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“Whoa!” I jumped out of bed, throwing off the sheets.
Shelley was lying, naked, in front of me.
I was too shocked to say anything.
She quickly got up, covering herself with her arms but not before I’d seen the tattoo of a snake circling her belly button and uncurling itself in the direction of her pelvis.
In the morning, she’d packed her bags and was gone.
When I called Simone to tell her about it, she could only laugh.
“Talk about the snake in your midst?!”
“It’s not funny, what am I going to do? Someone needs to fetch Zoë from school, and I must be at work all day! Can you help please?”
“No way, I’m in the middle of my exams! I have to practice my eggs benedict!”
“But surely you can do that while Zoë is quietly drawing nearby?”
“You want me running around with boiling pans of water and melted butter while your daughter is around?”
When she said it like that, I could hear it was wrong.
“What about Maisie?”
“My receptionist?”
“She’s helped you out before, right?”
Maisie had been with my company since before it became big. Back when it was only three college kids and a kitchen table. Before the penthouse and the designer haircuts. Maisie was into death metal and biker’s rallies in college but when she needed a job after college, I offered her a job answering phones. Over the years, she graduated to office manager. She was terrible at answering phones and taking messages, but she was loyal and honest, and I found those qualities were harder to come by than basic phone skills. Most people called back anyway, ifit was important. Also, she’d known Zoë since she was a baby and had often helped with minding her.
It annoyed me to have to ask her to help me again. I wanted my tech startup to succeed and play in the big league, with the real venture capitalists. Attract the right kind of attention. Not be the office where the CEO had to answer the phones because the receptionist was off fetching his kid from school.
So, when I got a text later that evening from a friend of Simone’s asking if I was still looking for a nanny, it seemed perfect.
Nikki Weir.
Simone’s roommate and best friend.
I had a vague recollection of her. I knew her and trusted her. She’d even looked after Zoë once, as far as I could remember. Nikki had lived with Simone for years and they were still friends. That said more about her staying power and strength of character than any resume ever could.
I told her we could meet to talk about it.
Chapter 3
Nikki
I didn’t know how to dress for the meeting with Will.
I wanted to look responsible and sensible, yet playful and friendly.
What outfit said I could look after his daughter but also cheer her up when she was feeling down?
Jeans? A T-shirt? I went through my dresser and found one crop top after another. Why did I have so many crop tops? Then there were dresses with very low-cut necklines. Finally, a found a tee but as soon as I had it on, I saw the letters B-A-B-E were printed in big letters across my breasts.
Not exactly PG-rated.
In the end I settled for my college tracksuit, an outfit I had barely worn since my freshman year, when I was on the track team and ran cross country. Putting it on again, I remembered how I used to get up early to train with my boyfriend at the time, Spence Waller. He was in college on an athletics scholarship and was big on camping and hiking and the outdoors. At one point, we were going somewhere green and bug-infested every weekend,leaving me constantly congested due to my hay fever. I was on such heavy allergy medication that I sometimes fell asleep in mid-conversation.
