If only they knew the nanny I’d hired this morning, that she’d once been naked with me in bed.
I forced a smile. “Thanks for the pep talk. I think I have it memorized now since this has become almost a daily conversation lately.”
“Okay. I was holding off on bringing this up unless absolutely necessary, but I can see a crisis coming if we don’t act now. Here.” He pulled a file out of his briefcase and slid it over to me.
I flipped through the contents, skimming several points of a contract, a list of ridiculous rules, and a prenup. My eyes snapped to his, brows furrowed. “A marriage of convenience? You must be joking. I’ve been down the aisle once, and it failed. Not going there again.”
“No, I’m talking about a fake arrangement for a man like you. We find the right woman who could use a big payday, simply tell everyone and the media how you had dated years before and recently reunited and it became serious. You do a little fake proposal in public for PR sake. We include an ironclad contract, make it short-term to get you through the next few months, and add an extension clause just in case another six months is warranted. A year max if the sex is good. At the end of the term, you pretend to divorce and pay her off.”
“Jesus. Do we really have to stoop this low?”
“To get the IPO across the finish line? I’d do just about anything. You would too, for the payday it promises. Say the word and I’ll have a few discreet members of my team start interviewing potential female candidates.”
“Christ, Sam. What are you, my pimp now?” I huffed and pounded on the desktop. “I’m a single father. I can’t just introduce a woman into Theo’s life like that. What if he becomes attached? What happens when I have no more need for the woman, and I rip her from his life?”
“What if the IPO fails? Which would you rather have? Losing this, everything you’ve been working for, or your son’s heartbreak that he’ll probably get over someday soon?”
I scowled at him. “Who the hell are you right now? Oh, that’s right, you’re the man with two grown kids who hardly ever saw their dad growing up, and now can’t stand to be around him.”
“Watch it, Griffin,” he snarled. We’d worked closely together for years, so only with him could this heated conversation take place as both a friend and an esteemed colleague. Anyone elseI’d have fired on the spot. He pointed to the file, getting up to leave. “Think about it. You know I’m right. You need this.”
Once he shut the door, I slumped in my chair, expelling all the air, the tension out of every bone and muscle in my body.
Another text came in from Jessa, a photo, no words again. Theo made a goal ten minutes into the first period and was celebrating with a fist pump in the air on the ice. This was new. No other nanny ever sent photos. It was a glimpse of the life I was missing.
I quickly packed up, determined to make his game, when a phone call came in from my CFO. I hesitated. Gary was the long-winded sort, but he was crunching some numbers for me I needed like yesterday.
I took the call but texted Brock to come pick me up. An hour later, by the time I finished with Gary, another text had come from Jessa—this one included a video of Theo making a second goal.
I grabbed my Burberry trench coat and rushed out to the car. “Can we make it to the game before it ends, Brock?”
“I’ll try, sir.”
“Good man.”
He did his best, but given the traffic, I only made it for the last minute.
The hockey rink buzzed with energy—kids shouting, parents cheering, the crisp scent of ice, little-boy sweat, and popcorn in the air.
Theo’s team took a time-out. I held back, looking around and spotted Jessa immediately. She knelt beside the bench, helping tighten a strap on his glove. He must have said something that made her laugh with her head thrown back, eyes shining.
My son, the kid who’d terrorized every caretaker since he could walk, who’d driven three nannies to tears and one to earlyretirement, was smiling at her like he’d just won the Stanley Cup?
Ah, hell. I never expected he’d take to her like this so fast. But I knew firsthand how irresistible and easy to talk to she was. I’d be right there with him, making her laugh too, only I didn’t have the luxury. As Sam would say, I needed two hundred percent concentration on work right now, not on bedding a woman I couldn’t resist.
I should let her go before this gets much further. What was I thinking, hiring her as a nanny on the spot? I wasn’t usually so impulsive, except for that one night in Holly Creek when I’d invited her back to my place.
Jessa leaned close to Theo and whispered something, pointing toward the scoreboard. He nodded, determination lighting his face as he hit the ice again. The puck dropped, the young team scrambled, and seconds before the final buzzer, Theo got a breakaway and made a slap shot straight into the goal.
Three goals for the night. His first hat trick ever. The crowd erupted.
I yelled the loudest, elated and proud as could be, pounding on the glass. “Yeah, way to go, buddy!”
Jessa jumped up, cheering and clapping like she’d been there every game of his life. Clare and the other hockey moms grinned, giving her high-fives, welcoming her into their tough circle without question.
Theo’s nannies previously would sit at the top of the bleachers away from everyone, uninterested in the sport. They’d read or study a textbook. One even knitted the entire way through a game.
Not Jessa. She was right here in the middle of it.
