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There was a reason I’d stopped going to those rodeos. Cowboys were a weakness of mine. After finding myself boots up on the back of a mechanical bull when I should’ve been taking an important test at school, I swore to avoid cowboys until I was finished going where I needed to go. There was something about the snug denim and lazy gazes that melted my brain.
Kyrin reached back into his truck and pulled out a cowboy hat, settling it over his head while staring at me. “Ma’am.”
I let out a low swear and lifted my hair off the back of my neck to cool off. It was hot out and even hotter standing within a mile of a man who looked like Kyrin Graves in a cowboy hat. With my brain scrambling, my attitude had nothing to keep it in check. “Don’t call me ma’am.”
“I don’t think you’d like the other things I could call you. Ma’am.” He tipped his hat at me and left me staring after him while he loped towards the front door of the lawyer’s office.
I crossed my arms under my chest and felt my blood pressure increasing. “Who lopes? What is this? A western? Jackass man.”
Without a reason to stay outside for longer, I followed him inside and was greeted by his wide back standing right in my way. I inched around him while telling myself not to mention it.
“Miss Young. Thank you for coming on such short notice.” Zander stood from a beautiful leather side chair and buttoned his suit jacket. “I’m sure you’re wondering what this is about.”
I shifted farther away from Kyrin and nodded. “I am. It didn’t seem like any of you were interested in having me work for you just an hour ago.”
Knight joined our little group, laptop in hand. He motioned to the room he’d come from. “Ready.”
Zander nodded. “We have a job offer for you, but it’s…a little unconventional. Come in and sit. Our lawyer is finishing up the offer now.”
I stepped into a lush room with thick carpet, velvet drapes, and a sitting area with two couches facing each other. It was an intimate setting, much too intimate for my comfort while surrounded by three men I’d been groomed to think of as the enemy. Not to say that they weren’t doing an excellent job of convincing me that they were in fact the enemy all by themselves.
Kyrin settled on the couch next to where I stood, legs spread in the way that men do to take up all the room around them. Knight and Zander took the couch across from me, their eyes on me as I continued to hover. It was Kyrin who finally groaned. “Do you need an invitation to sit, ma’am?”
I cut my eyes at him and dropped to the couch, thighs clenched together and turned away from him. “Do you need an invitation to close your legs, sir?”
My stomach dropped as fire ignited behind his hazel eyes. I couldn’t help noticing they were the same color as Knight’s, except for a smudge of dark green that broke through a ring of gold near his pupil. His lazy gaze had shifted into something predatory, but it was gone just as fast as it appeared. I dropped my eyes to my hands in my lap and bit my tongue, confused about what I’d seen and even more confused about what I was doing there when it was so obvious the three of them didn’t trust me.
“The job offer we have for you isn’t one you applied for. It’s not something we’ve listed through the company, even. It’s something personal.” Zander’s deep voice drew my gaze to his. When he seemed happy he had my full attention, he continued. “We gained guardianship of our niece a little over a year ago. You met her this morning. Gracie.”
I didn’t bother hiding my shocked expression. “Gracieis your niece? But she’s so…sweet.”
“It seems that whatever personality flaws you might see in us weren’t inherited by Gracie. She does seem to be a poor judge of character, however.” Zander sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees as he stared at me. “We’ve gone through fifteen nannies in the year we’ve had her. No one stays. The reason Gracie was at the office today is that her current nanny quit suddenly and the agency has no one else to send until the end of the month.”
I made the mistake of relaxing in my curiosity, letting my guard down as I tried to imagine the sweet girl I’d met causing a fuss. I crossed my legs and leaned forward. “Gracieis running off nannies? How? She was as sweet as pie this morning.”
“That’s the crux of it all. Gracie was behaved with you. She liked you. The other nannies… Let’s just say that she has figured out how to get rid of the women the agency has sent so far. She’s been through a lot and she’s more than just the sweet girl you saw this morning.”
I looked between the three men, confused about why I was involved in the conversation. “I’m really sorry she’s had a tough go of it. She seems like an angel. I’m sure my dad would’ve loved it if I’d been more like her as a girl. I’m just a bit confused about how this concerns me.”
“Gracie threw a tantrum this morning, screaming until we all wanted to stab ourselves in the ears. She’s demanding her new friend be her nanny.” Zander sighed heavily. “Trust us when we say, this was not our idea. This isn’t anything we want or think is a good plan. We still think you’re dirty.”
A flash of heat streaked through my body and left my face flushed. Leave it to my body to ignore all the rude shit the man was saying to pick up on the word ‘dirty’. I gripped my thighs and smoothed out my skirt while forcing my foot to stop bouncing.
“She wants you to be her nanny.” Zander put the idea out there and didn’t wait for me to catch up. “She screamed for it and we don’t have time to talk her down from this tantrum. We’re in the middle of several huge deals and she needs a nanny. We’ll pay you the amount you made in a year at Blake’s.”
I laughed, thinking it was a joke. “That’s funny. You’re funny. I didn’t peg you as someone who had even the smallest sense of humor, but I was wrong. Good one.”
Kyrin tilted his head to stare at me. “Are we really considering hiring this woman?”
I snapped my head around to face him and scowled. “This womanhas a name.”
He leaned into my space and raised his eyebrows. “You have a lot of attitude for someone who was begging for a job just an hour ago.”
“I never beg.” I looked back at Zander. “Is this seriously the job offer? I’ve spent a decade honing my skills and being the best at what I do, and you are seriously offering me a job as yournanny?”
“It’s the only job offer you’ll ever get from us.” Knight sat back and stretched his legs out in front of him, resting his feet on either side of mine. “We don’t make a habit of sleeping with the enemy, Aggie.”
I stood up suddenly. “And you won’t be starting with me.”
