I have no younger siblings. I don’t know the first thing abouttaking care of children. Royal children, at that, because I’m positive they come with their own set of rules and guidelines.
That said, I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge. And this is certainly one that sounds too good to be true on paper.
“What’s the catch?”
“The catch is either you do this, or your father goes to prison for breaking into the royal palace and attempting to steal. I’m positive I could get you a cell beside him for vandalism.”
“You’reblackmailingme?” My eyes shoot out of my head like in a cartoon.
“Entrapping you. Blackmail is also illegal in Messalina.” Cold. Cruel. Utterly indifferent to the effect his words have. Holy shit, he’s not joking. Bastard.
I take a step back, my hand on my chest as I attempt to gasp for air. I’m no doubt impersonating a goldfish. This cannot be happening. It can’t.
“Why me?” is what slips out instead of any of that.
“Tell me why not you,” he counters, his back once again to his family as he gives me the full force of his unrelenting gaze.
It’s a valid question.
One I don’t exactly have an answer to because it seems he’s officially removed all my options. My father did break into his forbidden palace, I owe him for the bust, and my father and I need the money. Negative aspects aside, it’s certainly an adventure and a challenge outside of my normal life. Bonus, I like his daughters and feel I can help them since I, too, know what it’s like to lose a mother and live without her.
And there is something so fucking magnetic about him.
His tall, imposing presence with his cold eyes and dangerously handsome face controls all the air in the room. Twisting it, altering it until you’re so ravenous for it you can’t help but crave your every breath like a drug. It’s as if he demands yourtotal and complete mental and physical submission while punishing you for it with his dismissiveness.
“I…” My head tilts. My world sways. “You’re serious about this?”
A grunt. A hand along his sharp jaw. A backward glance at the door, where he holds for a few beats. Then back to me. Discussion over. Verdict delivered.
“Yes. You’ll start Monday. There will be paperwork for you to fill out. A schedule for you to follow. Things you’ll have to learn since being a nanny for a royal family is quite different from teaching English in a school.”
“Uh. Okay. Wow. This is all happening fast.” Am I actually saying yes to this? Do I have any other choice? “Wait. No.”
“Yes,” he repeats, as if reading my unspoken question. “It’s not up for negotiation. Fast or not, this is what it is. Do you think you can manage those things, or should we call the police for you and your father?”
Oh, the disdain and antagonism in his voice. “I suppose you leave me with no choice.” I think I might hate him. A lot. “Do you think you can manage a modicum of civility and respect, or is that not part of your royal duties?” If he leaves me no choice then I don’t see why I have to be nice to him.
His nostrils flare, his hands swinging behind his back, and I hear Emily and another woman I have yet to meet ushering the girls out of the room, the door closing swiftly behind them. That can’t be good.
“You’re speaking to me about respect when you take such a tone with me? Your father breaks into my home and threatens the safety of my family. Something, if you had any sense, you would know I don’t fuck around with. You break something invaluable to me, and I graciously offer you a better-paying job than what you currently have as a means to make up for these transgressions, and you have the audacity to call me out on my royal duties?”
He steps up to me, his body heat and the scent of his cologne a weapon. One categorically meant to disarm with its allure, only it awakens every cell in my body instead.
“Listen here and listen now,nanny,” he seethes the word. “Because that is what you are. An employee. A servant of the people, and here in my palace, with my children, and in my country at my will. You will do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it and you will only answer me with ‘yes, sir’ or ‘yes, Your Majesty.’”
I try not to flinch at that, desperate to maintain my false confidence and useless bravado. My heart races like a thumping jackrabbit. “Be that as it may, I will not tolerate the way you’re speaking to me either. I know your story,king. I know what they say about you, and I see now that it’s all true. A cruel beast in a sharp suit with cold eyes and a frozen heart. For that reason alone, I should walk out of here and never return. But it’s also for that reason I’ll stay and take this on, if only to prove you wrong about me. I may face every obstacle with an eagerness to overcome it and every day with a smile just to say ‘fuck you’ to the universe that would just as quickly destroy me, but don’t be fooled into thinking that makes me a doormat.”
He unfolds his hands from behind his back and glares at me with a heat that betrays the cold I just claimed his eyes to be. “Know this now. I am only saying yes to this arrangement for my daughters. If it were up to me, you and your father would have been in prison an hour ago. Do this job and do it well, or you’ll be out on your ass with a bill for the bust in your fist.”
With nothing else left to say and wanting this battle to end, I offer him a big, dazzling smile. It throws him off, and I take a lot of personal satisfaction in that victory.
“Sounds like the start of a beautiful friendship,” I quip, playing a bit with my name. I stick my hand out for him toshake, and he stares at it as if I have leprosy before blowing out an exasperated breath and gripping my hand.
And maybe it’s all the tension—this swirling, toxic,angry,charged tension between us. Maybe that’s why his large, strong hand against my smaller one feels like a delicious threat. A storm about to be unleashed. It’s electric, causing a tingling shiver to shoot across my skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. He releases me quickly, muttering something under his breath in what I think is Latin while he flexes and extends his fingers once.
It wasn’t like this when I touched the skin beneath his eyes, and now that I think about that,gah! I touched the skin beneath his eyes and called him out on his lack of sleep. Christola.
Without another word, he turns and storms off. The door flings open, and I hear him yell at someone to show me to my room.
