Shared By the Parisian Daddies (Theirs to Command #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

MADELINE

The last time I was in Paris, I was seventeen and stupid enough to believe that a boy who shared his pain au chocolat with me on a train was basically proposing marriage.

Théo.

With his floppy hair and his tu es belle and his promise to meet me at the Pont des Arts at sunset.

He never showed.

I waited two hours, watching couples attach padlocks to the railing like love was something you could just… secure. Bolt into place. Keep forever.

Adorable, seventeen-year-old me.

I'm twenty-three now. I have a degree in International Relations, plus three years of elite training from Prestwick Academy of Domestic Excellence—the kind of institution that's been turning out world-class household managers, elite nannies, and personal assistants to the obscenely wealthy for decades.

They teach you to manage a twelve-bedroom estate before breakfast, defuse a diplomatic incident over tea, and remain composed while a Russian oligarch's wife hurls a Birkin at your head.

That last one happened to Elena, not me. But still.

Point is: I don't wait on bridges for boys anymore.

I wait in train stations for a driver named Bernard who is apparently going to take me to my new job, which involves—and I cannot stress how insane this sounds even inside my own head—living with three single fathers who hate each other so much that their children's school issued an ultimatum.

That my presence would apparently solve.

Three French fathers. Even though the last time I was in this city, I cried into a crêpe and swore off French men forever.

The universe has a sense of humor. A terrible, sadistic sense of humor.

My phone buzzes. Elena.

YOU'RE THERE??? Text me when you meet the hot dads. I need DETAILS.

I snort. Type back: They're my employers. There will be no "hot dad" observations.

Three dots. Then:

You can't hide anything. One look at them and your face is going to give you away!

She's not wrong.

I am, tragically, the worst liar in the entire Prestwick graduating class. My instructors used to use me as a teaching example. Madeline, they'd say, your left eyebrow just told that entire room you think their taste in art is criminal.

I don't mean to have an expressive face. I just do.

I pocket my phone before I can admit that I've already memorized their file photos.

étienne Laurent, forty, CEO of Laurent Couture, a man so haughtily cool he looks like he was carved from glacier ice and resentment—though something about the angle of his jaw suggests a man who knows exactly the effect he has on people.

Bastien Moreau, thirty-eight, owns half the art galleries in Paris, and stares through the camera like he's deciding whether you're worth acquiring.

Raphael Beaumont, thirty-nine, built a hotel empire from nothing, and has the kind of warm eyes that make you want to tell him things you've never told anyone.

Three single fathers with massive egos, forced into proximity by children so inseparable that there is no choice but to interact with each other.

And me, the Prestwick-trained idiot who's supposed to make it all work.

I spot him before he spots me. A man in his sixties, silver-haired and impeccably dressed, holding a sign that says BLAKE in handwriting so precise it looks printed.

He has the particular stillness of someone who has spent decades waiting for people in train stations and airport terminals, the patience worn into his posture like a well-tailored coat.

Bernard, I assume.

I make my way through the crowd, dragging my suitcase behind me, and when I reach him, he gives me a single, assessing look that takes in everything from my shoes to my hairline in approximately two seconds.

"Miss Blake."

"That's me."

He nods once, reaches for my suitcase without asking, and turns toward the exit. "The car is this way," he says over his shoulder. "Monsieur Laurent is expecting you."

Bernard drives the way a master plays chess, like he's already seen the whole board. No wasted moves. The Mercedes slides through traffic, and his hands rest at ten and two with the quiet authority of someone who has been doing exactly this for a very long time and would like everyone to know it.

"Water, mademoiselle?" He nods toward a chilled bottle in the center console without taking his eyes off the road.

"Thank you." I crack the seal, take a sip: cool, faintly mineral. Even the water is elegant. "Have you been with Monsieur Laurent long?"

"Eleven years." A pause. "Your French is excellent."

"I've studied hard."

"Good." His jaw tightens, just slightly. "You'll need it."

Paris streams past the windows—the Seine appearing and vanishing between buildings, Haussmann facades glowing cream and gold in the afternoon light, wrought-iron balconies trailing ivy three stories up.

The 7th arrondissement. Old money. The kind of neighborhood where even the pigeons look well-bred and the bakeries have lines out the door at seven in the morning because nothing says wealth like having the time to wait for bread.

"The children are lovely, mademoiselle," Bernard says. Carefully.

"And their fathers?"

His hands tighten on the steering wheel, grip shifting across the leather.

"Monsieur Laurent is… precise."

I wait. People always say more when you don't fill the silence for them.

"The others are less so." Bernard swallows hard before continuing. "Monsieur Moreau threw a bowl of pasta at Monsieur Laurent's head during a discussion about pickup schedules. In front of the children. Sophie found it hilarious. The school did not."

Pasta.

