How To Wife Your Nanny A Billionaire Single Dad Romantic Comedy- Melinda Minx Page 0,18

as a bonus or something?”

“He’s going to pay me a million dollars!” I blurted it out. I had to get it out in the open. I had to tell someone.

Natalie looked at me with wide eyes.

“A million dollars! He’s going to pay me a million dollars! Like twenty-thousand a week! A million—”

“A million dollars,” Natalie said. “Are you for real?”

“Now you see why I looked so guilty?”

“You want my advice?” Natalie asked.

I nodded.

“It’s going to cost you $200.”

“Okay,” I said, reaching for my wallet.

“I’m kidding,” Natalie said. “I mean, you can pay me later, but my advice is to take this deal no matter what. Never feel guilty for stealing from rich people.”

“I’m not stealing…”

“He wants to fuck you,” she said. “You realize that, right? Nanny, I mean, come on!”

“I don’t think it’s like that,” I said, my cheeks getting way too red.

“Look,” Natalie said. “For a million dollars? Anyone would do that. You suck that thick straw, and you swallow every last drop of that goop.”

“Jesus. I’m not going to sleep with him.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” I said. “I’m not going to sell my body for money. Not even for a million dollars.”

“Come on. You can’t give up a million dollars!”

“I don’t have to. He said he’s paying me to be a nanny and to write these books. I read the contract thoroughly. It never said I had to sleep with him. I’ll get my million, and he’ll get what he’s paying me for.”

“Read between the lines,” Natalie said.

“If that was his intention, he should have been more explicit about it.”

My phone vibrated, and I pulled it out. It was him.

Change of plans. I need you to start working NOW. Where are you? I’ll send a car.

“What is it?” Natalie asked.

“Looks like I have to work.”

The car picked me up, and Natalie looked at me with her jaw hanging open as the chauffeur with white gloves opened the door to the limo for me.

“Can I get a ride back to Staten Island?” she asked.

The chauffeur shook his head at me.

I frowned. I didn’t want to just abandon Natalie. “Can you drop her off in Brooklyn at least?”

The driver looked down at his watch and frowned, but he nodded.

We both got in the limo. It had these huge, cushy leather seats. All black, of course. It had a bar too, lit with cool blue light. There were glasses stuffed with neatly folded, expensive looking cloth napkins. There were several bottles of wine and champagne to choose from.

“Can we drink this stuff?” Natalie shouted over to the chauffeur.

“Of course,” he said.

Natalie popped a bottle of champagne and poured us each a glass.

I only took a few sips, because I didn’t want to come to my first day as the world’s most overpaid nanny drunk.

“This is so insane,” Natalie said. She leaned in closer to me and whispered. “You really should sleep with him. Imagine if you got to keep living like this.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to be a gold digger. Or a prostitute.”

“Come on, Lacey, you demanded a million bucks from him. You’re like a gold strip miner.”

“A strip miner who won’t strip.”

We clinked our glasses together and each took a sip. As a woman who busted her ass on three low-paying jobs, I didn’t know anything about champagne, but this tasted good.

Once the chauffeur dropped Natalie off in Brooklyn, I started to feel nervous.

I was being taken to Noah’s house. My job was to just take care of Naomi, but I couldn’t help thinking about what Natalie had said.

I’d really kind of backed myself into a wall. If I hadn’t demanded a million dollars, things would have been easier. I reminded myself that I was going to focus on being a good nanny and not on thinking constantly about Noah, but once I did the due diligence of reminding myself of that, I gave myself free license to do nothing but think about Noah for the rest of the drive.

Not because it was fun to think about, but just because I needed to sort things out in my head. Yes, that was the reason.

What if he kept flirting with me? What if he was just “around” the whole time I was with Naomi, constantly smirking at me, touching my damn ear lobe, and making me laugh? If I had taken a more reasonable pay—even a high reasonable pay, say $80,000—I could have allowed things to happen between us. Maybe it would just feel natural between us, and I’d let