Nanny I Want to Mate: A Single Dad Romance

by Mia Kayla

  Nanny I Want To Mate

  Mia Kayla

  MAM Books LLC

  Nanny I Want to Mate

  Mia Kayla

  Copyright © 2020 by Mia Kayla

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at http://www.authormiakayla.com/

  Cover Designer: Jersey Girl Designs

  Development Editor: Kristy Deboer, authorkastalter@gmail.com

  Megan Hand, meganhandwrites@gmail.com

  Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  Proofreader: Judy Zweifel, www.judysproofreading.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-953370-00-6

  Created with Vellum

  To my grandmother—Mamala,

  This book is dedicated to you, the year you turned ninety years young.

  I love you above words, above measure. I am the woman today because of you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  Stay In Touch

  Also by Mia Kayla

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Charles

  I smelled weed. The strong, distinct stench of skunk. The scent would have been fine if I were still in college or out at a club or anywhere but here in my home, at the long dining room table, sitting opposite of the woman we were interviewing to be the nanny of my two small children.

  She leaned back on the chair with one ankle crossed and rested on the opposite knee. Her hands settled behind her neck. She was so relaxed that I wondered if she’d fall asleep soon.

  Our long-term nanny was leaving, and my brothers and I needed to find her replacement.

  The brunette seated in front of me was dressed in a pressed suit, her makeup impeccable, which matched her stellar résumé. Everything was perfect, except for the fact that she reeked as though she were growing the plant in her purse.

  Mason, my youngest brother, seated to the left of me, flipped to the next page of his portfolio. Erica Michelle Jones’s name was neatly printed on the top tab. Mason had done a file on each candidate, complete with their résumé, background check, and list of questions he was going to ask. He had led the way in contacting the top nanny recruiting firms and gone through numerous résumés to pick the best of the best for his nieces.

  Brad, the middle brother, sat to my right. The way his eyes were downturned and how he covered his mouth to hide the smile creeping up his face, I knew he was well aware of the smell emanating from the woman in front of us.

  If Mason was aware of the stench, I would never guess it as he ticked off question after question on his detailed interview sheet.

  Brad laughed and coughed to cover it. Given his playfulness, you would think he was the youngest out of us three. Nope. He was the most arrogant, and he suffered heavily from MCS—middle child syndrome—meaning he needed the most attention. When another cough-laugh fell from Brad’s mouth, Mason shot him a look of disdain. I wouldn’t doubt it if Brad was getting high from the fumes. I shook my head and then rubbed at my brow.

  Mason smiled, shut the file folder, and stood to shake her hand. “We’re highly impressed with your qualifications. We’ll definitely be in touch.”

  When he pushed out from his chair, Brad and I followed suit.

  And as soon as she left, Mason dropped to his seat and began writing detailed notes. “I think she’s the best one we’ve interviewed so far.”

  I didn’t have to say a word because Brad threw up his hands, laughing. “Are you serious? She smelled like she was born on a cannabis plant.”

  Mason’s head shot up from the file folder, and he lifted an eyebrow.

  “You didn’t smell that?” Brad said, pointing to the door where Erica had just left.

  “I wasn’t really concerned with how she smelled. I was too busy interviewing her about her work history.” Mason shook his head as though we were the crazy ones. “Maybe it’s her perfume.” His eyes were focused on his paper as he continued writing his notes.

  I nearly laughed out loud but caught myself. Didn’t he know what that stank was? Of course, Mason had never tried weed.

  We were three brothers who had grown up in the same household, but we were different in every sense of the word.

  Where Mason was meticulous and lived his life following a straight line, Brad was the opposite—rambunctious, playful, and one who would never settle down. Me, on the other hand? I’d been in one serious relationship since high school—the love of my life, the mother of my children. My life had been perfect until that split second when she left this world.

  The smile slipped from my face. On cue, whenever Natalie filtered into my thoughts, my eyes would shut briefly, and I’d relive the moment she’d died, as though she were in the room with me. The memories were so vivid sometimes that they pulled me under to where I was immobilized.

  I swallowed, pushing down the pain that always seemed to surface whenever my thoughts flickered toward the past.

  “Daddy!” Mary, my almost four-year-old, skipped into the room. Her blonde curls bounced when she walked. She was the spitting image of her mother—the blonde in her hair, the blue in her eyes, the way her smile lit up the room.

