Two dayslater after a little shopping for some more appropriate work clothes than the yoga pants I’d spent the last few months wearing, I sat in the back seat of Mr. DeVille’s black Town Car as his driver shuttled me up to Scarsdale and I thought about the place I was going. People from there were like some kind of dream to me. They lived perfect little lives in perfectly huge houses and drove gorgeous luxury cars. Everything my life hadn’t been.
I just hoped I’d fit in.
The last remnants of the fall leaves clung to the all but bare branches, dotting the sides of the road with the final hint of color of the season. I looked out the window for a little while and then down at my lap where my manila folder of information about my position sat. I’d done a little research on my new boss the day before and hadn’t found anything particularly interesting. He looked like any other businessman in the photos, but most of the things I found were just articles about how he rose so quickly to a place of prominence in the New York City real estate elite. I imagined he must have been quite the man to do something so monumental before the young age of thirty-five.
Finally, the driver said, “We’re here, miss. I’ll let you out in front of the house and then I’ll get your things for the staff to take in.”
Staff? Mr. DeVille hadn’t mentioned anything about Nico Allen having staff. But one look out the window at the home in front of me said he needed staff, even if it was only himself and his five year old niece living there. The house had to be over five thousand square feet, and just the front porch alone looked spacious enough to house half a dozen people comfortably.
I stared in amazement at how gorgeous Mr. Allen’s home was. Light gray stone covered the façade, making it look like a castle, and the home’s three floors climbed high into the bright blue sky. The yard was huge and sweeping, perfectly manicured by expert landscapers, no doubt. I felt like I could look at this place for the rest of my life and still not take in all its grandeur.
“Mr. DeVille said to have you go to the front door, although the staff uses the side entrance,” the driver said, breaking into my thoughts about how incredible my new location was. “I’ll take your bags to the side, though. Good luck, Miss Morton.”
“Thank you, and thank you for handling my bags,” I said, barely able to get words out as my mind reeled from what lay in front of me.
I walked to the front porch and rang the doorbell. After just a moment, the large wooden door opened to reveal a woman dressed in all black. Her hair pulled back, she had a serious look about her, but she cracked a tiny smile as she opened the door to welcome me inside.
“You must be the nanny. I’ve been waiting for you. I trust the driver deposited your bags at the side entrance?” she asked as she guided me into an enormous foyer with a crystal chandelier hanging in the center of the room.
As I looked up to admire it, I answered, “Yes, he’s doing that right now.”
“Your name is Tia, correct?” she asked in a clipped tone.
Sensing she didn’t like how distracted all the beauty around me had made me, I snapped my head in her direction and pasted a smile on my face. “Yes. I’m Tia Morton. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I’m Agatha. It’s nice to meet you too, Tia. Now follow me and I’ll give you a tour of the house before you go to meet Mr. Allen.”
Clutching my purse and manila envelope in my hands, I nodded and followed her down the hallway as she gave me a rundown of how many bedrooms and bathrooms the home had, where the laundry was since Mr. Allen’s niece needed her clothes washed constantly as she got into everything under the sun, and where the kitchen was since I was in charge of feeding the child. With each room, we poked our heads in and I looked around quickly before she whisked me off to the next location.
At the end of the whirlwind tour, Agatha turned to face me and nodded quickly. “That’s the house. I’m the head of the housekeeping staff. Michael is the head of the kitchen staff and the cook, and Anthony is Mr. Allen’s driver. There are also groundskeepers and landscapers, but you don’t need to know about them. Now let me take you to meet Mr. Allen. This way.”
She pushed against my elbow to turn me to the left before we hurried down a long hallway that comprised an entire wing of the home. Each door on our way was closed, so I couldn’t see what type of rooms were on this side of the house, but at the end of the hallway I saw an open door as Agatha and I stopped.
“This is his office. He’s instructed me to bring you here upon your arrival. Go in and sit down and he’ll come out when he gets done with his work.”
“Oh, okay. Thank you,” I said quietly as she hurriedly pushed me into the room.
A dark wood floor met deep blue walls covered nearly entirely with wood bookcases a shade or two lighter than the floor, and as I walked toward a white loveseat, I immediately wondered how a five year old child would handle being in a room like this. Everything felt very off limits.
I barely had time to sit down and get my bearings before the door on the far wall opened and a man wearing a three piece suit strolled out. Immediately, I couldn’t help but be struck by how handsome Nico Allen was. The pictures I’d seen online had really done him no justice at all. He was tall and muscular with dark eyes that seemed to swallow me up as he looked down at me. Near his temples, he had a hint of gray, and his dark brown hair hit just at his collar and hinted at a more casual man than the businessman the world saw.
“Are you the nanny from DeVille’s place?” he asked curtly, almost as if he didn’t care to know the answer even thought he’d asked the question.
I quickly stood and nodded. “Yes, I’m Tia. Tia Morton, Mr. Allen. Your house is beautiful. Agatha took me on a brief tour on our way here, and it’s breathtaking.”
Grimacing, he answered, “It should be for the price. Follow me and I’ll introduce you to my niece Grace. She’s five and I swear to God she hasn’t stopped crying since she got here last week. I hope you can do something about that because getting work done with that kind of insanity in the house is next to impossible.”
Before I could say anything in response, he took off out the door and down the hallway. I hurried to catch up to him, remembering Mr. DeVille’s warning about him being brusque. He wasn’t kidding. Brusque was the nicest thing I could say about him right now, other than thinking he might be the sexiest man in his thirties I’d ever laid eyes on.
We walked through the central area of the home that I would have sworn was as big as my apartment and then to the far end of the other wing before stopping. I didn’t need to ask where the child was since the sound of her screaming and crying could be heard nearly from the moment we left his office.
With a huff of disgust, he rolled his eyes and threw open the door to reveal a little blond girl sitting on the floor of an enormous bedroom, tears rolling down her face. She instantly stopped crying and looked at the two of us, clearly hoping someone would pay attention to her.
“This is Grace. She cries. A lot. Your job is to make sure that doesn’t continue using any means necessary. I don’t care what that entails. I’m a very wealthy man, Miss Morton, and I can make most problems disappear just by throwing money at them, so do whatever you have to so I get peace and quiet again.”
Before he could say another unkind word, I stepped into the room with the white carpeting and pink walls and smiled at Grace. “Well, children don’t really respond to that kind of thing.”
Mr. Allen leveled his steely gaze on me and said, “What I meant was don’t worry about whatever you have to do to calm this child down. If it ends up having to involve the authorities, I can simply make the problem go away with money. Good luck. Don’t fail as this is literally the only thing you have to do here.”