The Nanny and the Beast: An Alpha Billionaire Romance

by Carter Blake

And now I’m going to have to live with the consequences of that.

  Why didn’t I just focus on creating a life for myself? Why did I do this rather than building a real career and creating proper relationships?

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  Now, I have no real job prospects, no love in my life, no real friends.

  I only have this one goal that I’m no longer sure of, and a love that can never go anywhere, and there’s no one else to blame but myself.

  How sad is that?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wesley

  “Yeah, okay, that sounds good to me,” I reply to Chris as he discusses some changes in budget for the launch of my new drug, the one that the company has been working on for a lot longer than anyone really realizes. It was something that I inherited from my Dad, and the rumors around the office from the people who have been working there for years are that it’s one of the earliest formulas started, but then other things took priority for whatever reason.

  “Are you headed back to work today, or are we getting the rest of the day off?” he asks a little cautiously, probably voicing the one question on everyone’s minds.

  Considering they are all quite hungover, I don’t see the point in trying to get anything else done today. I think that tomorrow is much more likely to be a productive day.

  “No, go home, come back tomorrow. I still have some stuff to organize anyway, so I might as well stay here in the quiet and do it now.” I have a lot of phone calls to make to ensure that things were going to run smoothly anyway. I didn’t need any distractions for that.

  “Okay… well thanks, see you tomorrow.”

  As everyone filters from the building, and I have a quite subtle goodbye with Naomi, one that I hope wouldn’t make it obvious to everyone that we’d spent the night together. But of course, I wasn’t about to get so lucky.

  “Hi Wesley, how are you feeling today? You took off pretty early last night.” Of course, my Mom. I should have guessed that she would still be here. And that she would have been much more aware of my whereabouts than anyone else.

  “Oh yeah, I…” I can feel the blush spreading through my cheeks already. “I wanted to get away.”

  “With Naomi?” I can tell that there’s something a little serious about her expression now, which has me worried. I thought she liked Naomi, they seemed to get on well enough, so what seems to be her problem now?

  “Yeah. You like Naomi, right?”

  Okay, that’s far too much silence. Something is definitely going on now. I eye her curiously, but all she does is indicate for me to sit down with her, which I do because I’m not quite sure what else I can do.

  “I think you need to know something about Naomi, something that… you might not have realized beforehand.”

  My heart starts racing, my ears begin buzzing with fear, everything twists up in knots inside of me. What is Mom about to say? How the hell does she know Naomi? Is she married or something? Is our relationship about to be halted before it even begins?

  “She’s the daughter of Michael Norton.”

  “Michael Norton?” My mind races, but I can’t quite figure out what the issue is here. Who the hell is Michael Norton, and why does he matter? That wouldn’t be a secret anyway because we haven’t exactly discussed our family history with one another.

  “As in Michael Norton… the man who started the company with your father.”

  I stare at her blankly.

  “No, she can’t be,” I shake my head. Obviously my Mom’s mistaken. “Her surname is Hayes.”

  “I think the woman he had a baby with, shortly after he left Future Pharmaceuticals, was called something Hayes… Faith, maybe?”

  “But…” this makes no sense. If Naomi knew about this, then she would have told me. If there’s one thing we have discussed it’s the starting point of this business. It would have come up. “That’s not possible. She would have told me.”

  “Son, I would recognize that dark hair, those eyes, and that face shape anywhere. She looks exactly like her father, I would have been able to pick her out with ease. But just in case, I asked a friend of mine to check up on her. That is Michael Norton’s daughter, there’s no denying it.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know.” There has to be some explanation somewhere along the line. This doesn’t make sense otherwise. “Maybe her Mom never told her.”

  “Her Mom died in childbirth. Michael raised her. She knows exactly who she is and I cannot help but worry that she’s here for the wrong reasons.” She holds onto my hands and stares into my eyes. “I just don’t want to have what you and your father have worked so hard for, destroyed by her.”

  My heart beats quickly as all of this sinks into my brain.

  This is insane.

  However, even if Naomi is Michael’s daughter, that doesn’t have to mean anything. She has worked for the business for a while, and nothing has happened. Maybe she did start off with revenge plans in mind, or maybe she just inherited her father’s love of the business. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about at any rate.

  “Okay, I understand your concerns,” I pat my mom’s hand. “Thank you for bringing it to my attention, but I’m sure everything is fine. She hasn’t shown me any signs of betraying me…”

  “Just because she has seduced you, it doesn’t make her trustworthy.”

  “It’s more than that. We’re more than just physical. There’s something there between us. It’s real.”

  Mom gives me a look that isn’t quite convinced, so I quickly realize that I need to shut this down before she continues.

  “I need to get back to the office.” With all of this going on, I’ll get more work done there anyway. “Plus, I need to see Naomi. Figure out what’s really going on.”

  We hug and I go on my way, with Mom’s words circulating through my brain all the time. It’s obvious that there is some stuff there that Naomi maybe hasn’t shared with me, but I don’t think that it’s enough to be worried about. Even if she is this man’s daughter, that’s our parent’s feud, not ours, I don’t think that affects anything to do with us…

  Ring, ring.

