Chapter 4
***Aggie***
When my phone had rung just an hour after I had left TGC, I’d figured it would be my dad, asking me how it went.
I hadn’t had the heart to tell him the sordid details so I’d been preparing to ignore the call when I’d seen it was Maggie Holcomb, the HR employee who’d been in contact with me about my interview with the Graves brothers.
I’d answered, expecting an immediate rejection, or some other cruel move.
Instead, I’d been invited to the brothers’ personal lawyer’s office for a job offer.
I had no clue what the hell that meant, but there was no way I was going to miss it.
Especially not after I’d made a few calls in the short amount of time since leaving my interview and found out for sure that I’d been blacklisted.
I couldn’t afford to ignore any communication from the Graveses.
Even if I wanted to shove their job offer up their rude backsides and laugh in their stupidly handsome faces.
I was surprised to find their lawyer’s office on the outskirts of Dallas, in a small residential area.
Nestled between two suburbs was a small cluster of beautiful homes that had been turned into offices.
The law office of Henry J. Kuller was situated between a dentist office and a pediatrician’s office, both quaint and peaceful in the middle of a busy workday.
I could see the allure of the offices after just leaving downtown Dallas, where I’d been honked at a dozen times and nearly run over almost as much.
I parked my aging car behind a giant pickup truck and stepped out just as Kyrin Graves exited the truck.
I ran my eyes over the truck and then the man, hoping to find the two at odds.
I liked the truck; I didn’t want to find anything alluring about the man.
Unfortunately, Kyrin had found the time to change into a pair of blue jeans that looked worn perfectly to his body and a T-shirt that fit the same.
Gone was the businessman. Standing in front of me was a man who might’ve fit in just fine at one of the rodeos I’d gone to as a teen.
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. “Gracie is 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. “Gracie is 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 woman has 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 your nanny?”
“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.”
“Sit down, Miss Young.” The demand from Zander, and it was very clearly a demand, sent a zing of energy up my spine and left me breathless.
His whiskey-colored eyes burned through me as I lowered my body back to the couch, much to my surprise.
“The job will last one month. You’ll stay at our home so you can be with Gracie full-time.
You’ll have Sundays off. We’ll pay you your yearly salary from Blake’s, like I stated earlier.
You’ll spend your time with Gracie, taking care of her in whatever ways she needs.
You’ll mind your business and sign an NDA that would sink the rest of your life down the toilet if you ever shared a single thing about our lives with anyone outside of our family. Am I clear?”
Kyrin cleared his throat. “Zan...”
“Miss Young? Am I clear?” Zander stood and moved to stand next to me. He towered over me and I had to tip my head back to look up at him, a move he seemed to like, judging by the slight lift of one side of his mouth. “It’s this, or nothing.”
My body was in a state of chaos unlike anything I’d ever felt.
I’d never been spoken to as directly as he was speaking to me, with the look of intensity in his eyes what it was.
I could feel my panties grow damp and goosebumps raise all over my arms and legs.
I had to fight to hold down a shiver as I held his gaze.
I had the distinct feeling that I was supposed to look down and nod my agreement to him, but I wasn’t so far out of control that I wasn’t myself.
My mind raced as I tried to make sense of what was happening.
I was being offered a job, albeit one that I didn’t want, wasn’t qualified for, and was insulted to be offered.
I had to leverage my position. I had to make the most of it.
They needed me. “If I agree to do it, you’ll give me a chance doing the work I’m meant to do. ”
Knight laughed. “Oh?”
I lowered my gaze to him and nodded once.
“If you want a happy niece, you’ll agree to let me show you my work.
You’ll give me a chance. Test me, hook me up to a lie-detector, I don’t care.
I won’t take this job unless you put it in the contract that I’ll be allowed to complete a week of work for TGC. ”
Zander hooked his thumb under my chin and lifted my face to his once more.
The roughness of his thumb was surprising; it wasn’t the touch of a man who spent all of his time in an office.
If the man felt like he was crossing boundaries in any way by touching me, he didn’t show it.
He searched my face and narrowed his gaze. “One chance.”
“Five days.” I licked my lips, as close to begging as I would ever be for them. I needed a chance to show them I was the right person for the job. The real job, not the nanny job. “Give me five days.”
“Miss Young, you don’t seem to understand who holds the power here.
” Zander’s gaze had zeroed in on my mouth and he didn’t bother shifting his gaze away to be polite.
“We’ll give you three opportunities. Not one more.
If you take the job, you move in tonight.
You start tomorrow morning and you’ll be the best goddamn nanny our niece could ever hope for. Understood?”
With my heart in my throat, feeling distinctly like I was signing a deal with the devil, I swallowed down my fear and nodded. “Understood. I’ll do it.”
Kyrin grunted from beside me. “This should be completely problem-free. I can’t see why anything would possibly go wrong with this plan.”
I wanted to glare at him, but the older brother had captured my gaze again and I felt like turning my face away from him would be the equivalent of turning my back to a lion.
“I don’t see why there would be any problems. I’ll be the best goddamn nanny Gracie could ever want and you three will give me the chance you should’ve given me earlier to prove my worth. ”
Knight sighed. “None of the other nannies talked back.”
Chancing my throat being ripped out, I lowered a glare at Knight.
“I’m not a nanny. I’m a digital strategist and a damn good one.
There’s not a problem you could shove at me that I couldn’t tackle in less time that it takes you to put on your pompous attitude each morning.
I talk back, especially when what I hear is garbage. ”
Knight’s lips twisted into a dark smile as he sat forward and rested his chin on his hand. “You’re wrong, Aggie. I wake up like this. This pompous attitude is all natural.”
“Good for you.” I leaned away from Zander and crossed my arms. “Well? Let’s get a move on.”
We had to move fast before the irony of my situation smothered me to death.
I'd been dumped and fired for refusing to push out a baby for Monroe.
Yet, there I was, taking a job caring for a child.
It was hard as hell to hold on to my dignity when it was a quickly deflating balloon spiraling around the room.