by J. L. Beck
Julian and I were a little bit clever. Some would call us geniuses, but we didn't need our egos pet like that. We had plenty of other more creative ways of getting our daily affirmation that we were awesome.
We had created a funky little algorithm that tracked stock trading prices and anticipated when big, sweeping changes would occur, based on patterns of that stock in the past and of ones similar to it. We ended up turning a minimum-wage job's weekly paycheck into something that was paying dividends for us all to live on. We were quite nearly overnight successes, and for Mom? It was a burden off her over-stressed mind that she didn't have to work as a secretary, a waitress, and an Uber driver all in the same day just to make ends meet.
We reached the top floor in no time, and Julian led the way out of the elevator. He opened the door to the penthouse and called out for Isabella and Tiff, his voice echoing throughout the penthouse.
Luckily, the place didn't look like a tornado had torn through it, cutting out a couple possibilities.
We moved farther into the suite, closing the door behind us. I took in the scene before me, and as I suspected, Isabella's worry wasn't because little sister Tiff had become Lady Satan herself. She was actually just happily watching cartoons, behaving like a good eight year old should.
Isabella, who had been our housekeeper since we moved in, was sitting at the kitchen table, worried as hell, before she looked up at us. Hadn’t she heard us come in?
"Oh thank God, you're finally here," she huffed out.
"Yes? You asked for us, did you not?" I crossed the room. "What's going on?" I was all business, wanting to get down to the fact of the matter.
"It's Ms. Barnes. She’s um...she’s not here." Isabella wrung her hands together, worry marring her features.
"Hmm… Well, that’s definitely not a good thing.” I blinked trying to figure out what the hell it was that was going on. Mom didn’t normally up and leave without letting us know where she was going and what she was doing.
"She took off. Said she was going on a long vacation with some guy named Jean Pierre Jacques," Isabella said as if the guy’s name was part of one of those expensive perfume commercials.
"Jean Pierre Jacques?" Julian repeated, the name rolling off his tongue.
"I thought she was joking, but I'm two hours over my shift here and she's still not back and she's not answering my calls or texts." Isabella’s voice began to rise with panic, even as we were standing right in front of her.
"Seriously, Jean Pierre Jacques?" Julian blinked and shook his head, his gaze colliding with mine. We both knew this wasn’t going to end well.
"Ms. Barnes is a very troubled woman, boys. I know you two are too busy to take care of Tiff full time, so I asked my agency if they had anyone else that could nanny. They don't, but they did recommend a sister agency that deals in live-in nannies."
"Live-in nannies?" I snickered. "Like Marry Poppins or whatever it’s called?"
"If you want to call it that." She took a piece of paper from the counter and slid it over to me. "There's the number to call. I'm meant to keep the house tidy, boys. I'm not a childcare professional. However, it just felt wrong to take off and leave little Tiff here all alone."
A long sigh escaped my lips. "Thanks, Isabella. I'll be sure to make you sure you get proper overtime for all this."
Isabella grabbed her belongings and smoothed a hand down her shirt. "I need to get home to my girls. They must be starving, and I promised them not another canned soup dinner."
"Take care, Izzy." I gestured her way as she gripped purse in her hands before and taking off toward the door. As soon as the penthouse door closed behind her, I turned to my brother.
"You want to go see if Tiff knows anything about this?" I clenched my fist at my side, hiding the disapproval about our mother the best I could.
"Let’s.” He started off in the direction of the living room.
We didn't hate our little sister or anything like that. Actually, we loved her—a lot. It was just that everything had changed so suddenly in the past year. We hit our fortune. We freed Mom from having to work three jobs all at once, and we moved her and Tiff into this penthouse with a magnificent view of the city.
It was still unbelievable to me that she’d worked three jobs. Then again, she was a single mother with three kids. It's surprising she didn't snap sooner, all things considered, so I honestly considered her a hell of a woman, even if she was causing us a bit of trouble at the moment.
I pulled out my phone and was going to call her personally to see what this whole Jean Pierre Jacques thing was, but before I could even dial the number, an email appeared across the screen.
An email from her.
Apparently, she needed a nice long trip, and she was seeing the world with this guy who she'd been talking to online over the past few months. She said that we shouldn't freak out; she’d checked that he's not a serial killer and that they might elope, but she needs this. It’s been her dream since she was a little girl, and she won't be anywhere near a phone or computer for awhile.
Well damn.
It was sort of irresponsible of her to bail on Tiff, but maybe she was so stressed out that it made her stupid and think that Isabella's duty was to take care of her? So many years of single motherhood—along with some broken hearts along the way—is enough to send anyone to a shrink, right?
Or traveling the world with some French guy, I supposed.
I opened the slip of paper Isabella gave me. A live-in nanny, huh? It seemed to be the most obvious solution. Julian and I were busy with our college careers. Sure, we'd made our money, but the quickest way to lose money is to not know how to manage it. For example, most lottery winners.
We were driven to this whole “be smart” thing, so college was happening, millions and billions of dollars or not.