  Brad scooped her up in his arms before she got to me, nuzzling her neck and tickling her sides. “Sweet Mary. What did we tell you about coming in here while we’re interviewing?”

  Her giggles heightened. “Where’s the babysitter?” She pushed out her lip and fluttered her sky-blue eyes at her uncle. “And what’s that smell?” She inhaled deeply and then hopped out of his arms, lifting her nostrils in the air, like a puppy sniffing around at the dinner table. “I like it. It smells”—sniff—“kinda good.”

  Well, shit.

  “Mary …” I shared a knowing glance with Brad and tipped my chin toward the exit.

  In the next second, Brad ushered Mary out the door. “Okay, out you go. We’ve got business to do.”

  He stalked toward Mason, reached for his paper, and wrote over his notes in big red letters
, Does drugs. Not qualified.

  “Hey!” Mason protested.

  Brad turned to me. “Do you disagree? Do you believe she’s qualified? I mean, this is a no-brainer. I don’t care that she has her English degree from Stanford.”

  Both sets of eyes turned to my direction.

  They always did.

  As the head of the household and the oldest brother, as the CEO of our company—Brisken Printing Corporation—they always looked to me for the final word.

  I shook my head. “No. She’s not qualified.”

  She was more than not qualified. That woman would not be stepping in this house ever again.

  Mason shut the file folder, and Brad sported a victorious grin.

  I wished I felt some sort of victory. We were losing our nanny who had been with us since my Natalie had passed. Finding a replacement was nearly impossible.

  This was our third round of interviews, getting our candidates from well-known recruiting firms and passing Mason’s standard test, which included an extensive background check and questionnaire, prior to interviews, with no luck thus far.

  Sarah, my ten-year-old, walked in, followed by a woman dressed in the shortest black pleated skirt I’d ever seen. The damn thing was hiked up to just below her butt cheeks. Her green eyes perused the room before landing on Brad, and then her smile widened.

  I refrained from rolling my eyes. I should be used to this by now—all the women who fawned over my brother—but there was a time and place for everything, and my patience was running thin with these candidates.

  Brad showed no reaction. He was the brother who got the most attention from women. That was why we interviewed all his employees at our company—to make sure their first priority was the job and not landing my brother.

  “I saw her wandering around the house,” Sarah deadpanned, her tone showing her annoyance.

  I had to wonder what I was in for with her, as she was already seeming to sprout that preteen attitude. Something that made me long for my wife even more.

  The woman chomped on her gum and flipped her light-brown hair over her shoulder. “I’m interviewing for the nanny position.”

  Oh, great. I stifled a tired sigh.

  She pointed a manicured red nail in Brad’s direction. “Tell me you’re the single dad.” Her eyes wiggled in an exaggerated effect.

  Brad’s signature flirty smile surfaced but dimmed a second later. “That would not be me.” He saluted us and threw an arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “I’m done here, guys. I trust Charles will make a sound decision for our girls.” He pulled Sarah in close. “Uncle Brad is taking you and Mary out for ice cream.”

  Brad’s gaze flickered my way for permission.

  I wanted to go with them. Getting ice cream with my girls would be more fun than sitting here through another interview with a candidate I knew wasn’t it. But Mason had worked hard to set up the interviews and go through the proper procedures in getting us the right person for the job.

  My brothers were heavily invested in my girls. When my Natalie had died, I’d moved in with my parents so that they could help me raise the girls. When they passed not too long after that, due to a drunk driver–related car accident, both of my brothers moved into the house with me. Though they had their own places in the city, they both spent a few days a week here to spend time with the girls. They had helped me raise them from infancy to every momentous milestone in their lives. Brad had been the one to potty-train Mary while Mason had taught Sarah to read.

  The woman sat down, all the while chomping on her gum. “He’s such a handsome boy.”

  My eyebrows shot up. Boy?

  “Your kid. The boy who found me in your kitchen.”

  A spark of fury shot through me as I glanced over at my beautiful daughter. Sarah’s dark brown hair lay past her shoulders.

  And this woman had mistaken her for a boy?

  “Alright, we are out,” Brad said. I nodded, because this was a lost cause already.

  “Wait. We’re not done here,” Mason protested, but Brad was already out the door.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I took a couple of cookies from that cookie jar on the table.” She lifted her purse, flipped open the flap, and pulled out two cookies, the crumbs falling on the table. Then, she stuffed them back in.

  My fury shifted to disgust. Did this woman really just put two unwrapped cookies in her purse?