At his head.

Great.

"But are they good with the children?"

Bernard's pause lasts a fraction too long.

"They love them," he says finally. "Whether that's the same thing, I couldn't say."

The children. Three of them, caught in the middle of whatever the adults have broken.

That's the part that made me sign the contract. Not the challenge. Not Paris. Not the look on my mother's face when I told her.

The children.

Three years of Prestwick training. I can handle these children.

And I definitely can handle three picky men.

I can handle—

The building comes into view, and I lose my entire train of thought.

Six stories of cream-colored stone and black iron balconies.

The kind of building that's been standing for centuries.

Windows that catch the late afternoon light like they were designed specifically to make you feel underdressed.

A doorway framed by carved stone that projects not just opulence but authority.

"Monsieur Laurent's residence," Bernard says unnecessarily.

My new home. For the next God-knows-how-long.

Bernard opens my door. "I'll bring your luggage. Go ahead—Monsieur Laurent prefers punctuality."

"Of course he does."

The lobby is so quiet I can hear my own footsteps echoing off the marble. There's a chandelier that probably has a name and a lineage. A doorman who nods at me like I'm expected, which I technically am, but it still feels like I'm getting away with something.

I take the elevator up and practice my introduction on the way.

Bonjour, Monsieur Laurent. I'm Madeline Blake. Lovely to meet you.

No. Too stiff.

Hi! I'm Madeline! I'm here to wrangle your child and also maybe accidentally set your kitchen on fire!

Definitely not.

Hello. I'm your new au pair. Please don't hate me.

The elevator lurches to a stop.

I take a deep breath. Put my shoulders back. Try to look calm.

I can do this. I am a Prestwick graduate. I have survived the Countess von Habsburg's seven-course formal dinner simulation. I have—

The doors slide open, and all my preparation evaporates.

The apartment takes up the entire floor.

Of course it does. The foyer alone is bigger than anywhere I've ever lived, all pale oak and soft gray walls and the kind of modern art that's either brilliant or a tax write-off.

A long hallway stretches ahead, and I can hear voices—a man's low murmur, a child's high protest about something involving a hairbrush.

I'm about to call out when I notice the photograph on the console table.

Three men on the deck of a boat.

Sun-drenched. Laughing. Not posing for the camera—actually happy.

The one on the left has dark hair and ice-blue eyes, and he's got his arm around a man with wavy brown hair and an easy, open smile.

The third one is caught mid-gesture, hands frozen in the air, telling a story that's clearly going somewhere good.

They look happy.

They look like friends.

My fingers drift toward the frame. I trace the edge of the dark-haired man's forearm, oddly compelled.

What happened to them?

What turns three men who laughed like this into three men who can barely share a school pickup line?

"Can I help you?"

I yank my hand back so fast I nearly knock the frame off the table.

The man standing at the end of the hallway is the one on the left in the photograph, but the laughter is gone.

Dark hair silvering at the temples. Pale blue eyes the color of a winter lake—the kind you'd drown in before you realized the water was cold.

Tall. Lean. Wearing a suit that fit him like a second skin, charcoal wool that moved when he moved, tailoring that whispered rather than shouted.

étienne Laurent.

My employer.

Who just caught me fondling a photograph of him like some kind of art-obsessed stalker.

"I was just—" Admiring the framing? Looking at the boat? Having a completely normal reaction to a piece of furniture? "Madeline Blake. I'm your new au pair."

He doesn't move. Doesn't smile. Just studies me with those ice-water eyes like he's deciding whether I'm worth his time.

My stomach flips, and I have to remind myself he's my employer.

"Miss Blake." He crosses the foyer with deliberate grace, the kind of movement that suggests complete control over every muscle in his body. "You're early."

"Punctuality is important."

"Yes." A pause that lasts approximately seven years. "It is."

He extends his hand.

I shake it.

His grip is firm and cool. Professional. But his thumb grazes the inside of my wrist as he releases me, and I can't tell if it's deliberate. I catch a hint of his cologne—something warm that doesn't match the ice in his eyes.

"Sophie is already in bed," he says, already turning away. "You'll meet her in the morning."

"Of course."

"Bernard will bring your luggage. Your room is the second door on the left." He gestures down the hallway without looking back. "Take the evening to settle in. We'll discuss the arrangement properly tomorrow. Until then, here's a guide to the household basics."

He hands me a binder then pauses. He glances back at me over his shoulder, and something flickers in his expression—not quite amusement, not quite warning, but something in between.

"Welcome to Paris, Miss Blake."

Then he's gone, disappearing down the hallway, and I'm left standing in the foyer with the binder, my luggage, and the leather-bound binder, wondering what I've gotten myself into.

I think about the photograph one more time.

The three of them, laughing, happy.

I wonder if any of them remember how.