Page 2 of Falling for the Nanny
“I’ll help you find someone,” Alyssa said, still mad, when I brought it up a couple minutes later. “Or I guess I could ask Parker if…”
“Oh no.” I held up my hands. “There’s no way he’d agree, and besides, I’m not going to be your live in third wheel.” I honestly couldn’t imagine anything worse. Parker and Alyssa were both energetic morning people who liked to roll out of bed right into their running shoes, then come home and make smoothies and the ungodly hour of seven am. On the rare mornings I got to sleep in, I liked to stay in bed as late as possible and eat refined carbohydrates for breakfast.
The Odd Couple thing worked with Alyssa and me. We each kept our judgments silent.
It wouldn’t work with Parker.
“I’ll figure something out,” I said, trying to rally my former optimism. “Maybe I can swing a place on my own.”
Alyssa just looked at me, trying to decide whether or not to point out that there was no way I could afford it. Parker wouldn’t have made that deliberation. He would have grabbed a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen and ran the numbers right there, then held up the pad to show me how I’d be minus three hundred dollars or whatever at the end of every month. And then he’d say, “Might not by the smartest decision, Cat,” in that borderline condescending way I hated.
“Maybe,” Alyssa said kindly, then nodded to something over my shoulder. “Hot dad is here. You want to seat him or should I?”
I twisted around on my barstool to see a tall man in an expensive suit walk in, a seven-year-old girl beside him. He glanced around imperiously, waiting for someone to run over. I grabbed a menu and a kids’ pack and headed over, even though I hadn’t clocked in yet.
“Hi,” I said brightly to hot dad. “Your usual table?”
He nodded shortly, then said, “I didn’t ask how long it would take, McMann, I told you it needed to be done by COB today.”
I didn’t have to look to see if he had his Bluetooth in his ear. He always did. He wasn’t always talking on it, but it was always there, ready to interrupt whatever his daughter was saying. I switched my smile to her and, impulsively, held out my hand. She was a few years older than the kids I worked with at Little Tykes, but she grabbed my hand just as eagerly, her face brightening.
Hot dad’s eyebrows rose as I led her to the table ahead of him, our locked hands swinging wide, but all he said was, “Then it looks like you’re working Saturday.”
After I seated them, I went back into the kitchen to grab the kid’s chocolate milk myself. When I got back, hot dad was still chewing out McMann, and she was trying to get her three-pack of crayons open. Exasperated, I set down her milk and helped her.
“Anything else I can get you?” I asked when she had her three crayons laid out beside her coloring page menu. She gave me a sweet smile and started to say something, but suddenly, hot dad said, “Get it done, McMann,” and then with barely a breath in between, “Excuse me, are you our waitress?”
I must have sat them a dozen times in the past year, then disappeared back into the bar, but I could tell he didn’t remember. “No,” I said with a bright smile, “but I can take your order and give it to your server if you’re ready.” I couldn’t help noticing that his watch was a Rolex, and his key fob was emblazoned with a futuristic rendition of a T. The man probably owned one of the mansions that filled the Great Falls and McLean area. He probably lost his daughter for days in the labyrinthine maze of media rooms and chef’s kitchens.
“I’ll take a Manhattan,” he said shortly, and then suddenly he was talking to McMann again.
I switched my smile to his daughter and knelt down beside the table so I wasn’t looming over her. “What about you?” I asked again. “Got everything you need?”
“She’s fine,” he said exasperated, but I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or McMann.
“I’m fine,” she said back, lowering her voice like she was telling me a secret.
“I’m going back to the bar, but I’ll keep an eye on your chocolate milk and make sure it doesn’t get empty,” I promised.
“She only gets one, but you can keep an eye on my Manhattan,” hot dad said. I could still hear a faint buzzing coming from his earpiece, so I knew he was listening to McMann, but his eyes were on me. A faint frown on his handsome face, his dark brows pulling into a V over his dark green eyes. It didn’t look like he was mad, exactly, just really intense.
“I’ll do that.” I rose to my feet and winked at the kid. She did her best to return the gesture. Hot dad’s eyebrows just pulled lower, and he turned his head to look out the window before saying, “I heard you, McMann, I just don’t give a sh–sheep. Yeah, I’m with Lily. I have to let you go, but I’ll check in tonight.”
I left, feeling sorry for his daughter. My parents used to do movie nights on Fridays with popcorn and Milk Duds. We took turns picking the movie. I had a feeling that her Friday nights were very different.
“Wow,” Alyssa commented when I joined her behind the bar. “That’s the longest I’ve ever seen someone talk to hot dad. Did you get his number?”
I rolled my eyes. “He was on a work call the whole time. I feel bad for his kid.”
“I feel bad for me because I’m not his wife,” Alyssa murmured, staring at the back of his head in a way I never saw her look at Parker.
I laughed, a bubble of hope expanding in my chest. If Alyssa could say things like that, surely she didn’t really want to move in with Parker. But in the next second, her smile faded, and her words pricked my bubble.
“Maybe you should ask hot dad if he has a guest house you can rent.”
CHAPTER 2
DAVID