  I answer my car phone quickly, as it shakes me from my thoughts, instantly noticing that it’s Amber calling. I feel a little bad because I’ve not even thought about her since she’s been gone.

  “Hi, Amber, are you okay?”

  “Yes, everything is fine. I’ve just been doing some research on the foundings of the company, and I think there’s something you should know about.” She talks rapidly, as if she’s absolutely desperate to get the next words out of her mouth, and even though I suspect what she might be about to tell me, I know that I can’t stop her. Not when she’s on such a roll. “It’s Naomi’s Dad, he was the one who started the company with John. I knew there was something suspicious about her, I could tell that she didn’t care about the business. She’s here to tear it apart.”

  My chest tightens.

  “Okay, thank you Amber, I have been informed of this already,” I interrupt calmly, needing to shut this down.

  “So, you’ve fired her? She’s gone?”

  “I don’t think you should be worrying about the business at the moment, I think you need to concentrate on your brother. How is he?”

  “He’s going to be fine, he just needs to get stabilized before they let him go.”

  “Okay, well please let me know if you need anything, and take all the time you need. Things are running fine without you at the moment, so there’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about.”

  It’s all going to work out alright. I just know it. It’s just going to be a little harder to make other people understand that.

  However, that doesn’t stop me from actually wanting to get into the office, just to check on all of the security measures. I do trust Naomi, I really do, but at the same time it can’t hurt to be too safe. Even if it’s just to get everyone else off my back. If I can just confirm to everyone that I’m totall
y on top of things, then I’m sure that they will eventually start to relax.

  As I walk through the doors, expecting to be greeted with silence, I find that there are actually a few people here, working away as if I haven’t told them to take the day off.

  “What are you doing?” I ask the receptionist bemusedly. “Didn’t Chris tell you to take the day off?”

  “He did, but a lot of us have too much to do. That’s why we didn’t drink too much last night.”

  There’s a part of me that is super proud of my work force, and the environment that I’ve created, which makes people want to work when they don’t have to, but another part of my brain is wondering if Naomi is here, and if I can confront her right now.

  With that thought in my mind, I stalk to my office with determination in my step. If I can just ask Naomi, if I can get to the bottom of it, then it’ll all be put to bed where it belongs. She isn’t there, of course she isn’t because I have the only key, but with a racing heart I put a call in to her work phone, and relief floods through me when she answers on the first ring.

  “If you have a second, can you come to my office?”

  “Of course.” Is everything all right?”

  “I thinks it’s better if we talk in person.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there in a moment.”

  While I wait for her get here, I grip onto the side of my desk, trying to prepare myself for what is about to happen. This moment could change absolutely everything, and I can admit it to myself just how scared I truly am.

  “Hi,” she steps into my office, brows draw down, a small frown tugging at her lips, as if she isn’t quite sure what to expect from me. “Is everything okay?”

  I suck in a deep breath, wanting to find the right way to form this question, but it spills from my mouth regardless, in possibly the hardest way. “Are you Michael Norton’s daughter?”

  She looks so stunned that it quickly becomes obvious that it’s the truth, but for a horrible heart wrenching second I fear that she might be about to lie.

  “I… I am,” she stammers. “Yes.”

  Her expression is hollow, her face is pale, but I decide to take it as a good sign that she’s confessed it to me.

  “The company’s future is strong at the moment, but it wouldn’t take a lot to endanger it,” I tell her, with just a slight warning to my tone. I need her understand that while I accept her, I won’t take any funny business. “I just don’t want anything to cause an imbalance.”

  “No, of…of course not,” she stutters. “I… I…”

  “I trust you,” I reassure her, causing my voice to go as warm as it can. “It just threw me a little bit, that’s all.”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am, or who my parents are, it doesn’t change anything about how I feel when it comes to you or the company.”

  I slide out from behind my desk to where she’s sitting to place a kiss on her lips.

  “It’s going to be fine, as long as we’re honest with each other.” I feel good about it all now, certain that she’s trustworthy, and that’s what I’ll tell anyone that challenges me again.

  “Okay,” she nods slowly, allowing my acceptance of her to finally be processed. “Thank you. You’re a good man, Wesley.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Naomi

  Ever since Wesley confronted me about who I am, I have been holding back on the plan, doing what I can to blend in and to look like my sole intention is to grow the company. I’m terrified that I’m being watched now, from every single angle, and it’s causing me to hold back.

  I guess it doesn’t help that I really don’t know what to do anymore. A big part of me wants to just grab the fucking formula and to get out of here, but another part of me wants to call my Dad and ask him why he lied to me.

  Ever since meeting Madeline, small sparks of memories have been slowly creeping back in, and they don’t make for pleasant thinking. Dad might not have mentioned what happened with the business for a very long time, but it’s all he used to speak about when I was young, even more so than what happened to my poor Mom, and now I’m starting to wonder if this was his plan all along.