That meant we couldn't become Tiff’s sudden brother-dad hybrid. Sure, she was laughing and playing with Julian right now, but we couldn't do it alone, and since we had the money, we had options we could explore.
A live-in nanny, though? Au pair? Trumped-up babysitter? I mused on whom we could possibly get. I'd heard those fantasies about seducing the housekeeper and all that.
Isabella made me realize how silly that thought really was. She was middle-aged and happily married. Fantasies were just fantasies in my mind.
Pulling out my cell, I dialed the number, realizing I needed to focus on someone good for Tiffany instead of worrying about my dick so much. Finding girls who wanted a good time wasn't exactly hard for me anyway.
Even then? It was getting more than a bit old having a rotating cast of girls I would be sharing my bed with. I yearned for something steady, something real. Something to really make my blood boil with desire and keep me interested.
None of the girls I went to college with did that for me. Fuck, if I ever found a girl like that, I'd be all over her like a rabid dog. I listened to the automated system and options before pressing the “1” key so I could speak to a live person. It was mine and Julian’s duty to care for Tiff, and we were going to do whatever we could to make things right.
16
CASSIE
There's a thing about working with kids. The kids, for the most part, are fine.
Sure, once in a while, they throw a fit, they act irrationally, but you know at the end of the day they'll give in. A kid who doesn't want to take a nap doesn't have an iron will to stay up forever.
No, the kids have never been the problem with me and my job.
The problem you ask?
The parents.
"I'm going to report you to your manager!" she screamed at me as I walk away.
My eyes were wide with shock, as I could never believe what I'd been fired for this time.
The time before? It was sort of my fault. I'd been kinda late a few times, and they were a hard-ass about it. Fair enough.
This time though?
Mrs. Feasel was a total itch, as I would sometimes say when there were kids
around.
I was riding the elevator down to the bottom floor after this arduous nonsense, ready to go home, kind of afraid I was already on strike two.
Anticipation lingered as I held my phone and waited for the inevitable call from Bruce.
There it was. I clicked the answer button. "Hi, Bruce. Yes, it's Cassie."
"What'd you do this time, Cassie?"
I grumbled. As a boss, Bruce had been good to me. He was understanding that I was young and would make mistakes, and hence forgave the first termination I got for the tardiness.
The company, the Child's Organization for Kindness—or...I wouldn’t say the acronym—had a harsh three-strike policy. Three terminations from clients, and you were permanently done with the company.
So one hard-ass, one crazy, and suddenly I was on thin ice. For a young, aspiring child psychologist like myself, that was not a great place to be.
"What did they say I did? Just curious." I legit was wondering if Mrs. Feasel was going to try to play that card.
"That you tried to poison their son, Skylar."
He should have been able to hear the impact that was my palm smacking my forehead.
"You didn't do that, did you? That's like, automatic firing level, Cassie."
"What do you think, Bruce?" I paused before realizing I really shouldn't be firing sarcasm at my boss. "No, of course not."
"Then why are they saying that?"
I let out a breath. "I bought a bag of potato chips."
"Huh?"
"I bought a bag of potato chips. For my own consumption. My own snack. I had no intention of breaking their rules or sharing them with Skylar."
"Then why on earth is Mrs. Feasel saying you're trying to poison him?"
"Gluten. The chips could potentially have gluten, and Mrs. Feasel apparently thinks it acts as an airborne agent or something and will murder her son when I open the bag."
"Well, uh, she's just paranoid of his celiac I guess. Could sneak a chip when he isn't looking."
"I don't even think most potato chips even have gluten? And I don't think Skylar even has celiac?" If he did, I would have taken it a whole lot more seriously. "No, it didn't have gluten-free emblazoned on it, so it's poison. Hence, she fired me."
"Seriously? Whatever. It's strike two. You know how it is. I can't control it."
"I know, I know."
"Luckily for you, though, I have another opportunity for you. They're requesting an urgent interview, which means they're hiring ASAP."
"Sounds good to me. The day's still young."
"I'll text you the address. They'll be expecting you. Cassie, though, if they seem crazy, you might just want to decline the job. That way I don't have to fire you when it all becomes too much."
"I'll take it under advisement, but I think I'm due for something boring and typical at this point. Hopefully."
"Well, we don't get many rush requests, so there's that. Good luck with this one, Cassie."
"Thanks, Bruce."
The call ended, and less than a minute later, I got the text with the address and who I was seeing.
Julian Barnes.
Never heard of him.
The address, though?
That was on the city's west side, the richest part of town, and that meant they were really, really fucking rich.
Most of the people who hired me were the type who pulled six digits a year. Upper-class types. Doctors, lawyers, people who had super long hours and sold all their times so they got nothing for the kids.
The place I was going, though, was a step above that. Maybe a few flights of stairs above that, if I wanted to be perfectly fair.
I caught the cab over, psyching myself up. I needed this. I had the whole massive student debt thing going, barely getting by, and I still needed to build up experience. The live-in nanny thing seemed like a good way to get experience with kids, have someplace without a massive rent hanging over my head, and still pull in a paycheck to be able to handle the loan payment, keep my phone on, and not starve.
