Page 4 of Kingpin's Nanny

I don’t even think. I have my credit card details in there and I book it before anyone else can. It’s only once I have confirmation that there will be no public show, and that I have the only link that she’ll stream to that I can breathe again.

Sweeping my hair back, I stare. I just spent enough to buy a small house on a sex show that I cannot watch.

3

LUCAS

Six months earlier

“Boss.”

“What?” I snap, then sigh. I look up at my head of security. Weston has a studiedly neutral expression on his face that tells me I’m being even more of an unreasonable bastard than usual. I am, perhaps, a little intolerant of failure these days.

I sigh and look across at my niece, who is at the other side of the table reading a picture book. My sister’s daughter peeks up at me through her dark curls, and my heart twists.

“The nanny is here. For the interview.”

“She’s early.” That triggers concern. I’m more cautious now than five years ago. There’s nothing like letting your little sister make a bad marriage to someone you counted as a friend to make a man doubt his judgement, and even years later, I’m still over-protective of my niece.

But I cannot continue to work on a fucking laptop while supervising a six-year-old girl. Hence the advertisement for a nanny. A lot of applicants later, we still haven’t found someone.

“Can you stay here for me, Ivy? I’ll be back soon.”

She smiles agreeably and I turn with a rock in my stomach. She deserves better than me. The uncle who failed her.

I get as far as the door before Weston pauses and side-eyes me.

“Boss…”

“What?”

He points at his hair. I go to flatten my own unruly greying hair, and my hand catches. Muttering a curse under my breath, I tug off the unicorn hair clip that Ivy put in earlier. It took us three videos, and two attempts onmyhair, to get Ivy’s hair right this morning. I shove it into my pocket and stride away.

Wereallyneed a nanny. My men cannot see me with unicorn hair clips.

“The new nanny is waiting in the hall,” Weston says. “I’ll bring her through.”

“It’s alright.” That’s how we’ve done it for every other applicant, but being caught wearing sparkly plastic makes me eager to dismiss him. “Get back to your job. I’ll take her through myself.”

Weston nods and leaves me for his office full of screens, and I head through to the front atrium of the house. It’s a triple-height space with sunshine pouring in, and standing with her head bowed, looking tiny and touched by gold, is a slim young woman in a pale-blue cotton sundress.

My heart bounces. Actually bounces, like a rubber ball, an untrained puppy, or a mafia boss discovering an unknown emotion: attraction.

For forty years I’ve never looked at any woman with more than indifference. I haven’t touched one for half a decade.

I want to touch this girl. I want to slide my fingers through her fine, long, straight brown hair, and greedily caress her pale skin. She looks soft, and suddenly, as though they’re woken fromsleep, all my hard muscular edges crave that silk wrapped over them.

I halt in the entrance to the atrium, in the shadows while she’s in the light, and in a fair world, I’d have a few minutes to admire her and collect myself. But no, she senses my presence, or hears my abrupt stop, and turns towards me.

“Hi!” Her smile is brighter than the sun. I’m blinded. “I’m Bella Harlow.”

I stare at her dumbly. As she smiles at me, it’s obvious she’s young. No more than twenty, at a guess. Half my fucking age.

But fuck, Bella Knight has a nice ring about it. She fidgets her hands, and there’s no wedding band there. Saves a man from an unfortunate detour to death.

Please let her be lost. Or a prank arranged by my men. The post girl, a Jehovah’s witness, selling cosmetics door-to-door. Just please, please, please let her not be…

“I’m here about the nanny job.”