  The day he stopped going on about it nonstop, was the day I told him that I would get revenge for him. I was only young then, a kid, which is why I’ve mostly forgotten it, but now that it’s in my brain it’s all that I can think about.

  He never stopped me, he never encouraged me, he never told me to get my own life rather than worrying about all of this madness. He might have seemed like he was trying to put me off when I was older, but that may have been because my mind was already set. I had already chosen my path in life, and I stubbornly took it no matter what.

  All of that might seem like paranoia, like I’m thinking into things far too deeply, but then there’s the fact that he’s seemingly had Oliver as an inside man for far too long. Maybe he was the person that he originally wanted to carry this plan on with, but he needed to wait for the formula to be perfected. Maybe by that time he realized that Oliver was a loose cannon, a bumbling idiot, so he dragged me in to it all. And of course, there I was ready and willing to do it.

  But should all of that be enough to put me off, after all this time? Even if I have been a pawn, maybe that’s because the end goal is such a noble one – maybe I need to concentrate on that rather than worrying about anything else.

  Urgh, God this is so hard.

  “Naomi?” Oliver’s voice breaks into my office, making me jump from your thoughts. “Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you?”

  I want to say no, to turn him away, but I can’t. There’s a seriousness to his expression that I’ve never seen before, and that has me intrigued despite myself.

  “Come in, shut the door behind you,” I hiss. “Now what is it?”

  “Your Dad is getting worried,” he informs me in a hushed tone of voice. “He thinks that we’re leaving things too late, and that we’ll end up screwing things up. He told me that he tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”

  I didn’t, because I wasn’t quite ready for this exact lecture. “So I think we really need to start talking about progressing.”

  Shit, I’m not ready for this, I don’t know how to deal with it, I’m still undecided, but how can I express this to Oliver? If my suspicions are correct, then he’s been working with my father for a very long time, and he undoubtedly has his own agenda here. I doubt that there’s anything that I can do to change his mind, and that’s even if I wanted to.

  “I think we need to do it today.” He leans in closer. “Wesley is becoming increasingly suspicious, the nearer the release gets, which means his security will be much higher. Plus, we need to get this done quick enough for your Dad to do whatever it is that he needs to do as well.” He sits back and regards me curiously, waiting for a response. “So from all the calculations I’ve been doing it needs to be today.”

  This is it, now or never, no more going back and forth, no more doubting myself. I need to make my choice, do I pick my Dad – the man who raised me, who loved me, who deserves some recognition of his contribution, or do I pick the man that I might just be falling in love with, despite everything that he represents?

  When I consider it like that, there really is only one option, however much I don’t like it.

  “Okay,” I whisper sadly. “Let’s do it today.”

  “Great.” He snaps into action. “I will set the fire alarms in about an hour. I have smoke machines installed secretly in the walls, so it will seem more believable too. I will ensure that the security cameras are down seconds before everything starts.” Finally, his knowledge is coming in handy. “While everyone files outside, you head into Wesley’s office.” With that he hands me a key, cut specially for me. “And get the document. I will arrange for your father to meet you nearby.”

  “Do you know what happened?” I suddenly jump in, needing to fully get where Oliver is coming from. At the beginning. “We’re you there? With…Madeline?”

>   His facial expression hardens, but he doesn’t seem to be swayed at all. “Whatever happened back then, it doesn’t matter. It isn’t fair for someone to get nothing for what they created.”

  “So this is all about money?” I ask curiously. “You think that’s the only end goal here?”

  “Of course,” he shrugs casually. “What else would it be about?”

  I don’t want to answer that, because it puts my whole background in jeopardy, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s more to do with love. Madeline was obviously the love of Dad’s life, and my Mom was just some woman he knocked up to get revenge over her, or to get over her, I don’t know. The end result of that was me. But if Dad never loved my Mom, did he love me? I’ve always thought so, but maybe I’ve spent my entire life being naïve.

  “Okay, well let’s just do this.” I need an end now.

  I need to be away from all of this.

  ***

  The hour passes in a haze, but by the time the smoke alarms start ringing out, I feel ready for it. I am so ready to be away from all these people now, so I’m actually kind of glad that the time is here. While the bells ring, I wait a few minutes for everyone else to leave, the entire time my heart pounding in my chest, and as soon as I feel like the coast might be clear, I peek my head out of my door to find the hallways empty.

  “Let’s just do this,” I mutter to myself. “Get in, get out, get it done.”

  I run quickly, my emotions floating everywhere, and by the time I reach Wesley’s office door, everything inside of me is shaking, which of course has my hands trembling too. It takes me far too many times to slide my key into the lock, and by the time I actually manage it I think I might be sick.

  This is too much, it’s too intense, I never should have assumed that this was something I could do. A part of me is even hoping that this key is a dud and that Oliver has let me down once more.

  But nope, he’s actually managed to pull through, the door swings open quickly.

  “Fuck,” I mutter to myself. “Fucking hell, okay… let’s just do this.”