  Mason dropped his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  The continuous smacking of her gum was grating on my nerves. I was about to dismiss her from this interview altogether, save Mason the misery of doing it, when she spoke first.

  “So, before we formally start the interview, I have a few stipulations.” She sat up taller and pushed her chest out, her cleavage almost falling out of her V-neck tank top. “I will need every weekend off along with every other Thursday and every first Monday of the month. I won’t do bath time ’cause, yeah, that’s kinda gross.” She blew a bubble, popped it, and sucked it back into her mouth. “I don’t cook but can microwave. I figure I’ll be the one grocery shopping, so no worries on food there. And is the pay negotiable? Because it seems pretty low for a full-time, live-in nanny.” She smacked on her gum. “Oh, and is there a maid? ’Cause I’m the nanny, not the maid.”

  Mason shot up from his chair so fast that it fell backward. “Get out.” He breathed heavily through his nose, and his voice was barely controlled. He pointed to the door, and his jaw clenched. “Kindly get out of our house.”

  The woman pursed her lips, looking around as though she didn’t understand the simple directions. “Uh, did you, like”—smacked gum—“want to reschedule or something, then?”

  “Get out!” Mason’s normally calm voice boomed and echoed through our halls, making the woman jump to a standing position and scurry out.

  When the door shut in the foyer, Mason rubbed at his forehead. “We’ll never find someone.” With both hands on the dining room table, his head hung, defeated.

  I knew how many hours he’d spent going through numerous résumés and background checks, and I felt for him.

  I patted his back, grateful that I had my brothers through this process. “We will. It’ll just take some time. You know I appreciate all you’re doing, right?”

  He lifted his head and let out one long sigh. “They’re my girls too. And I’m not stopping until we find the perfect person.”

  I nodded. “We’ll continue interviews when I get back from Cape Cod.”

  I’d promised the girls one last trip before school started, and a promise made was a promise met in my book. What I’d learned through my experiences was that life was too short, and I’d be damned if my girls missed out.

  Mason pointed to me. “Go get packed. Don’t you leave tomorrow morning? Just remember, the only rule is, don’t call us.” He looked at me sternly. “Brad and I have work handled.”

  I sighed in resignation. They’d made me promise in front of the girls that I wouldn’t open my laptop to check email or pick up my phone even if it was my secretary or anyone from work.

  I tipped my chin, patted his back, and headed out the dining room to pack. It would be one of the last vacations that we took with Patty, our nanny.

  I smiled because quality time with my girls was exactly what I craved.

  Chapter 2

  Charles

  I tipped back my beer and rested against the beach chair, feeling the granules of sand beneath my toes.

  Mary screamed for her older sister to chase her, but Sarah stayed, sitting cross-legged on the sand, pail and shovel in hand, going about her business and building her human-sized sand castle.

  “Come on, Sarah! Play with me.” The whine was heavy in Mary’s voice.

  I saw it coming from a mile away. Maybe, as their father, I should have stopped it, but this, their uninhibited fun, was what gave me joy.

  Mary, a budding schemer, tiptoed up to Sarah and lifted a pail full of water. Then, she proceeded to dump it al
l on Sarah, the water ruining part of her creation, turning the sand castle to a plop of sand goo. Sarah, spluttering and about as raging mad as a ten-year-old could be, took off like a cheetah after Mary. The whole thing made me sigh with relief and a rare form of pure happiness that I only felt here and there since Natalie had passed.

  “Ah!” Mary screamed, seeing her sister gain on her.

  In the next second, Sarah toppled Mary and threw sand on top of her, getting it in her swimsuit.

  A pang shot straight through my chest as I placed the beer down on the table next to me. If Natalie could only see this—our girls, growing up so fast.

  If only …

  “Girls, girls, girls.” Patty’s voice boomed like thunder. She broke the girls apart and dusted the sand off their legs.

  I chuckled at the scene in front of me.

  When Mary started for Sarah again, Patty lifted her in her arms to keep her at bay.

  The sixty-year-old woman had strength; I’d give her that.

  “But, Nana,” Mary implored, working her charm.

  “Don’t Nana me,” Patty said, no nonsense. “You have to play nice with your sister.”

  She’d been with the girls for almost four years and functioned more like their strict grandmother than their nanny—thus the name Nana. Plus, since my girls didn’t have any living grandparents around, Patty was the closest they were going to get to a nana.