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Damn her stupid heart for skipping a beat at the mere mention of the man. She concentrated on the cardboard cutout of the man and steadied herself. “Welp, Vegas is a big city. I doubt our paths will cross. Look!” she cried, doing a crap job of improvising.
“What is it?” Char asked.
“A brawl is breaking out between the clef clans. Love you! Talk soon! Bye,” she chirped before ending the call.
She dropped her phone into her bag and stared at the cardboard cutout with perfectly tousled dark-brown hair, soulful brown eyes, and a body that would put a Greek god to shame.
There he was, in corrugated wonder, pop music’s sinfully sexy heartthrob, Landon Paige.
Stop!
She could not allow herself to use the wordssinfullyorsexywhen describing the man.
He was just a guy—no, a male platonic acquaintance. A male platonic acquaintance with a voice like velvet. A voice she used to secretly swoon over.
Who was she kidding! She still listened to his music—not that he’d put out anything new in years.
Landon Paige had exploded onto the music scene with his band Heartthrob Warfare when he was eighteen and she was barely out of elementary school. He was her first pop star crush back when she didn’t know that most musicians were self-absorbed, self-serving douche nozzles. Now, the guy was in Denver and part of her extended social circle.
Insane, right?
And like the other stupid cardboard rocker, she had baggage with Landon. Well, not quite baggage, but a connection that felt more like an expectation.
An expectation she was hell-bent on defying.
An expectation tied to the nanny matchmaking maven, Madelyn Malone.
The woman worked exclusively with rich and famous single male caregivers. Over the last six months, the mysterious Ms. Malone, with her trademark scarlet scarf, rich Eastern European accent, and Fendi-fairy godmother vibe, had recruited Penny, Charlotte, and Libby as nannies. Her friends had each been given a position with a single male caregiver who was no longer single because her best friends were engaged to their nanny match bosses.
Yep, Penny and the hot nerd, Rowen Gale, found love through nanny matchmaking bliss. Charlotte and the hotheaded chef, Mitch Elliott, were next, and the British boxing sensation, Erasmus Cress, had recently liked it enough to put a ring on it with Libby. They were blissfully happy, breaking off into their trios that included a cute kid. And yes, she liked these kids. Phoebe, Oscar, and Sebastian were adorable. The nanny match lovefest was enough to make her gag most days, but she couldn’t deny that they made delightful families.
But here’s the thing.
There was one man left in the men’s nanny match group.
Landon-freaking-Paige.
She didn’t know the specifics about Landon’s caregiver status.
Was he a dad, an uncle, a big brother? Could a stork have accidentally dropped a little nose picker on his doorstep?
She had no clue.
Whatever it was, the men kept that information hush-hush.
But she did know what her friends were thinking.
With a group of four women and a group of four men in need of a nanny, it only made sense that she and Landon had to be the last match.
But that wasn’t how she rolled.
And there was no way in hell Landon could ever be her match—nanny-wise or romantic.
He was a musician.
And she sure as hell wasn’t making the mistake of getting close to one of those again. That meant putting the kibosh on becoming the dude’s nanny. Granted, the nanny gig paid well, but it wasn’t enough. The debt she needed to clear came with far more zeroes than even the generous nanny salary promised.
And then there was one final salient fact.
