Page 2 of A Nanny for the Reclusive Billionaire

Then she got to the juicy part.

Okay, Rhys Dalton didn’t have a wife stashed in his attic. He was a widower, which was tragic enough on its own. Even worse, he’d lost his wife to a terrorist attack. Mowed down on a busy Manhattan street with seven other innocent victims going about their daily routine on a crisp fall morning.

She closed the file and let her head fall back against the smooth, cool leather. No wonder he’d cut himself off from the rest of the world. And no wonder Collins wanted to make sure she had a better understanding of their boss before meeting him face-to-face for the first time.

“Collins?” she asked as the chauffeur expertly merged the car onto the highway.

“Yes, miss?”

“How long have you worked for Mr. Dalton?”

“Almost seven years.”

“So, you knew him before…” She let her voice trail off, not sure where to go. What was the politically correct way of saying “before his wife was brutally murdered?”

“Yes, miss.”

Collins clearly understood what she’d left unsaid, but he didn’t elaborate, and Mallory was happy to let the subject drop. Maybe when—if—she got to know the man a little better, she’d pump him for more information.

It wasn’t that she was morbidly curious. It was more like she felt a sort of kinship with Rhys Dalton, even though she was still hours from meeting him. He’d loved and lost, and so had she. Maybe not a biological family member, but the kids she’d shared the chemo ward with were as close as family. And she’d lain in her hospital bed, helpless, as more than one had lost their battle with cancer, taking a little piece of her with them each time.

“I’ve got cold water up here if you’re thirsty,” Collins said, interrupting the depressing turn of her thoughts.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Mallory tried to suppress a yawn.

“Feel free to close your eyes and get some rest.”

“Thanks.” She didn’t want to admit it, but the stress, heat, and three hours on a plane were catching up to her. She tired more easily than the average twenty-seven-year-old, something she combated with a daily regimen of pills and potions. Yet another constant reminder of the disease that had come close to taking her life. Almost against their will, her eyelids drooped, and she yawned again. “I think I will.”

It could have been ten minutes or ten hours later when Collins’s not-so-subtle cough woke her.

“Excuse me, miss. We’re at the dock.”

“Dock?” She sat up and scrambled for her purse. She had a mirror in there somewhere, didn’t she? She was afraid to see what she looked like. Probably had hair stuck to her cheek and drool dripping from her chin.

The door swung open, and Collins reached a hand into the car to help her out. “Yes, miss. It’s only a short boat ride from here to the island.”

She took the chauffeur’s hand and stepped out of the car, the crushed shells that made up the parking lot crunching under the soles of her sneakers. The heat and humidity assaulted her, making her already-sweat-stained shirt and wrinkled jeans feel like they weighed a thousand pounds. Changing into more weather-appropriate clothing would be first on the agenda once she hit land. Again.

But the view almost made up for the temporary discomfort. Puffy white clouds floated across a cerulean sky. An almost translucent blue-green ocean, nothing like the murky northern Atlantic waters she was used to, stretched as far as the eye could see. A red-and-white launch bobbed at the end of a long wooden dock, the outline of an island barely visible in the distance.

“Is that it?” she asked, hurrying after Collins across the parking lot and down the dock. “Mr. Dalton’s island?”

“Yes.” He hefted her bag into the back of the boat and jumped in after it. The man was so quietly efficient she hadn’t even noticed him retrieve it from the trunk. “That’s Flamingo Key.”

She looked from the boat to the dock and back again, gauging the distance between them. Too far for her short legs to handle. Her hesitation must have been written all over her face, because Collins put a foot on the gunnel and held a hand out to her again.

“It’s not as hard as it looks,” he reassured her. “I won’t let you fall.”

She held her breath, put her damp palm into his calloused one and stepped off the dock. True to his word, Collins helped her into the launch without incident. Once he had her settled in the back with her bag, he started the engine and cast off, handling the boat as skillfully as he did the Town Car. He’d left “skipper” off his job description. Unless chauffeur included land and sea vehicles.

Mallory sucked the sea air into her lungs like it was authentic New Zealand manuka honey and grabbed the rails to steady herself. Her hair whipped her cheeks, andshe closed her eyes against the warm breeze and the light spray the boat kicked up as it cut through the waves. This was why she’d left New York. This sense of freedom. From her parents. From the responsibilities of running a restaurant.

From her cancer.

A too-short ten minutes later, they were back on terra firma, standing in front of an enormous stucco Venetian-style mansion.

“Mr. Dalton is waiting for you in the study.”