I'd just been looking at it as a twist on roommate situations. Like, sure, my roommates were in a whole different place in their life than I was, but all the same, I was sharing a house with people, so I couldn't get too comfortable with myself. I could live with it.
That was the theory anyway. I was getting sort of tired of running the crazy gauntlet, and it seemed moms could be far crazier than a single twenty-something.
When I got to the address, I looked up at the building. This was a tower, pretty much a skyscraper, and I was going to the penthouse up on top of the damn place? What the hell was I about to deal with? I hadn't even met them yet, and it felt as if I was already walking into something crazy.
I approached the elevator, but there was a guy there who quickly threw out his hand to stop me. "Do you have business here, miss?"
"Um, I'm here to see Julian Barnes?"
He laughed. "Really?"
"Yeah."
The guard—doorman, or whatever he was—shook his head. He brought a hand to an earpiece. High tech as hell. "Mr. Barnes, you there? I have a..."
"Cassie Moore. I'm with C.O.K. childcare?" I made sure to use the letters and not the word itself. What sort of idiot named that company?
"A Cassie Moore here. Says she's with…"
"Just the babysitter, er…nanny they requested."
"Riiight. Okay then." He lowered his hand from his ear. "He's expecting you."
The door opened, and I stepped onto the elevator, somewhat confused that I was about to essentially go to work with someone who lived in a place where I was the riffraff the door people tried to keep away.
Even the elevator was nicer than a lot of the places I've lived. The carpet felt super soft, even through my sneakers.
The ride was long, giving me more time to agonize over who I was about to meet. Who will they be? What will they look like? Is it some decrepit old skeleton-looking guy? Why does he need a nanny?
I shuddered. Probably for his son who he had with a woman a quarter his age. The idea revolted me enough that it may have been enough to send me running.
Finally, the elevator reached the top floor. I stepped out. There was a hallway with a single door. Honestly? It felt sort of ominous. The door was large and wide, enough for three of me to walk in side by side. Must have made moving in and out easier, at the very least.
A shiver went down my spine. Part of me wanted to just abandon this. I had a bad feeling about this, as if that whatever happened when that door opened was going to be something I was never going to forget.
It was an absolutely silly thing to freak out about. I just needed to be a professional.
So I knocked, and suddenly wondered if I was going to regret it.
Shut up, brain.
The door opened, and some of my suspicions suddenly came true.
I wasn't going to forget what I saw easily. No, it wasn’t the decrepit old man and his barely legal squeeze.
Really, it was the furthest thing from it.
A square jaw, clear, azure eyes staring my way on the most handsome face I could ever imagine, mounted on what was pretty much an old Greek statue made flesh.
I think I was so overwhelmed that my vision was going blurry and I was suddenly seeing two of them.
17
JULIAN
Well, well, well. This was not what I expected. Not at all.
What I did expect? Someone like Isabella. Maybe someone who looked like my grandmother.
Not a fucking porn star. Or super model. Or whatever. She was incredibly hot and was hitting all the right buttons for me.
Suddenly, I was a whole lot more on board with Jack's insistence we get a nanny to care for Tiff.
When he originally told me, I said we should go get Aunt Sue or someone to do it, and it may have seemed selfish, but I quickly decided Tiff deserved a true professional. Aunt Sue would be fine without the extra money we would have thrown her way. She'd married well.
"Hello there," Jack managed to say, a gigantic smile on his face. I'd call it smiling like an idiot, but I was pretty sure I had the same stupid look on my face.
"Hi," she managed. A girl like her wasn’t something I thought of when I thought of childcare workers.
Outside of maybe teenage babysitters, but she wasn’t that either. She was a quite bit more grown up—the girl next door made super hot. That innocent body filled out with curves in all the right places.
Fuck, did I just get a chub from looking at a fully clothed woman?
I pushed the thoughts out of my head.
At least for now.
"I presume you're Cassie Moore from the agency?"
She nodded. "Um, yeah. Uh, Julian Barnes?" She didn't know who was who.
"I placed the request, yes." I nodded. Apparently, Jack liked the idea of playing games with Tiff and delegated the bureaucracy of getting a nanny to me, since I was the “responsible one.” Yeah, right.
If Tiff didn't want to play games so bad, I wouldn't have allowed it to happen, but sometimes you had to let other people win, and all things considered, it was a pretty easy process when I told them I had Isabella's agencies' recommendation.
There was a definite awkwardness to her, and I could catch her eyes roaming up and down my body—and up and down Jack's, too. I knew that motion. She was checking us out. I got blessed with good genes, and I had always been able to attract no shortage of girls, and when a girl looked at me like that, where I knew she was most definitely interested, let's just say there was blood in the water, and I was an incredibly hungry shark.
Jack stepped forward and offered his hand. "Jack Barnes. This is my brother, Julian."
She accepted the handshake. Jack was squeezing. That bastard was measuring her up, too. "Pleased to meet you, I think. Um...twins?"
I nodded. "Yes, unfortunate sometimes, fortunate others."
"Sorry, I thought I hit my head or something walking in and had double vision for a moment. I don't get guys like you requesting nannies too often."
