die on her tongue. “I can see myself out.”

Curiosity wasn’t something I wasted my breath on; if I needed to know something, I’d know it without having to pry. But merde, I fought back the urge to grab her and demand to hear what she held back from me.

Reason told me to close the door and pretend the whole encounter never happened, after all, our last elevator ride together was supposed to be the last time I set eyes on the talkative pixie.

Orla was nothing and no one to me.

My focus had to be on finding a suitable nanny. Otherwise, Penelope was going to have to spend a lot of her summer coming to work with me.

An option I didn’t want to consider unless it was the very last resort.

But for the first time in my life, curiosity sank its fangs into my neck and seeped its poison into my veins, until every heartbeat was consumed with needing answers from her.

Unable to stop myself, I followed her out to the foyer and nearly stumbled when I spotted her at the front door talking to Penelope.

I swear my daughter was allergic to following basic rules.

Likely because her mother enforced zero rules and consequences, meaning Penelope struggled to understand my need for them.

I thought telling her to stay upstairs while I held the interviews was a simple request. Apparently, for a five-year-old, it was as if I asked her to breathe underwater.

Penelope pointed to the folder tucked under Orla’s arm. “What’s in there?”

“Let me show you.” Orla didn’t miss a beat, opening the folder and letting Penelope pull out pieces of paper. Vivid colors, sketches that rivalled many professional pieces I’d seen over the years, and paintings that captured my daughter’s attention immediately.

“Did you draw all these?” Penelope asked in awe. “I like them a lot.”

“I sure did. Do you like to draw too?”

“Yes!” Penelope exclaimed excitedly. “Can I show you some of my drawings? I have loads and loads. Oh, and wait until you see the one I did of all the fairies in my Grands-mère’s garden, they have pink wings and glittery hair.”

“I’d love to see them.” A warm smile that mirrored the surface of the sun broke across Orla’s face. “You must be one very special girl if you got to see the fairies.”

“I haven’t seen them. Only my Uncle Jax has seen them with his eyes,” Penelope explained. “But I hear them all the time when I am playing tea parties. I hear them singing and giggling. Maybe one day they will let me see them.”

“Do you know that only if a fairy deems you worthy can you hear their true voices?” Orla nodded as Penelope’s awestruck gaze widened to the size of saucepans. “It means they trust you.”

My daughter gasped and turned to look at me with a grin. “Did you hear that, Daddy?!”

Well shit.

She was good, I’d give her that.

Still didn’t mean she was able to look after a child, no matter how much Penelope was looking at her like she was the goddamn fairy queen herself.

“Do you want to come and see my drawings now?” Penelope reached for Orla’s hand. “They are in my room. I can show you my new paint set, and maybe you can show me how to paint like you?”

“I’d love that.” Orla smiled.

“Penelope,” I butted myself into their conversation, feeling like an outsider in my own home. “Orla has other things to do today. She only stopped by to talk to me briefly.”

Her lips pursed into a pout as she handed Orla her paintings back. “Will you be able to come back later?”

“Maybe some other day.” Orla put her folder back together, avoiding even a glimpse in my direction. “I have to go now. Your dad can maybe ring me sometime and we could have a playdate, or maybe he could bring you to one of my art classes, how does that sound?”

“Yes, please!” Penelope skipped over to me. “Is that okay, Daddy? I want to learn how to paint just like Orla, and I can show her all my pictures of the fairies.”

Tightness wrapped itself around the base of my neck. “I’ll think about it.”

There wasn’t anything within reason I’d deny my daughter.

Even if it meant seeing the bubbly personification of positivity that made my skin tighten again.

“I wish she could stay,” Penelope sighed as Orla opened the front door. “I like her. More than the other lady in your office. She wasn’t very nice. But Orla is nice, and she is pretty too.”

“Can’t say I noticed,” I said tightly, unable to tear my eyes away from the blonde as she walked out. The click of the door closing filled the void she left behind. “Do you really like her?”

“Yes, I want her to be my friend.” Penelope nodded firmly. “Is Orla your friend?”

I shook my head, unable to stop myself from possibly making a huge mistake. “No, she’s not my friend, mon petit soleil , but she is your new nanny.”